Posted on 08/20/2003 11:22:32 AM PDT by kattracks
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund informed the U.S. Treasury Department that they were pulling their staff out of Iraq on Wednesday, following the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, a U.S. official said."It's disappointing considering that all international organizations should be strengthening their resolve to fight terror after this bombing," the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The IMF and the World Bank are key players in efforts by the U.S.-led coalition now running Iraq to rebuild the country's devastated economy. Both institutions are expected to provide billions of dollars in loans to help restart the country's banking system and get the economy functioning again, and had sent assessment teams to Iraq to start the process.
By contrast, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said only two people among the 300 or so U.N. international staffers in Baghdad had taken up a U.N. offer of voluntary repatriation.
"I think the staff is pretty committed to staying on the job," he said. "The leadership is reassessing security."
The bomb killed top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 19 others, and wounded at least 100 people. Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-picked interim Iraqi government, said the death toll is expected to rise because people are still trapped in the rubble.
Eckhard, citing the U.N. security coordinator's office in Baghdad, said 16 bodies have been recovered but only seven have been identified. Twenty wounded U.N. staff members were evacuated to Amman, Jordan, he said.
"There has been a de facto suspension of U.N. operations in Baghdad," Eckhard said, adding that they were looking at alternative ways to house the headquarters unit "so that we can get operations up and running again."
You mean our forces haven't done that yet? Or are you one of the "nuke the whole city!" crowd?
Well, to break the news to you gently, and Bush/Rove/Rice know it and are working hard to counter it.....All of this quite necessarily means:
A Democrat in The White House in 2005 Placed There By An Impatient Americn Electorate
The strivers for perfection will cost us the White House in '05, and the rest of the country will be gone inside of 20 years.
These two groups join Hillary, Chirac, Castro and their international socialist, anti-American, pro-UN peers by criticizing our troops while doing nothing but undermining our efforts. Our troops are DOING what they couldn't - and wouldn't. Just recently they refused to recognize the young Democratic Iraqi Council - though they had no problems doing business with a mass-murderer for years.
Why isn't that a war crime?
Facts are stubborn things.
I am no fan of the UN.
But I am a fan of a multinational approach to financing and policing the damned place so we can get it ship-shape to get the hell out of there, letting them run it themselves eventually. We are going to get bogged down a one hell of a Nation-Building mess for our US military. We are in a difficult position.
Delivering clear threatening ultimatums to Syria and Iran over their borders as transhipment points for the jihadi starting to stream in to Dodge City for the Big Showdown with Uncle Sam, would be good for starters.
Whether that is in the iron will of the Administration, only the hallway walls in Foggy Bottom could show us, if they could only speak.
The world bank and IMF are the most overrated oncpm[etants on the bureaucratic stage. With them gone, there can be capitalism and progress.
I am not a fan of "doom-and-gloom", which is I was responding to. California Republicans are, however, doomed.
Strivers for perfection? Gee, the GOP is serving up a candidate with nothing more to offer than his celebrity, who brings big-time Dem Warren Buffet on board as a financial advisor, a candidate who is pro-abort, pro-gun control, pro-big government, pro-gay, was against Clinton's impeachment, and whose one foray into politics was to add a half-billion dollar program to an already bloated state govenrment - in other words, he has almost NO fit to the 2000 GOP platform - yet we're somehow strivers for perfection for not accepting it? That's a load of crap...
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