Prometheus 6   

Ye Gods! The BALLS this regime has!

When I saw the headline, I thought of titling this post "PleaseBabyPleaseBabyPleasePleaseBabyBabyPlease?" BUT…

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 -- The Bush administration, yielding slightly in its opposition to diluting American authority over the Iraqi occupation, proposed today that the United Nations recognize the American-picked Iraqi Governing Council as a unit that "will embody the sovereignty" of Iraq until the country returns to self-rule.

The shift is a linguistic attempt to enhance the status of the Iraqi council without necessarily giving it more power, American officials said.[P6: They admit it! How's that for sheer nerve and disrespect?]

The latest American proposal on the sovereignty issue was part of a renewed bid to get the United Nations Security Council to bless the American position on the speed of transition to self-rule and clear the way for international aid to secure and rebuild Iraq.

France has demanded that the Governing Council be vested with authority as the legitimate government of Iraq before it goes along with the American-proposed resolution. Ten days ago, Secretary General Kofi Annan more or less endorsed the French view, dimming prospects for a positive vote.

The United States opposes such a step, saying the Governing Council is not ready to govern Iraq. The Bush administration has also declined to put forward a timetable as to when the council may be prepared to take power, but in the new language disclosed today the council was given until December 15 to set its own timetable.

But it was unclear this afternoon whether the proposed new resolution, with its ambiguous language, would gain the votes of enough members of the Security Council to pass, thus encouraging other countries to send troops and aid. The crucial waverer is Russia, with which the United States has been negotiating on changing language on sovereignty and other issues.