U.N. slams U.S. use of force in Iraq
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - With U.S. troops threatening Sunni insurgents in
Falluja and Shi'ite rebels in Najaf, a U.N. envoy says force can not
solve Iraq's problems.
"I think that there is always a better solution than shooting your way
into anywhere," Lakhdar Brahimi said of the standoffs in Iraq's
flashpoint
cities.
A few families who had fled fierce fighting in Falluja earlier this
month walked back into the battle-scarred city on Saturday, hours
after Iraq's
U.S. administrator warned that "major hostilities could resume at
short notice".
Paul Bremer said "armed bands" in Falluja must give up their weapons
and "submit to national authority" if a shaky ceasefire negotiated
with civic leaders was to last.
The United States, trying to shore up a shrinking coalition in Iraq,
wants Brahimi to help choose an interim government to take back
sovereignty from the U.S.-led occupation on June 30.
Brahimi said he wanted Iraq's U.S.-backed Governing Council to
dissolve on June 30 and the politicians who dominate it to be excluded
from a caretaker government of technocrats that he thinks should see
Iraq through to elections in January 2005.
In an interview with the ABC News programme "This Week with George
Stephanopoulos", due to be aired on Sunday, Brahimi dismissed
the idea of any expansion of the existing 25-member council.
"The fear is that, you know, as somebody put it, perhaps a bit too
unkindly, they will clone themselves. And why do you want to have
that?"
said the former Algerian foreign minister, who is the U.N.
secretary-general's special envoy to Iraq.
President George W. Bush acknowledged that "tough work" lay ahead,
saying the "enemies of freedom" would kill anyone in their way to try
to evict America from Iraq.
"But the stakes are too high for us to leave," he said on Friday at a
fund-raiser in Florida for his November re-election campaign.
The U.S. military said a Marine died of wounds suffered in combat west
of Baghdad 10 days ago. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier on
Friday and a Bulgarian soldier died the same day in an ambush by
Shi'ite fighters in Kerbala.
More than 500 U.S. troops, along with nearly 60 other foreign
soldiers, have been killed in action since U.S.-led forces invaded
Iraq in March
2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein.
DOUBTFUL ALLIES
This month's surge of violence has unnerved several U.S. allies in
Iraq and Washington is trying to persuade others to keep troops there
past their July deadline for withdrawal.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday he hoped Norway,
the Netherlands and El Salvador, who have almost 2,000 troops in
Iraq between them, would stay longer than planned.
Norway rejected the appeal, saying its 180 troops would leave around
the June 30 handover. Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic
said this month they were pulling out.
Britain said it might send more troops to replace the Spanish, but
several other nations are committed to staying only until the end-June
transfer of sovereignty.
Few relish the prospect of getting mired deeper in a conflict far
bloodier than any of them anticipated.
Rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened on Friday to unleash
suicide bombers if U.S. forces attacked Iraq's holy city of Najaf
where
he is holed up.
"We will shed blood to keep our holy city," Sadr said, warning that
his followers would become "time bombs" if there was any assault on
Najaf.
U.S. forces are poised just outside Najaf and have vowed to kill or
capture Sadr and destroy his Mehdi Army militia, but have allowed time
for talks to defuse the standoff.
The Mehdi Army rose up across the mainly Shi'ite south this month, but
U.S.-led forces have regained control of most towns.
Insecurity has disrupted a reconstruction drive that is a key weapon
in U.S. efforts to counter the widespread disappointment among Iraqis
at their plight a year after Saddam's overthrow.
Bremer, whose "de-Baathification" policy threw many Iraqis out of work
last year, has made changes to allow thousands of teachers sacked
for membership of Saddam's Baath Party to regain their posts.
Thousands more will get pensions.
He said in a speech on U.S.-funded Iraqi television the
de-Baathification policy remained correct, but had been applied
unjustly.
"There is no room in the new Iraq for Baathist ideology, for Baathist
criminals," Bremer stressed.
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