redman Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Take a gander at this one: Yahoo! News Wed, Jan 29, 2003 Iraq May Chair Disarmament Conference Wed Jan 29, 2:32 PM ET By BARBARA BORST, Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS - Iraq is in line to take over as chairman of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in May, prompting one U.S. official Wednesday to say: "The irony is overwhelming." Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, issued the comment as officials realized Iraq was in line for the rotating post. India now holds it and will be followed by Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland and Israel as countries take the job in alphabetical order. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Tuesday that the choice of conference leaders is "a purely automatic rotation by alphabetical order" with five or six conference presidents each year, each serving a term of about four weeks. "I think you could expect that from time to time a letter would come up that might raise questions in certain quarters, but it has no political significance, I would say," said Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), when asked if Iraq holding the job did not seem odd. The 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, is the world's top disarmament forum. It meets annually for 24 weeks in three sessions beginning in January. The U.N. General Assembly established the conference in 1979 with 40 members to consolidate the work of several Geneva, Switzerland-based negotiating bodies that had been set up in the 1960s. The conference, which adopts its decisions by consensus, has negotiated such major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. It also steered talks on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. Comment: Oh stop it you're killing me! :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Punani2 Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Yeah, I heard about this today. What a joke!! It just shows how hypocritical the UN can be.:doh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 The epitome of the UN was on the news the other day. An Iraqi citizen ran into the UN compound screaming "Save me, save me" and jumped into an inspectors truck. The news showed the Iraqi police prying the poor schmuck out of the vehicle and taking him away while the UN weenie sat there and did nothing, no offer of asylum or anything. Anybody wanna lay odds on whether or not that Iraqi is still alive? Effing useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgold Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 That was a terrible event. The poor guy was seeking sanctuary from UN folks sent there to uncover atrocities. Supposedly, there is evidence he was one of the scientists they were looking at to speak to privately as well. How can they generate trust amongst frightened people when they do this? I can understand that there is a set of codes that they need to abide by, diplomatically speaking and that they should not directly break or interfere with the laws of the host country... but, when someone comes to you seeking sanctuary, don't you have the responsibitity if you are the UN to at least interview the guy and see if his fears have any credence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Well if Libya can lead the commission on Human Rights, I see no reason why Iraq cant do this. Im looking for Columbia to chair the committe on drug abuse next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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