'Don't Let Them Pull the U.N. Out of Iraq'

The Washington Post | August 23, 2003 | Theola Labbé

[faithincowboys]

BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 -- As soon as he could pick himself up off the floor of his room and remove the shard of glass embedded in his right leg, Army 1st Sgt. William von Zehle rushed toward the sound of the explosion.

The 52-year-old retired fire chief from Wilton, Conn., surveyed the rubble and carnage. As he pondered what to do, a man in a blue U.N. baseball cap approached. "We have two people trapped! Sergio and Gil are trapped!" the man said.

The names meant nothing to von Zehle, he recalled today. But he went to look.

Excerpt

[McGavin999]

God rest his soul, that's a terrible way to die.

[Mike Darancette]

"Don't let them pull the U.N. out of Iraq. Don't let them fail this mission," Benon V. Sevan, the head of Iraq's U.N.-administered oil-for-food program, quoted Vieira de Mello as saying to von Zehle.

Who is them?

[Malesherbes]

I'm sorry he was murdered, and I suppose this account is true, but it does ring a bit contrived, as if his last words were, "Tell Coffee to keep up the good work."

[faithincowboys]

I disagree completely. Have you ever spoken to a man whose legs have been crushed, whose on morphine, who is slowly bleeding to death-- I believe the man said it.

[faithincowboys]

Kofi and the French, Germans and the Russians.