President Bush's speech on US policy in Iraq has failed to subdue critics as the resolution put forward by the Bush administration is already growing more controversy.
According to the AP:
"Germany and China today praised as positive a U.S.-British blueprint for giving Iraqis power to run their own government after more than a year of unrelenting violence under an American-led occupation.
But France and Russia, which have all-important veto power on the UN Security Council, greeted the blueprint only half-heartedly, with French leaders complaining the measure may not go far enough in handing future Iraqi leaders real authority."
The governments of France would like the new Iraqi government to "have a say in the actions of US-led forces." Meanwhile, another member of the UN security council with veto power would like to see who will be in the new Iraqi government before it votes for a UN resolution on Iraqi sovereignty.
"As far as the content of the new resolution is concerned, it should be an answer to the concerns of Iraqi society," said a [Russian] ministry comment posted on its web site (www.mid.ru).
"In that sense, we assume that the document should be adopted after UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy L. Brahimi informs the UN Security Council of the results of his mission and an interim government is formed in Iraq," it added.
The demands of UN security council members place considerable constraints on the Bush administration as it scrambles to assemble a new government for Iraq before the June 30 deadline.
This is an ironic twist on the run-up to war: not only did the Bush Administration need the approval of the UN Security Council to legitimately go into Iraq (which it did not get) but it needs the Council's approval to get out.
"U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush are counting on UN backing for their work in Iraq to ensure troops eventually can leave the region." (Bloomberg).
Blair and Bush's predicament illustrate the perills of unilateral military action.