U.S. does a Flip Flop with the U.N. in Iraq. Why?

The new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad must be deaf, dumb and blind. He ran the United States Embassy in Iraq for two years and never noticed the U.N. was there the whole time? Now he is announcing that the U.S. welcomes the presence of the U.N. in Iraq. I attended a few meetings with the U.N. members in Iraq, and the fact is, as far as I could tell, we didn’t want anything to do with them. The Bush Administration duplicity and pretence is showing here.

The July 20, 2007 AFP story read in part;

“UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United States backs U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's call for an expanded role for the world body in Iraq to help the strife-torn country become a "force for moderation in the region," its envoy to the U.N. said Friday.
"The United States endorses Mr. Ban's call for an expanded United Nations role in Iraq to help Iraq become a peaceful, stable country -- one that will be a peaceful, stable partner in the international community and a force for moderation in the region," Zalmay Khalilzad wrote in Friday's New York Times.
Khalilzad, who served as US ambassador to Iraq from 2005 to last April, highlighted Ban's comments after a White House meeting with US President George W. Bush Tuesday that the U.N. is ready to assist the Iraqi government and people.
Khalilzad said the new U.N. envoy should have a mandate to help Iraqis complete work on a range of issues, including legislation on the distribution of oil revenues, reform of the controversial de-Bathification law, demobilization of militias and a deal for insurgents to give up their armed struggle”.

During some of my time in Iraq I traveled throughout the country leading the survey teams for the establishment of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT), I often met with U.N. folks who were doing the very effective and risky mission of pacifying the Iraqi Provincial Councils. The U.N. presence in Iraq is not new. They were there since 2003. We almost never lifted a finger to help these U.N. folks because they were not Americans, or were not from “coalition” countries. The British in the South of Iraq did accommodate the U.N. from time to time. I befriended a senior member of the U.N. groups in Iraq, Daniel Ruiz. Daniel was from South America. He and his staff were assigned to the southern regions of Iraq where he personally met with more Iraqi tribal chiefs and Provincial Counsels than any of the “official” Coalition members. They knew Daniel and trusted him.
The Iraqis in the South had a profound respect for the U.N. people assigned to help them there. Civic planning, food distribution, school books, medicine, clothing, basic agriculture, digging wells, developing budgets, employment and counseling was the U.N. forte which the Iraqis very much appreciated and benefited from at the level where it really counted.

We Americans, on the other hand, were focused on the issues which almost never touched the personal lives of the population as a whole. Yes, constructing the massive infrastructure, a large power plant for example, was important, but refusing to hire any Iraqi labor in that effort and not listening to their engineers who keenly knew the cities was our Achilles heel. The U.S. and British contractors apparently convinced the U.S. government contracting office that importing non-Iraqi foreign workers and security personnel would be in everyone’s better interest. That decision alone ended up taking about 40% of every reconstruction dollar provided for Iraq reconstruction projects while employing almost no Iraqi labor.

The Iraqis very much resented being suspect, from the very beginning, in every area related to the Coalition, but particularly the Americans. The British forces in the South treated the Iraqi population as though they were uncivilized barbarians. I personally witnessed the appalling behavior of the British forces toward the Iraqis on numerous occasions. I protested the uncivilized and demeaning British behavior many times and, after one time too many, was banned from traveling to the South of Iraq, where the British reigned, on any more official business for the U.S. Embassy. My feelings were hurt, but I remained in communication with some of the Iraqis in Basrah who kept me posted.

Don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I have no love lost for the United Nations. I have always considered the U.N. in New York as nothing more than a nest of spies, conspiring and stealing the wealth of my country. 88% of the member states vote against U.S. initiatives and interest 89% of the time. If it were up to me, and it is probably a good thing that it is not, the U.N. Headquarters, flag, and it’s Secretary General would be cycled through member states every six years. There would be no permanent Headquarters for the U.N. for any period longer than six consecutive years, allowing one additional year to move in and one to move out. This would entail eight year cycles. That being said, in Iraq I very much admired the work I saw the U.N. doing, especially the work being managed and supervised by Mr. Ruiz of the United Nations who had developed such a real understanding of the Iraqis and how to work with them.

During his time in Iraq, the U.S. Ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had no idea regarding the extent of good the U.N. was doing in Iraq and probably could have cared less. The U.N. was not part of the “official” Coalition. Now that Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is the U.S. representative to the U.N., after failing as our Ambassador to Iraq, and now that the world sees our failed policy there, we are welcoming the U.N. with open arms into the fry. They were always in the fry, just not under U.S. supervision.

Normally I would say, “watch out U.S. because the U.N. is going to sting us again”, but this time, and I actually hate to say this, I would send the warning, “Watch out U.N. least President Bush dumps his failures onto you.

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