Who Needs the U.N.?*

Robert Fisk, reporting from Iraq, describes the evolving face of the "coalition of the willing":

What does worry people is that Americans are replacing their troops at the Baghdad International Airport with Chilean forces which we know have been trained in the army there at the time of Pinochet. The real problem is we don't know what their rules of engagement are. We don't know where they stand vis-à-vis the war. If they are ambushed, do they fire back? If they kill innocent people are they responsible? Can they be made amenable to the law if they're guilty?

(snip)

The question many Iraqis were asking, is this the new face of the occupation? The Americans disappear, the British disappear, and this army of mercenaries wearing flak jackets and an assortment of weapons with little badges, some South African, some clearly British and some Americans are now supposed to be the security services? And of course we have the Iraqi police and the Civil Defense Corps, which is the Paramilitary Militia. If you go to Sumara, which I did recently, you get stopped at checkpoints by Iraqi paramilitaries wearing black facemasks standing next to U.S. Troops.

(snip)

Some of the security companies are perfectly above-board. We know their names, and they carry their weapons concealed, but they themselves are complaining that they're worried about some of the other mercenaries coming in. They may not have sufficient knowledge, expertise and certainly the way they walk around in the streets, the way they carry their weapons in vehicles suggests they're not professionals.

(snip)

At night the U.S. troops there are protected by ample security men. In other words, mercenaries are now paid to protect American troops. Outside of these mercenary forces are Iraqis who are armed and paid by the Americans. So, what you have is a kind of double sandbag. You have first of all Iraqis with weapons defending the Americans. Then security service men or security company men or mercenaries, if you like, and then after that, the Americans. It seems that the intention is to save American lives. And use the hired men and indeed Iraqis as sandbags.

Truly... Read the whole thing.

* CORRECTION: Thanks to the ever-watchful eye of Cavalry Charge, the original title of this entry ("We don't need the U.N."- President Bush) has been amended. The quote was missing ellipses! Thanks for helping us with our form, fellas!

As for substance... Bush, in the linked article, said that we didn't need the U.N. to act before we invaded Iraq. We don't need UN approval = we don't need UN troops. Instead we use Pinochet's mercenaries?