In the six months since the
transition to Iraqi sovereignty officially got underway on
June 28, 2004, the human cost of the US occupation of that
country has risen dramatically. US military deaths have
topped 1,200. A study published in
The Lancet has estimated that 100,000 Iraqis have
died as a result of war and conditions under occupation.
Norwegian researchers, the United Nations, and the Iraqi
government recently reported that malnutrition among the
youngest children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the
US-led invasion of that country. And soaring rates of
disease and a crippled health system are threatening to kill
more than those who have died in the aftermath of the war.
Iraqi security forces can’t succeed as long as the US is
leading a war on the ground in Iraq. |
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Iraqis need to be in charge of
their own security. But the Iraqi police and National Guard
have largely failed to provide security for the Iraqi people
and the situation appears to be only worsening. Iraq’s
security forces are fighting in a war that puts anyone who
is physically near or associated with the US occupation at
risk. At the same time, soldiers and police officers lack
adequate training. One measure of the problem can be seen in
their death toll. Over 1,500 Iraqi security force recruits
and 750 Iraqi police officers have been killed. Iraqi
security forces can’t succeed as long as the US is leading a
war on the ground in Iraq.
As Larry Diamond, who worked
as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority,
has noted, “There are really no good options,” at this
point. But there are better options than the policies being
currently pursued. The following five steps would lessen the
violence and insecurity in Iraq:
1. Decrease US troops and
end offensive operations: As a first step to withdrawal,
the US should declare an immediate cease-fire and reduce the
number of troops deployed in Iraq. Instead, the Bush
administration has done the opposite, increasing the number
of troops stationed there by 12,000. Increased offensive
operations will only escalate the violence and make Iraq
less secure and less safe. The US should pull troops out of
major cities so that greater manpower can be directed to
guarding the borders to stem the flow of foreign fighters
and money being used to fund the resistance. If Iraqi
security forces need assistance maintaining order, they have
the option of inviting in regional forces, as proposed by
Saudi Arabia. They could also reinstate the former Iraqi
army, which was well-trained, after purging upper-level
Saddam supporters and providing additional counterinsurgency
training to deal with the current war. Once implemented,
these measures would allow for total withdrawal of US
forces.
By giving Iraqis control over reconstruction funds,
projects will be better targeted to the needs of Iraqis. |
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2. Declare that the US has
no intention to maintain a permanent or long-term military
presence or bases in Iraq: Congress needs to make clear
that it is committed to the principle of responsible
withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. By making this
statement through a congressional resolution, the US would
openly acknowledge that it has no interest in controlling
Middle Eastern oil or in suppressing Muslims, hence
depriving insurgents of their central organizing message.
Without such a resolution, Iraqis have little reason to
believe that our present actions are nothing greater than a
plan to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq and
make the occupation a permanent feature of Iraqi life.
3. Do more to restore
services: Moving control of reconstruction from the
Defense Department to the State Department has been a
positive step as it removes an agency designed to fight war
from the much different task of nation building. But a much
stronger statement to the Iraqi people would be to go even
further and give Iraqis direct authority over reconstruction
funding. The US government and its contractors have failed
to restore public services and public safety, strengthen
institutions, or provide jobs. Meanwhile, billions of
appropriated dollars remain unspent. By giving Iraqis
control over reconstruction funds, more Iraqis will get jobs
and projects will be better targeted to the needs of Iraqis.
And lowering the unemployment rate will weaken the potential
for recruitment into the insurgency.
Prospects for free and fair elections in January are
dim. |
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4. Postpone national
elections and hold elections for provincial governments:
Given that war is raging in most of Iraq’s Sunni regions,
prospects for free and fair elections in January are dim.
Given the reality on the ground, the US should call for a
delay of national elections while helping Iraqis hold
elections for local governments. Local governments should be
given the power so far denied to Iraqis. They need budget
oversight and dedicated funding derived from the country’s
oil exports. Additionally, they need the authority to work
with Iraqi ministries to assess local needs, decide which
reconstruction efforts should get priority, and deliver
services. They would also have an oversight role for
expenditures. Once provincial elections are completed,
illustrating that the US is willing to cede power, and a
guarantee that Sunnis will be included in the political
process is in place, national elections will become more
viable.
5. Impose conditions on US
spending for the Iraq War: To date the US has spent $151
billion on the Iraq War. It’s important to support the
troops, but a recent exchange between Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and the troops illustrated the safety of the
troops has not been Washington’s primary concern. Congress
should exercise its prerogative in shaping US policy in Iraq
by tying a forthcoming supplemental spending bill—now
rumored to be between $70-100 billion—to the previous four
points. At the same time, lawmakers should put the brakes on
the rampant war profiteering that has caused widespread
waste, fraud, and abuse. To do this, the US must stop
awarding no-bid contracts and open-ended, “cost-plus,”
multi-billion-dollar contracts, such as those awarded to
Halliburton and Bechtel, and increase oversight over the
military and its contractors. Finally, the US should cancel
previously awarded contracts to companies whose workforces
don’t have a majority of Iraqis.
The current US approach in
Iraq is too costly in human and financial terms to Americans
at home, our troops abroad, and to the very people this war
was supposed to liberate. More importantly, it isn’t
improving Iraq’s stability or security. These five steps
represent an ambitious new direction for the United States
and for the Iraqi people.
This article
was originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus on December
10, 2004.
Erik
Leaver is the policy outreach director for the Foreign
Policy in Focus project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
He’s one of the authors of a recently released IPS and FPIF
report titled “A Failed ‘Transition’: The Mounting Costs of
the Iraq War.”
