What’s he going to do with Iraq?

LONDON, February 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – For many weeks every Thursday morning the inner circle of U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration has gathered in the White House’s Oval Office for a progress meeting on the ‘war on terror’.

There was one question an increasingly frustrated Bush asked every week: once the allies had got rid of Saddam, ‘what do we do with Iraq?’

He has been getting conflicting answers. Infighting within the administration continues. However, a scheme, finally, has been thrashed out.

According to the British Guardian newspaper, the plan is in three stages: first, U.S.-led military rule; second, a transitional phase with an American military governor ruling alongside a civilian leader appointed by the international community; and, finally, handover to a regime sympathetic to and nurtured by Washington.

The U.S. military governor of Iraq is likely to be Tommy Franks, the general due to head the attack on Iraq. The first phase, U.S.-led military rule, would last between six and 18 months after the war. It would be policed by armies from the ‘coalition of the willing’, including a big British contingent.

The second phase is seen as being a kind of international civilian administration, backed by a diminished military presence. Here, the inspiration being worked on is the protectorate in Kosovo.

There is bitter argument over who should be the prospective civilian governor, or ‘High Representative’, to rule alongside an American during the second phase. The Americans want an American. The veteran peace-broker George Mitchell, with his experience in Ireland and the Middle East, is a front-runner.

But the Bush administration sees Mitchell, a Democrat, as too much of a dove. It favors Norman Schwarzkopf, who led coalition forces in the first Gulf war and is now, as a civilian, a vigorous campaigner for the Bush family.

But most Security Council members would prefer an appointment from a European Union country to counter American influence. The U.N. is determined, in the face of fierce U.S. opposition, that Iraq’s top civilian ‘must’ be a Muslim.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who brokered peace in Afghanistan, is a possibility.

The third phase of reconstruction is the most controversial and least planned: the establishment of a pro-American Iraqi government, ideally within two years, that eschews the nation’s recent past and, of course, weapons of mass destruction.

The model for post-war Iraq was that of Japan’s reconstruction under General Douglas MacArthur. But State Department experts felt this would be too brazenly colonial and cause resentment throughout the Arab world.

However, although the MacArthur-style scheme has been discarded, a key resource for the planners is the archives of the ‘de-Nazification’ of Germany. As it was with post-war Germany, it will be unfeasible to purge Iraq of all members of the Baath Party, Saddam’s political vehicle.

However, the Yugoslav parallel seems compelling. There are strong separatist movements in both countries. Both have neighbors which would pull it in different directions, both are awash in arms, and bloody reprisals will likely take place in Iraq as they have in the former Yugoslavia, the Observer wrote.

Political parties care more about gaining control of resources and state industries than about introducing democracy. Corruption and a weak justice system discourage foreign investment.

The military and police and judiciary need to be rebuilt from the ground up. And outside help is urgently needed to repair war damage and deteriorated infrastructure.

In the former Yugoslavia we have dealt with these problems through a major effort at nation-building, involving tens of thousands of peacekeeping troops, thousands of civilian experts from the U.N., NATO, the E.U., OSCE, the World Bank, the IMF and more than 50 nations around the world.

Yet, a decade later the job is far from done, despite the expenditure of somewhere close to U.S.$100 billion. There is little sign that serious preparations are under way to deal with post-Saddam Iraq.

If war comes, it will not be about oil, but what to do with the oil fields which will be occupied in the opening days of war will be a major headache. Rival Kurdish groups and the Turks may come to blows over the rich fields around Kirkuk, an area which Saddam has “cleansed” of its original Kurdish and Turkmen population.

Much has been made of the possibility of using Iraqi oil revenues to finance rebuilding the economy, but increasing production or even restoring production will be slow, and will depend on foreign investment.

Faced with these alternatives and given the U.S. Defense Department’s distaste for nation building, a possible “exit strategy” would be to toss the ball to Iraqis as soon as decently possible.

This was the course the U.S. aimed at in Bosnia, believing that elections within a year would enable NATO forces to withdraw. As we learned to our regret, premature elections aggravated the problem.

Reconciling Iraq’s powerful Sunni Muslim minority, its poor Shi’ite majority and its semi-autonomous Kurds will be hard. So, too, will it be to convince Iraqis that the government is ruling in their best interests and is not a U.S. puppet.

Yet, the key unknown for the third stage is the state of Iraq after the war. A document prepared for the State Department predicts 'disruption of law and order, the food distribution systems and emergency healthcare'.

Fear would be ‘widespread,’ says the government report. So, experts say, would ‘score-settling’. A secret U.N. memo, leaked to the press, forecasts ‘devastation’.

Injuries and trauma could, says the report, ‘devastate’ the population, with up to 500,000 needing treatment. “The outbreak of disease, in epidemic if not pandemic proportions, is very likely.”

In some quarters in Washington talk of finding a secular authority figure, possibly a general who might emerge as an early defector from Saddam, has replaced talk about a democratic Iraq inside its current borders. This would be a short-sighted solution.

Giving diplomacy more time will produce a Security Council resolution, even if not unanimous, which will be needed to mobilize the support of governments for a major effort at nation-building in Iraq.