Dummy Dubya Turns down Troops

From AmericaBlog in what was news to me, it turns out that the dimwit dauphin turned down a UN offer of troops to help secure Iraq for the upcoming elections.

October 18, 2004

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- President George W. Bush rebuffed a plan last month for a Muslim peacekeeping force that would have helped the United Nations organize elections in Iraq, according to Saudi and Iraqi officials.

As a result, the UN continues to have a skeletal presence in Iraq, with only four staff members working full time on preparing for elections set for the end of January. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to establish a new UN headquarters in Baghdad unless countries commit troops for a special force to protect it.

Wonder why this offer fell apart?

Diplomats said Annan accepted the plan. But the Bush administration objected because the special force would have been controlled by the UN instead of by U.S. military officers who run the Multi-National Force in Iraq. Muslim and Arab countries refused to work under U.S. command, and the initiative died in early September.

"Muslim countries that were willing to provide troops were not willing to put them under the command of the U.S.-led coalition," said a senior Iraqi security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "In many of these nations, there was too much domestic pressure for the governments to justify putting their troops under U.S. control."

What country in the world at this point would be interested in ceding control of their contributed armed forces to the United States? Given the brilliant success of our occupation planning - whoops - there wasn't any. I don't blame any of them, I wouldn't follow the incompetants into a pillow fight, let alone Quagmiristan. Idiots.