Annan Warns U.S. Will Face Doubts

[kskiska]

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 6 -- The U.S. failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has heightened international skepticism over the quality of American intelligence and may complicate efforts to use it in the future to build a case for action against outlaw regimes, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday.

"The bar has been raised," Annan said during a break in a U.N. conference on financing the reconstruction of Liberia. "People are going to be very suspicious when one talks to them about intelligence. And they are going to be very suspicious when we try to use intelligence to justify certain actions."

The U.N. chief's statement underscored the potential damage the questionable intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq is having on U.S. credibility at the United Nations. It coincided with a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who traveled to the United Nations to rally support for the reconstruction of Liberia and to pledge $200 million in U.S. support for the effort.

(snip)

"I don't think any apologies are necessary," he (Powell) added. "We said that this was a regime led by a dictator who had every intention of keeping his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs going, and anyone who thinks he didn't is just dead wrong. And there is no evidence to suggest that that was an incorrect judgment."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20114-2004Feb6.html

[cprise]

1. Powell

LIE.

[Nlighten1]

2. and the walls...

come tumbling down...
and the walls...

So much for nation building...if "liberation" starts spreading the UN has basically said the US will be asked to pay in cash next time because their credit limit is up.

[Shakira]

3. Thank heaven for the U.N. and for

Kofi Annan in particular.

They have tried to be fair, but the US keeps spoiling it (of course, Israel is a big part of that).

Why does the UN need to be in the US? Saudi Arabia has the money and could really put the facility up in style. We really need to push for something more fair like that.

[alittlelark]

4. OOOkay.....but Saudi Arabia has a worse human rights

situation than we do....than Iraq had... Women have virtually NO rights.

Somewhere other than America sounds good to me, But SAUDI ARABIA?

I firmly agree with you on the Israel issue (I've seen your posts elsewhere), I listen to Flashpoints w/ Dennis Burnstein at 5:00 PST on KPFA Pacifica. I had my eyes opened. Deeply disturbing, therefore kept out of our media. We don't want to be seen as the 'bad guys'.

Israel and Oil are the crux of our "Little Middle East Problem"

[leesa]

14. Surely you jest...Saudi Arabia?? One of the worst human rights abusers

on the planet?

[pinniped]

5. Hey FU Powell.

"We said that this was a regime led by a dictator who had every intention of keeping his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs going, and anyone who thinks he didn't is just dead wrong."

How many times to you think this asshole rehearsed this line:

weapons-of-mass-destruction programs

!!!PROGRAMS!!!

Must be hard to remember to add the keyword PROGRAMS, don't slip up jerk.

What will this jerk do after his POS boss gets his sorry-ass kicked out of the WH?

[koopie57]

7. he is half right

many people are dead cuz of this ...

[jmcgowanjm]

13. WIA-Iraq/Somewhere between 15 and 22000 Purple Hearts

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/woun-f04.shtml

Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's
chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two
Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the
major player in this," one federal law-enforcement
officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not
returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-12.htm

http://lefti.blogspot.com/

[HFishbine]

12. To put a twist on Rumsfeld's words for Powells edification...

Evidence of absence is not absence of evidence.

[Eloriel]

6. Yeah, never mind it wasn't the judgment used to justify WAR

GAWD I'm sick of these people.

[Manix]

8. BushCo have destroyed the credibility of US foreign policy for at least

a generation or more.

[Dirk39]

9. Doubts....

the USA has started about 300 wars since WWII. Not a single war was justified by any means. Reagan, Clinton, Nixon and Carter did say: "F*ck You" to the UN uncountable times before. Why should it be different now, why should it change anything at all?
I have no doubts that Annan is serious, let's call it diplomacy. But so far, the U.N. is just a tool of the U.S. foreign policy. All the decisions, that really count, all the institutions, that really make decisions like the IMF and the worldbank are U.S. dominated. If Unicef saves the lives of 150 children, the IMF kills a million of them. And if any U.N. institution makes a decision, hurting U.S. interests in any way, they just say: Fuck You. They did this again and again and again and they will do it again.

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[Snappy]

10. UN in Iraq

Some keep saying that the UN will allay problems in Iraq. Memory problems? The UN punished Iraq for 12 years. Do the Iraqis have ADD?

Iraqis have experience with British colonialism. They know what the US is attempting there.

[leesa]

15. What the UN did worked. Most in the UN wanted to lift sanctions years

ago but the US blocked it every time. The US should lose its veto power after this illegal invasion of a disarmed UN compliant nation.

[HFishbine]

11. Ummm.... DUH! (nt)

[Whoa_Nelly]

16. General Kofi Annan

Should be nominated, (if he hasn't already been), and considered for the Nobel Peace prize, not Bush or Blair.

An aside question for DU'ers toady:
Have been having mega trouble getting into DU LBN and postings today. Have had to reload on almost every attempt to access this site. Anyone else experiencing online technical difficulties?

On edit: I keep getting a 502 Connection Hangup message. This is only happening when I access DU, not any other Internet sites.