Iraqi Minister Scolds U.N. for Inaction Regarding Hussein

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 — Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, accused the United Nations Security Council today of having failed to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided member states for bickering over his beleaguered country's future.

"Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council table.

"Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold," he said.

Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable.

Wonder of wonders, the NY Times didn't try to spin this story.

Every now and again, news actually gets past the minions at the Times, reportedly seven layers deep for politically sensitive stories and op-eds. After months of ridiculing Bush for not capturing Saddam, now that Saddam has been bagged, the Times will crank up its machinery to diminish the success. (The new ombudsman will presumably only deal with unintentional frauds.) Witness:

Saddam Is Ours. Does Al Qaeda Care?, By BRUCE HOFFMAN, OP-ED, Dec. 17, 2003

WASHINGTON — While President Bush was careful to remind Americans that even with Saddam Hussein behind bars, "we still face terrorists," the White House and Pentagon have characterized the arrest as a major victory in the war on terrorism. But is Iraq really the central battleground in that struggle, or is it diverting our attention while Al Qaeda and its confederates plan for new strikes elsewhere? There's strong evidence that Osama bin Laden is using Iraq the way a magician uses smoke and mirrors.

News reports that Al Qaeda plans to redirect half the $3 million a month it now spends on operations in Afghanistan toward the insurgency in Iraq lent credence to the view that it is turning Iraq into center stage for the fight against the "Great Satan." That might actually be good news: Iraq could become what American military commanders have described as a terrorist "flytrap."

But there's a better chance that Osama bin Laden is the one setting a trap. He and his fellow jihadists didn't drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan by taking the fight to an organized enemy on a battlefield of its choosing. In fact, the idea that Al Qaeda wanted to make Iraq the central battlefield of jihad was first suggested by Al Qaeda itself. Last February, before the coalition invasion of Iraq, the group's information department produced a series of articles titled "In the Shadow of the Lances" that gave practical advice to Iraqis and foreign jihadists on how guerrilla warfare could be used against the American and British troops.

The calls to arms by Al Qaeda only intensified after the fall of Baghdad, when its intermittent Web site, Al Neda, similarly extolled the virtues of guerrilla warfare. In urging Iraqis to fight on, the site invoked prominent lessons of history — including America's defeat in Vietnam and the Soviet Army's in Afghanistan.

But as useful as Iraq undoubtedly has been as a rallying cry for jihad, it has been a conspicuously less prominent rallying point, at least in terms of men and money. The Coalition Provisional Authority may be right that thousands of foreign fighters have converged on Iraq, but few who have been captured have demonstrable ties to Al Qaeda. Nor is there evidence of any direct command-and-control relationship between the Qaeda central leadership and the insurgents.

If there are Qaeda warriors in Iraq, they are likely cannon fodder rather than battle-hardened mujahedeen. In the end, Qaeda's real interest in Iraq has been to exploit the occupation as a propaganda and recruitment tool for the global jihadist cause. While America has been tied down in Iraq, the international terrorist network has been busy elsewhere. The various attacks undertaken by Qaeda and its affiliates since the occupation began have taken place in countries that are longstanding sources of Osama bin Laden's enmity (like Saudi Arabia) or where an opportunity has presented itself (the suicide bombings in Morocco in May, Indonesia in August and Turkey in November).

In fact, Saif al-Adel, the senior Qaeda operational commander who was credited with writing the "Shadow of the Lances" articles, is widely believed to have been behind the May attacks that rocked Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but he has yet to be linked to any incidents in Iraq.

And even if Osama bin Laden has now decided to commit some new funds and Qaeda forces to Iraq, it is unlikely to be a significant drain on his wallet or the vast reservoir of operatives trained in Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere. According to a Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks, an estimated 70,000 to 120,000 jihadists passed through those training camps. So even if a few thousand are sent to Iraq, Osama bin Laden will retain a healthy reserve capable of sustaining his global jihad.

As we bear down on Iraq, Al Qaeda is bearing down on us. Chatter on Web sites affiliated with Al Qaeda reveals that the jihadists are constantly monitoring America, studying and gauging our reactions to intelligence we gather on them and adapting their plans accordingly. One recent posting read: "The enemy has set up special bodies to analyze and correlate all this information and deduce the conclusions from them. If we know the importance of the information for the enemy, even if it is a small piece of information, then we can understand how important are the information that we know."

For America, the fundamental challenge remains our willingness and our ability to fight our adversaries across several fronts. Turning Iraq into a viable democracy is of course important, but we must not be drawn into concentrating on one battleground to the exclusion of all others.

"If not, why not, and how can you justify taking someone else's property without paying for it (which is what Smart growth does)?"

Answer:

The United Nations Wants to Take Your Land!
"Private land ownership ... contributes to social injustice.... Public control of land use is therefore indispensable."

- United Nations "Habitat I" Conference Report, 1976

Are you concerned...
...that the UN is militantly anti-property rights?

The UN is dominated by socialist, communist, and other collectivist regimes that are hostile to private property, the basis of our freedom and prosperity. Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property." Marx continued: "In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend."

Are you concerned...
...that the UN intends to carry out Marx's plan?

In true Marxist fashion, the report of the UN "Habitat I" Conference declares that private land ownership "contributes to social injustice.... Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...." Agenda 21, the UN's massive environmental manifesto, envisions a UN empowered to control and micro-manage our planetary environment and the actions of every person on Earth. It says: "All countries should undertake a comprehensive national inventory of their land resources" and "develop national land-management plans." The UN's Assessment would "reallocate" property rights and have "stakeholder groups," instead of property owners, make decisions on private land use.

Are you concerned...
...that our own U.S. government is adopting many of the UN's anti-property rights and policies and treaties?

The U.S. has signed Agenda 21 and has begun implementing the UN's "Wildlands Project," an incredible plan to push millions of Americans off their land to make vast nature preserves out of half of the nation. Also, under the UN's 1988 Convention on Narcotics, the U.S. has adopted unconstitutional "asset forfeiture" laws that allow seizure of property without due process.

Are you concerned...
...that UN treaties could destroy our heritage of freedom?

Nobel Prizewinning economist, Friedrich A. Hayek, noted that "the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves."

More from the Wall Street Journal:

'The Sun Has Returned To Shine on Iraq', REVIEW & OUTLOOK, December 17, 2003

By now we've all seen the pictures of Iraqis dancing in the streets upon hearing the news of Saddam's capture. On Monday they woke up to headlines, such as the one above, and the following compiled by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org1):

• "This is a great day indeed. The era of oppression and dictatorship has gone forever." (Al-Zaman)

• The "time has come to restore [the nation's] health and bid farewell to the Republic of Fear." (Al-Sabah)

• "This is the clearest and most beautiful morning in my country, Mesopotamia. Be joyful, oh my brothers, be joyful oh my brothers, for this is great news for Iraq." (Al-Ahd Al-Jadid)

Elsewhere in the Arab world, the news of Saddam's arrest was often (though not always) welcomed. But writers also spoke of the shame to Arab honor that he was taken alive or that he was captured by Americans:

• "Even Saddam's Little Nephew Was Braver." (Al-Hayat, London)

• "We all saw the pictures . . . Saddam was miserable, and I, as an Arab, felt humiliation. But my other feelings against Saddam were stronger. He was a paper knight." (Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia)

• "He did not wear an explosive belt, did not rely on a submachine gun, and did not swallow cyanide capsules to commit suicide." (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London)

• "No Arab would wish this upon the Arab president of Iraq." (Al-Ahram, Egypt)

Whatever Saddam's "humiliation," we'd note that nobody humiliated more Arabs than Saddam himself.

Iraqi Minister Scolds U.N. for Inaction Regarding Hussein
By WARREN HOGE

Published: December 16, 2003

NITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 — Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, accused the United Nations Security Council today of having failed to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided member states for bickering over his beleaguered country's future.

"Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council table.

"Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold," he said.

Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable.

"The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."

He declared, "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again."

It was not immediately clear how the accusatory tone of Mr. Zebari's speech affected the closed-door discussion over the United Nations' role in Iraq that followed, but Secretary General Kofi Annan, the first to emerge from the hall, appeared taken aback.

"Now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers," he told reporters. Saying that Mr. Zebari was "obviously entitled to his opinion," Mr. Annan said that the United Nations had done as much for Iraq as it could under the circumstances and was prepared to do more.

"Quite honestly," he said, "now is not the time to hurl accusations and counter-accusations."

Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of Britain, the United States' principal ally in Iraq, said there had been pointed questioning by colleagues but that he detected "strong support" from them for the new timetable for the American-led coalition to hand over power to Iraqis by July — and for drawing up a constitution and holding elections in the years following that Mr. Zebari had laid out.

Today's session of the 15-member council was called to discuss the speeded-up plan for the United States-led coalition to hand over power to Iraqis by the end of June under an agreement reached a month ago between the coalition and the Iraqi Governing Council.

Mr. Annan led off the open session of the council with a speech drawing from his report last week that ruled out a swift return of the United Nations to Iraq because of the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August and continuing attacks on diplomats and relief workers.

He also said the United Nations needed more "clarity" over what it would be asked to do in Iraq before he could fully recommit the world organization and its international staff. He has assigned 40 of them to staff Iraq aid offices in Nicosia, Cyprus and Amman, Jordan. An estimated 2000 Iraqi United Nations workers are still at their posts in the country.

Mr. Zebari took issue with these steps, saying that Iraq could guarantee the United Nations whatever security it needed to return sooner and noting the importance of having the organization back in Baghdad.

"Your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from Cyprus or Amman," he said.

He also took on countries like France that have expressed doubts about the current governing group. "As Iraqis," he said, "we strongly disagree with those of you that question the legitimacy of the present Iraqi authorities."

He continued: "I'd like to remind you that the governing council is the most representative and democratic governing body in the region."

He said, "The members of the Security Council should be reaching out and encouraging this nascent democracy in a region well known for its authoritarian rule."

Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France, a critic of the war, turned aside the criticism of the Security Council dissenters, saying, "I don't want to comment on the past." He said he had questioned Mr. Zebari about France's interest in seeing Iraq increase the "inclusiveness" of the government so it would be one that would be viewed as "totally legitimate."

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