Foolestroope, you pipped me, only just, with your riposte! The US right---which includes most of the Democrats in its scope--has detested the UN almost from its inception. If the USA had come even close to pulling its weight in UN-based operations there would be less need for the muscle-flexing prancing of the NATO organisation. Similar commitment to the UN organisation would have made a wonderful difference in\, say Rwanda. Now Bush expects to have the UN favouring a "democratic handover of sovereignty" to the Iraqis on June 30th.
"Democratic " in a pig's eye! There cannot possibly be democracy in Iraq untill the last "coalition" soldier has departed, or has been placed under the total control of the Iraqi government. Any foreign force which remains in that battered country under the control of an outside power can only be a complete mockery of true democracy. The Iraqis may not wish to embrace democracy as most of the enlightened nations know it---but that is their prerogative. No matter what form their government took, it couldn't be worse than the status quo, and at least would have the right, for instance, to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to assess the extent of contamination of their environment by coalition uranium-tipped ordnance---a right which under the occupation regime is flatly denied at this time. The contamination from this source is described as "horrific" by Dr Doug Rokke, the director of the US army depleted uranium project in the aftermath of 1991. He insists that deaths from this source alone run into many thousands---including American personnel; how's that for a weapon of mass destruction?