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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tonto who wrote (577494)	5/22/2004 10:26:54 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

No solution to suicide bombers so why did Bush take us into Iraq when he was warned it would inflame the Middle East.

To: tonto who wrote (577494)	5/23/2004 1:26:58 AM
From: Paul van Wijk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

U.N. Should Lead Iraq Effort-Clinton SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Saturday the United Nations is better suited than the United States to lead Iraq toward democracy. "We would be better off in the long run if Iraq can succeed as a democracy but it will be challenging," Clinton said. "Democracy cannot be imposed - the Iraqis have to want it." That goal was attainable, but the effort should be multilateral, with the United Nations taking a leading role, he told an audience at the inauguration of an institute set up by former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. "There are so many people who suspect our motives," he said. "I don't think Iraq was about oil and imperialism but it was about unilateralism over cooperation as way to shape the world in the 21st century," Clinton said in a comment about the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy. The U.S. occupation authority plans to hand over power to an Iraqi government on June 30. But its troops have found themselves bogged down in an increasingly controversial conflict with Iraqi guerrillas since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 in an invasion that went ahead without specific endorsement from the United Nations. Clinton said the Bush administration should have given U.N. inspectors a final chance to look for the weapons of mass destruction that it accused the Iraqi leader of hoarding and gave as the main justification for its invasion of Iraq. No such weapons have yet been found. "We should have let the U.N. inspectors finish," Clinton said. 'MORE PARTNERS AND FEWER TERRORISTS' He said he supported the military intervention in Afghanistan to root out Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda militant organization in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Al Qaeda posed a clear threat to the United States, he said. Clinton also said that cooperation and international partnerships, as well as ensuring that democracy benefited the poor people of the world and addressed health, education and other social issues, would help combat terrorism. "We have to make more partners and fewer terrorists," he said in an implicit criticism of the Bush administration's focus on military force and its withdrawal from several international accords and bodies. On the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the former president appealed to both sides in trying to salvage the peace process. During Clinton's 1993-2001 presidency, the Oslo peace accords were signed and the two sides enjoyed several years of relative peace and optimism that have since been shattered. "We have to so something to make Israelis realize that Rabin was right, but they can't make peace unless they have a partner," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995, two years after singing the peace accord with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Clinton said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while keeping settlements in the West Bank, had "potential merit" but only if done in good faith as part of a larger peace settlement. "If its aim is to humiliate the Palestinians, it's a negative." With its military might, Israel can win on a day-to-day basis, he said. "But this is a bad deal. This is no way to live."