...that government could invite the UN to send peace keeping troops, which means the US and UK troops would no longer be considered an occupation force) and then governmental functions would be quickly transferred to Iraqis. The UN would have a paramount role in that political transition.

I am completely at a loss as to how to get this point across. I have tried numerous times, and feel like my posts must be getting transcribed into Sanskrit en route to the Zone.

--The Baathists will blow the hell out of U.N. troops as cheerfully as any others. They will consider them the enemy exactly the same as U.S., British, Polish, Italian, Martian, or any other forces except Baathist ones. They will shoot U.N. troops, bomb their trucks, and blast their headquarters buildings. Hell, they DID.

--The Baathists are not upset that Iraq is occupied. The Baathists are upset that they are out of power.

--The U.N. is not the panacea people keep thinking it is.

This is one of those cases where facts do not seem to make a dent in politics.