What a surprise -- Kofi Annan won't send more staff to Iraq:

A day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted the U.S.-backed resolution, spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary-General Kofi Annan isn't prepared under current conditions to send back more than 500 international staffers who were ordered to leave after the bombings in August and September.

"The security situation does not permit us to send any additional staff into Iraq," Eckhard said.

What do you think of the UN's service to the Iraqis so far? After one bombing -- to which they were vulnerable because they hired former [heh] Baathists as security guards for their compound -- the UN mission packed up and went home. The terrorists chased Kofi Annan out of Iraq once before, and yet we still hear protests that we should let the UN run the reconstruction. And now they won't come back because of the "security situation", but still argue that they should have a central role in postwar Iraq.

Sorry, fellas, but you can't dial in a "central role" -- you have to roll up your sleeves and actually be inside Iraq to do this. It takes heavy lifting and sacrifice, but most of all it takes commitment. No one believes the UN has that, especially the Iraqis themselves, after watching and waiting for 12 long years for the UN to finally enforce its own resolutions, only to scream when the US, Britain, Spain, and Poland decided that 12 years was enough. When the Iraqis saw you packing your bags to go after your first setback, you had already lost. Putting you in charge means that no one would be in charge, and that is too dangerous to allow. So if you can't be part of the solution, then for goodness sake, shut up and stop being part of the problem.

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