American UN Official Wanted Karzai Replaced | Print | E-mail
Written by Warren Mass
Thursday, 17 December 2009 16:30
Kai Eide, the Norwegian diplomat who is the UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, has said his former deputy — Peter W. Galbraith, an American — wanted to seek U.S. government support to force Afghan President Hamid Karzai from office, the New York Times reported on December 17.

The British Telegraph newspaper reported that Eide wrote a letter in response to criticism of his work by the International Crisis Centre, a research organization and quoted an excerpt from the letter: "He told me he would first meet with Vice President Biden. If the vice president agreed with Galbraith's proposal they would approach President Obama with the following plan: President Karzai should be forced to resign as president."

Eide claimed that Galbraith wanted to install either Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, or Ali Jalili, a former interior minister, in Karzai’s place.

The Telegraph also quoted Eide’s claims that he told his deputy the Galbraith plan was "unconstitutional, it represents interference of the worst sort, and if pursued would provoke ... strong international reaction."

The paper also quote Galbraith, who said that Eide’s accusation was "obviously false" and part of a campaign launched against him after he accused his former boss of failing to address fraud during the Afghan election. "It is completely wrong," said Galbraith. "There was no such plan. It is an attempt to obscure the fraud issue, in which [I was] proven correct."

The New York Times reported, citing two unnamed senior UN officials, that Afghan President Karzai became irate when he learned of the plan, and when was told it had been proposed by Galbraith, who had obtained his position with the strong support of Richard C. Holbrooke, the top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan. There had been tension between Holbrooke and Karzai because the former had himself clashed with the Afghan president over the election.

The Times quoted Holbrooke’s statement that he was not aware of Galraith’s plan, adding that “it does not reflect in any way any idea that Secretary Clinton or anyone else in the State Department would have considered.â€