Ted Kennedy suggests Bush administration needs to abandon "my way or the highway' attitude"...
You got that right Teddy! Bush needs to get on the highway and head back to Crawford!
Pass authority on Iraq to UN, Kennedy urges
Senator Edward M. Kennedy yesterday urged President Bush to cede to the United Nations full authority for establishing a new Iraqi government and to abandon what he believes has been a go-it-alone approach in Iraq.
The Massachusetts Democrat, one of the earliest critics of the Iraq policy who has repeatedly called for a greater international role there, said the Bush administration's decision last week to seek a broader UN mandate and international peacekeeping troops is a step in the right direction. But in seeking a new Security Council resolution, he said, Washington must be willing to relinquish significant political control to the world body.
"I think the administration has to abandon its `my way or the highway' attitude," Kennedy said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
"In order for the United Nations to really become engaged, it's going to have to be able to appoint the civil authority there, as they have done in East Timor, as they did in Kosovo and Bosnia," Kennedy said. "That has not been acceptable" to the Bush administration so far. He said he is not convinced "they have made the judgment that the United Nations is going to have to have full authority and full control in terms of the civil aspect of the development there."
Bush administration officials said yesterday the draft resolution was only a first step and that they will step up negotiations at the UN to try to reach an agreement.
Kennedy, a member of the Armed Services Committee, has for months argued that the US approach in Iraq is failing -- emboldening terrorists and other opponents there, while running up a huge bill being paid almost solely by American taxpayers -- and has urged the president to discard what he has called the "Americanization" of postwar Iraq. US troops, he has said, are paying the heaviest price for Washington's insistence on controlling the postwar rebuilding process.
He said the White House also must come up with a clear plan for reconstruction and strategy for bringing the estimated 150,000 US troops home.
You got that right Teddy! Bush needs to get on the highway and head back to Crawford!
Pass authority on Iraq to UN, Kennedy urges
Senator Edward M. Kennedy yesterday urged President Bush to cede to the United Nations full authority for establishing a new Iraqi government and to abandon what he believes has been a go-it-alone approach in Iraq.
The Massachusetts Democrat, one of the earliest critics of the Iraq policy who has repeatedly called for a greater international role there, said the Bush administration's decision last week to seek a broader UN mandate and international peacekeeping troops is a step in the right direction. But in seeking a new Security Council resolution, he said, Washington must be willing to relinquish significant political control to the world body.
"I think the administration has to abandon its `my way or the highway' attitude," Kennedy said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
"In order for the United Nations to really become engaged, it's going to have to be able to appoint the civil authority there, as they have done in East Timor, as they did in Kosovo and Bosnia," Kennedy said. "That has not been acceptable" to the Bush administration so far. He said he is not convinced "they have made the judgment that the United Nations is going to have to have full authority and full control in terms of the civil aspect of the development there."
Bush administration officials said yesterday the draft resolution was only a first step and that they will step up negotiations at the UN to try to reach an agreement.
Kennedy, a member of the Armed Services Committee, has for months argued that the US approach in Iraq is failing -- emboldening terrorists and other opponents there, while running up a huge bill being paid almost solely by American taxpayers -- and has urged the president to discard what he has called the "Americanization" of postwar Iraq. US troops, he has said, are paying the heaviest price for Washington's insistence on controlling the postwar rebuilding process.
He said the White House also must come up with a clear plan for reconstruction and strategy for bringing the estimated 150,000 US troops home.
posted by Pamela J. Leavey at 7:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home