WASHINGTON: The top American official at the UN mission in Afghanistan was fired Wednesday after disagreeing with his boss on how to deal with widespread fraud charges from the presidential election. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama may have to cozy up to the Republicans who, unlike those in his own party, support a larger US effort in Afghanistan.
Peter Galbraith, a former American diplomat, said he refused to take part in what he called “a cover-up” of fraud in the Afghan election.
Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, left the country abruptly last month after a clash with his Norwegian boss, Kai Eide. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, announced late Wednesday he was “recalling” Galbraith, and that his decision was “in the best interest of the mission.”
“I think it’s astonishing that the United Nations would dismiss an official because he was concerned about fraud in a UN-funded and UN-supported election,” Galbraith told reporters yesterday from his farmhouse in Vermont.
“My position was not for or against any candidate, (but) I was not prepared to be complicit in a cover-up or in an effort to downplay the fraud that took place,” he said, calling his dismissal a bad sign regarding the UN’s commitment to fair elections.
The dispute between Galbraith and Eide goes to the core of international strategy in Afghanistan and has split the UN mission there.
Five members of the UN mission in Afghanistan have reportedly offered their resignation in support of Galbraith. Preliminary results show Afghan President Hamid Karzai won 54.6 percent of the vote — more than the 50 percent threshold needed to win re-election without a run-off.
Neither Galbraith nor Eide have offered details of the disagreement, though Eide has confirmed that the two split over election issues.
“Primarily, we had a somewhat different approach to the election process,” he told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate.
Galbraith worked for the UN in East Timor in 2000-2001 and as the US ambassador to Croatia from 1993 to 1998.
Meanwhile, in an unusual twist on Capitol Hill, Republicans on Wednesday said they would do whatever is necessary in response to calls from the American commander in Afghanistan for more troops.
US Gen. Stanley McChrystal — who also commands NATO forces — is expected to ask for 40,000 more troops to fight the Taleban-led insurgency and help Afghanistan rebuild.
Recent opinion polls have shown that only a minority of Americans believes the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, and the flawed presidential election in August has eroded the Obama administration’s confidence in the Afghan government.
Much of the opposition to the war is rooted in the anti-war leftists of Obama’s base of support that is angry he is ending one war in Iraq only to expand another in Afghanistan even though he pledged in his campaign to do just that.
