[Carolina]

Re: the UN. It looks like the vote for Iraqi post war aid is stalled?

I hope we make it permanently stalled.

[mwl1]

One theory making the rounds is that Bush is shrewdly provoking the Food for Oil program with the UN, knowing that the French will cripple such approval and that most of the UN weenies won't go near Iraq until it is safe.

Therefore, Bush can take the high road, and tell the world, we tried to give the UN a role, but people were starving, so we had to move forward while they dallied.

In so doing, Bush is dragging Blair along with him and creating the precedent for no UN involvement in Iraq after the war.

The more important question is whether our ridiculous State Dept will let France, Germany and Russia have any of the engineering, financial, technology, oil services contracts in Iraq after the war. I am hoping that Bush is so pissed off that he will insist that the new provisional govt, which we will direct, does not award a dime to any firms other than US, British, Australian etc.

[B4Ranch]

We should veto any ideas they come up with, but then Blair would be hung by the neck in the British Parliment and Bush couldn't allow that to happen, could he?