Kofi decides to help in Iraq

Robert Novak:

Sen. Norm Coleman bit his lip and kept silent when the State Department expressed confidence in United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Bush administration seemed to be repudiating the freshman Republican senator from Minnesota, who had called for Annan's resignation. But Coleman was well aware that his investigation of UN corruption is trumped for now by a transcendent issue.

When Annan made a hurried trip to Washington Dec. 16, his non-cooperation with the Jan. 30 election in Iraq was manifest. His attitude changed markedly after Secretary of State Colin Powell declared: "We have confidence in the secretary-general." With that, Annan began to provide the UN's desperately needed help on the elections.

That looks like a big-time deal in the best interests of the United States. Nothing is more important to President Bush than the Iraqi election, dwarfing even full exposure of the UN's oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, including the secretary-general's complicity. But Annan has not bought permanent immunity by belatedly helping in Iraq. The U.S. government includes an independent legislative branch, and Norm Coleman is biding his time.

...

The question is how rigorous the U.S. government will be toward Annan after the Iraqi election. Powell has a long-standing relationship with Annan, but he is leaving. Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice, has been characteristically prudent in reacting to the UN scandal. According to Capitol Hill sources, she remained mute after Coleman briefed her on Annan and the scandal.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more