Ex-envoy says U.S. hasn't learned lessons about nation building

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030716/ap_wo_en_po/na_gen_us_iraq_postwar

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - James Dobbins, a former State Department official involved in five of six nation-building exercises over the past 11 years, says the United States should be doing better in Iraq (news - web sites) after all this experience.


"We don't seem to have learned much," says Dobbins, who served as U.S. special envoy in operations around the world.


In 1993, Dobbins led the diplomatic part of getting U.S. forces out of Somalia. In 1994, he helped arrange the multilateral intervention in Haiti. Just before the Kosovo conflict erupted in 1999, he became senior envoy for the Balkans and later headed the U.S. delegation to the Kosovo peace talks. In 2000 and 2001, he worked to organize international efforts to oust Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) from Yugoslavia. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he was President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s special envoy for Afghanistan (news - web sites).


Dobbins, who has been working for the Rand think tank since his retirement from government last year, said in a recent interview that the most successful operations, especially from the standpoint of postwar casualties, have been Bosnia and Kosovo.

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