Posted on 09/21/2003 9:59:12 AM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Senate Democrat urged President Bush on Sunday "to outsmart the French" in their opposition to a new U.N. resolution on Iraq by having the Security Council decide when to turn control back to Iraqis.
"I think the French are playing a gambit here," Sen. Joseph Biden told the "Fox News Sunday" program. "That doesn't mean that we can't out-negotiate them."
Biden, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Bush should first get Russian President Vladimir Putin on board when he goes this week to the General Assembly in New York . In a speech on Tuesday, Bush will appeal for help with postwar reconstruction in Iraq.
With U.S. troops under near-daily attack and costs soaring, Bush wants a new U.N. resolution creating a multinational force for Iraq. But France and Germany have argued a U.S.-written draft resolution does not cede enough control to the United Nations nor transfer Iraqi sovereignty to its people quickly enough.
"Why not go to the Security Council and say to the French, 'OK here's the deal, we'll let the Security Council make the decision when to turn over all control to the Iraqis when they are ready, and we'll let that be done by the Security Council,"' Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said.
"Now we box France. France is the only country in the world, with a little lip service from Germany, saying 'turn over power that they cannot handle in the next three months.'
"So why aren't we able to outsmart the French in terms of the world stage and get the control of this issue by bringing the responsibility back to the world so we don't pay the whole freight," he added.
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, another member of the Senate panel, agreed the French "have been difficult" but said they should be included in the effort to stabilize Iraq.
"They've had their own agenda," Hagel said on the same news program. "... I think we plug the French in where we plug them in and where they want to be."
Sen. John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate from North Carolina , said he would be more willing to "give other folks a seat at the table."
"Other countries are not going to give us their troops, give us their financial resources, unless they're allowed to participate in the decision-making," Edwards said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Bush's effort comes a year after he challenged the United Nations to back its anti-Iraq resolutions with the threat of force, opening an ultimately doomed bid for a U.N.-backed resolution authorizing war against Iraq. The United States and Britain invaded Iraq, toppling the government of Saddam Hussein in April.
France and Germany were key objectors in the bitter prewar debate. Bush will meet both French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in New York.
There have been signs of a thaw in U.S.-German relations in recent weeks, and France, anxious to avoid a repeat of its clash with the United States, is not seen threatening to use its Security Council veto over the draft resolution.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has rejected a U.N. military or administrative role in Iraq, telling reporters recently any role "would have to be clearly defined by the Security Council."
Biden said Bush could prevail. "The president is doing a better job in isolating the French this time. Show them for what they are."
Yeah perhaps this time he can convince 95% of Americans that France is a belligerent nest of socialist lunatics. Last time he only convinced 90%.
%-10% of Amercans are of course also socialist lunatics, so evidently the Pres is doing a pretty good job of isolating.
Brilliant, Joe. France IS ON the Security Council. You've just advocated the same process that we went through back in January. What a maroon.
The administration showed the French government up for what it really is the last time they pulled this. The administration will continue showing the French government for what it really is.
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