I agree with you Fernando. My only stipulation is that the UN use its own funds that come from all UN nations (or administrative or personnel civil or security assistance for those countries that have no funds to contribute) and that it does not come out of the 75 billion dollars our congress approved for the Iraqi war and related anti-terrorism and foreign aid expenses for the first 6 months of rebuilding Iraq. We already fund 25% of the UN, we should not fund the entire process if and ONLY if the UN wants control of it to legitimize it. If the coalition forces provide the greatest control and oversight of the rebuilding of it, then by all means, our funds should be used.

On another note,

There is also the issue of the arms sales we had last year with other countries in the region. The idea was to provide the weapons so they could defend themselves, but that is not happening. It is a big failure.

Of the world's 10 major buyers of U.S. weapons systems last year, five were from the Middle East: Egypt (1.1 billion dollars in U.S. arms), Kuwait (1.0 billion dollars), Saudi Arabia (885 million dollars), Oman (826 million dollars) and Israel (710 million dollars). The other five nations in the top 10 were South Korea, Japan, Canada, Greece and Britain.

http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/040303_theres_no_business.htm

also, to be fair, the U.S. has the most experience and success in rebuilding countries following war, not the U.N. However, perception (right or wrong) is everything.


>Tom,
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>>Anarchy will prevail which is proven by the actions of many in Iraq at this moment.
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>I'm trying to follow, the best I can, what's going on Iraq with regards those groups "elegible" to be the next governants.
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>Last night on BBC a representative of the Kurds was interviewed by Tim Sebastian and the anarchy issue was also discussed, along with some major issues like the Kurds fighting for their own independent country.
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>This is of great importance because it affects, not just Iraq, but Iran AND Turkey, not to mention the US. There are big oil reserves in the northeast of Iraq, where the Kurds would have part of their possible country. The question that Tim arose, was IF the new organization of Iraq would come into a federation (as the Kurd representative thinks is the right way to go), then Kurds could use the big money comming from those oil reserves to finance a fight for their further independence. It was told, as a reply by the Kurd representative, that all generated wealth should belong to all Iraqis (that would be centralized in Baghdad), and not to the originating region. Think it'll be very dificult to achieve that, IMO.
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>The question of anarchy, according to the Kurd representative, could be solved in the short term by means of the coalition forces OR UN forces, by organizing all levels of the Iraqi society (here I see another big problem even for the long term). He also stated the big resources Iraq has, not just in terms of material resource, but in terms of human resources well prepaired to face the challenge of reconstructing the society of Iraq.
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>The problem that I think they'll face, will be regarding the transition government and the choice of the first Iraq president. The name most in evidence is Mr Ahmed Chalabi ("Will this man be *our man in Iraq*?" message #775029 ), that have great "affinity" with Mr Cheney et al, but seems not to be accepted by anybody else (included the CIA and the US State Department!). The problem will be to accomodate all those Iraqi folks under a big umbrella to hold the INC, the ING, the Kurds and all other minorities. If that doesn't gets conducted in a very carefull fashion, I see many problems in the near future.
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>The Kurd representative also arose an interesting point about those that'll be in the second and third levels of the future government: many Baath people will just take off their uniforms and will be part of the "new" Iraq's power structure.
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>The process, IMHO, is very complex, delicate and should be conducted by the United Nations, otherwise, a chance of another US "mistake" to occur is very very big. Think you know what I mean.
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>Fernando