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From somewhere in the bowels of he United Nations building in New York City Carina Perelli, the UN's "top elections official", announces that she is about to start screaming:
"The U.S. military have been extremely, I would say, overenthusiastic in trying to help out with this election," she told reporters. "And we have been basically saying that they should try to minimize their participation, because this is an Iraqi process."Informed by a reporter that U.S. soldiers have distributed voting material in recent weeks, Perelli said: "I'm glad that you reported it, because I'm going to be screaming on the phone in two minutes."
She's responding to reports that Soldiers are distributing material promoting the elections. I wonder exactly who might be on the other end of the line?
The NY Times provides additional quotes:
The United Nations said Wednesday that it had fulfilled its mission of providing expert assistance in setting up Sunday's election in Iraq, adding that it was now up to the Iraqi people to give the vote legitimacy by going to the polls."We have done everything in supporting this election we could from a technical point of view, but nothing replaces the will of the people," said Carina Perelli, the director of the electoral assistance division for the United Nations.
<...>
Asked for her reaction to criticism of the United Nations for not putting more people in Iraq, Ms. Perelli said that she had reached her desired number of 40 people by including 19 international election experts from Britain, the European Union and electoral assistance organizations.
I'll watch out for them in the DFAC. Hopefully they will manage to refrain from screaming when they see the food. All this is headlined "U.N. Says Mission Accomplished And That Legitimacy Is Now In Hands Of Iraqis".
The parallel to this singularly, effective, swift and muscular story are inescapable.
