(Host) Congressman Bernie Sanders is calling on President Bush to include the United Nations in the effort to rebuild Iraq. Speaking Tuesday night on VPR’s Switchboard program, Sanders said he’s concerned that incidents like Tuesday’s encounter between the U.S. military and Iraqi demonstrators – a situation that resulted in the death of at least a dozen protesters – will occur more often if the United States tries to maintain peace without international assistance:
(Sanders) “I think clearly the best thing that the United States can do is share that responsibility. The good news is that a terrible dictator is gone. But there are some very perilous times in front of us and I think we are going to need the international community and the United Nations to work with us to create a to the degree that we can. And I’m not convinced that it’s going to be terribly easy, a democratic society in Iraq. A nation in which the people of that country are able to enjoy the wealth from their oil and not large corporations that may not be Iraqi based.”
(Host) Sanders, who opposed the war, says he remains very concerned that the pre-emptive policies of the Bush administration have set a dangerous precedent that other countries around the world may follow in the future.