Free Republic

Zalmay Khalilzad, who is currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is being tipped for a top U.N. appointment by the new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. An Afghan and Muslim by birth, Khalilzad is being considered for the post of Undersecretary General for Political Affairs, one of the most powerful jobs in the U.N., that usually goes to a British diplomat, according to reliable sources in Washington and New York. Both the U.S. and Britain are currently competing for the post. So far many of Ban's appointments have been from the Third World. To give the Americans their slot in the...

WASHINGTON -- Zalmay Khalilzad, who was announced this week as leaving as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is the leading prospect to replace John Bolton as envoy to the United Nations. President Bush was reported by aides as looking for someone who approximates Bolton's combination of toughness and diplomatic skill and has tentatively decided on Khalilzad. A native of Afghanistan, he has served in government posts dating back to 1985 and is the highest-ranking Muslim in the Bush administration. Speculation on a new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to succeed John Bolton is focusing on the current U.S. ambassador in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2006 – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to benchmarks with timetables, according to a joint statement with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. "The Iraqi government has made clear the issues that must be resolved, with timelines to take positive steps forward on behalf of the Iraqi people,” the two men said in the joint statement, issued after they met today. U.S. officials have said that benchmarks are ways to help push along ideas. Accomplishing the benchmarks is a way of measuring progress and assessing accomplishments, DoD officials said. Khalilzad and Army Gen. George W....

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad insisted Tuesday that things are not all bad in Iraq, citing the growing number of satellite dishes on rooftops and consumers with cell phones as signs of economic progress. "Economically, I see an Iraq every day that I do not think the American people know about — where cell phones and satellite dishes, once forbidden, are now common, where economic reform takes place on a regular basis, where agricultural production is rising dramatically, and where the overall economy and the consumer sector is growing," the American envoy told a Baghdad news conference. Some...

Preview and analysis for Weekend Talk Shows, 9-30 and 10-1-06 It's week four (or 297, depending on how you figure it) of the WOB (war on Bush) and all things "Republi-fascist," as the drive by media might style what they're doing.  We've had a week of spin like we haven't seen since... well, since Clinton was in office.  All the old hateful and hate filled faces were back on the screaming head shows pulling their electrically powered rapid fire mouths back out of storage and plugging them in for one more go around of lies, screaming lies and videotape.  And...

At least 19 people, including a U.S. soldier, were killed in Iraq Saturday as Shiites gathered for the peak of a major religious ceremony. But in an exclusive interview with CBS News, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he sees a perverse sort of progress. "I see indications that both sides believe that a balance of terror has been established," Khalilzad told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. "They have demonstrated to each other that they can inflict pain on each other, and neither can get rid of the other." That "balance of terror" led to record levels of...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children. Meanwhile, a lawyer representing families of some of the two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 said three or four Marines carried out the shootings while 20 more waited outside the homes. He also said victims' relatives turned down a request by U.S. investigators...

The Talk Shows Sunday, May 21st, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Rice; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; and Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. THIS WEEK (ABC): Gonzales; former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.; "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; Australian Prime Minister John Howard; Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Zalmay Khalilzad,...

Iraqi, U.S. officials and several members of Iraq’s 2004 Summer Olympic team attended the re-opening of the youth center, which will offer a variety of sports programs. By Norris Jones Gulf Region Central District US Army Corps of Engineers BAGHDAD, April 13, 2006 — Iraq and U.S. officials toured the newly-renovated Al Huriya Youth Center in Baghdad March 25. Among those participating were U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Iraq Olympic Committee President Ahmed Al-Samarrai and Iraq Minister of Youth and Sports Talib Aziz Zaini. "The United States stands with Iraqis as they attempt to improve their community. The various sporting activities...

THREE YEARS after U.S. Marines and Iraqis toppled the huge statue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square, Americans and Iraqis can be proud of what our common efforts and sacrifices have achieved since that day, even as we acknowledge that challenges remain to reaching the goal of a stable and democratic Iraq. The success of Iraq is vitally important to the region and the world. In the broader Middle East, the absence of freedom, accountable systems of government and social and economic progress contributed to creating an environment in which extremism and terrorism developed and thrived....

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2006 – The U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, today disputed claims that conditions in Iraq have worsened during the past two years, but said that will happen if the United States abruptly leaves the country, as some have urged. An increase in sectarian violence will occur "only... if we abandon Iraq as some people have called for in our discussions back home," Khalilzad said this morning on the Sunday talk shows. That, in turn, could lead to other countries from the region, including Iran, to take sides and expand the conflict, he said However, Khalilzad said,...

BAGHDAD, April 9, 2006 – Today, on the third anniversary of Iraqi Freedom Day, the Iraqi people celebrate the freedoms that they were denied for more than three decades, and pause to remember the brave people who lead the way out of the darkness of tyranny into the light of freedom. On this day in 2003, Iraqis, assisted by U.S. Marines, toppled the huge statue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square. This act was not just symbolic. It signaled the beginning of a fledgling democracy that continues to mature. During the past year alone, Iraqis have...

As the Bush administration's envoy for Iraqi politics, Zalmay Khalilzad had considerable experience dealing with Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein. Before the war, Mr. Khalilzad was the White House's point man in meetings with Iraqi exile leaders in London and Kurdistan. After the shooting started, he was a key figure at political gatherings in Baghdad and at Tallil air base to begin assembling a new Iraqi leadership. So when the White House prepared to announce the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003, Mr. Khalilzad had every expectation that he would...

The Talk Shows Sunday, March 12th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Mike Pence, R-Ind.; opera singer Placido Domingo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Joseph Biden, D-Del.; retired Marine Gen. Bernard Trainor and Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.; Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; political satirist Art Buchwald. LATE EDITION (CNN) : U.S. Ambassador to Iraq...

The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war and disrupt the global economy if America were to extricate itself from the country too soon. "If another incident [occurs], Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time, in my judgment," Khalilzad said. Abandoning Iraq in the way the U.S. disengaged from civil wars in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Somalia could have dramatic global repercussions, he said. "We have opened the Pandora's box and the...

US envoy warns of Iraq civil war Holy sites in Iraq are being protected after recent attacks The US ambassador to Iraq has said that continuing sectarian violence there had the potential to turn into civil war. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Zalmay Khalilzad indicated that the US had little choice but to keep a strong military presence in Iraq. He added that the dangers of conflict would be lessened if Iraqis agreed on a national unity government. But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the media had exaggerated the severity of recent violence. At a Pentagon...

A century's defining moment By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, March 5, 2006 "Success in Iraq will be a major setback for terrorists and a major asset for the security of this region," Zalmay Khalilzad told me in a telephone interview from Baghdad last week. "The struggle for Iraq is the struggle for the future of the world."

US accuses Iran of arming, training Iraqi militias Mon Feb 20,2006 Iran is providing weapons and training to militias and extremist groups in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, charged. "Iran has a mixed policy towards Iraq," he told a news conference. On the one hand it had good state-to-state relations with the Shiite-dominated government, but it has "another policy as well which is to work with some militias, to work with some extremist groups, to provide training and to provide weapons, directly or indirectly," Khalilzad said. "Iraqis are increasingly concerned about the role Iran is playing," he...

BAGHDAD, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The American ambassador to Iraq accused Iran on Monday of training and providing weapons to militias operating in Iraq. "Iran has another policy as well: to work with militias, provide training and provide weapons to extremist groups, direct and indirectly," Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after a news conference.