By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Published 4/20/2004 12:24 PM
WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) -- Coming up to the first anniversary of President Bush declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, U.S. policy there has degenerated into a series of confusing flip-flops.
First, Coalition Provisional Authority chief administrator L. Paul Bremer was adamant that U.S. troops were going to arrest firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr. Now, they are not.
Second, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were adamant that the United States was not going to the United Nations to seek more support in Iraq at the expense of delegating any authority there. But in his nationally televised press conference last week, the president took pains to praise the mission of U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and emphasize his determination to back it to the hilt.
Indeed, on Monday Bush named Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte as his first ambassador to an at least titular independent Iraq after the scheduled handover of sovereignty on June 30. This move has also been widely taken as a sign that eschewing previous Pentagon-run policies, Bush is finally prepared to let the world body have more of a say in helping restore that country.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040420-121344-3484r