----- Forwarded message -----
What We Should Do Now
Washington’s Plan A clearly isn’t working. The fighting is far from over in
Iraq. But there’s no walking away. The administration needs to have a clear,
long-term commitment, the backing of the United Nations and more than a
little help from its friends
By Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK
Sept. 1 issue — There is a danger of over-reacting to last week’s
gruesome bombing of the United Nations’ headquarters in Baghdad. The United
States has been in Iraq for only four months and much of the country is
stable. The northern lands, home to the Kurdish population, are settling
into an almost normal existence.
THERE HAVE BEEN no large-scale revolts nor the much-feared civil war between
various sections of Iraqi society. Given Saddam Hussein’s devastation of the
country, 13 years of sanctions and then the second gulf war, reconstruction
was bound to be slow. An Iraqi Army and a police force are being trained,
the Governing Council is up and running, town councils are operating
throughout the country, the decentralization of the country is working.
All this may be true, but it is increasingly irrelevant. Security is the
first task of government; everything else rests on it. And important parts
of Iraq—including its central city, home to 20 percent of its people—are
insecure. The U.N. bombing was not an isolated event but a culmination of
weeks of sophisticated and deadly violence against Americans and their
partners. Coalition forces now face an average of 15 to 20 attacks per day.
Since the end of formal hostilities, 75 Coalition troops have been killed in
combat, 77 have died through other causes and about 500 have been wounded.
The attack on the United Nations was preceded by bombings of the Jordanian
Embassy, Baghdad’s main water pipeline and Iraq’s main oil pipeline. Baghdad
International Airport remains closed to commercial traffic for fear that
incoming planes will be shot down. The road to the airport cannot be
secured. It is, in fact, the single most ambushed road in Baghdad, its
checkpoint under fire every evening. Crime remains sky high. Murders since
the war could reach 5,000 this year. Basic services such as water and
electricity have not been restored in significant regions of the country, in
part because of constant sabotage. And while it is true that terrorism can
take place anywhere, a country that is under American military occupation
should not so easily turn into a sanctuary for militant Islamic terrorists.
NOT LOSING VS. NOT WINNING
The afterwar has been unusual because the United States never
formally defeated the Iraqi Army: Saddam’s forces simply melted away. Some
American officials have privately pointed out that current casualty rates,
while tragic, are low enough to be militarily insignificant. This is true
but also irrelevant. The purpose of guerrilla operations is not to defeat
the enemy militarily. It is to defeat him politically. (Hence Henry
Kissinger’s dictum: the guerrilla wins by not losing. The army loses by not
winning.) The hope is that such attacks will force the occupation to become
more militarized, then, in turn, America’s heavy-handed retaliation will
alienate the local population. If U.S. forces mingle less with the locals,
tour in Humvees rather than on foot and make force protection their chief
goal, they will not gain popular support. The fact that there have been so
many attacks on U.S. forces and we have caught so few of—and know so little
about—the attackers indicate that they have some support within the populace
and that we still have very poor human intelligence in Iraq. In recent weeks
a spate of small flare-ups between locals and troops, even in Shiite areas,
suggests that beneath the calm there is restlessness.
It is time to recognize that the occupation of Iraq needs fixing.
This has been a massive enterprise undertaken with little planning and
extreme arrogance. During the war, Defense Department officials explained
that the postwar situation was “unknowable,” so no planning was really
possible. (By this logic there would be no point in planning for anything.)
Even the question of how long the United States would stay involved in Iraq
produced a series of varying responses, from the vacuous “as long as it
takes” to the absurd “three months” (from Jay Garner). That we had no plan
for postwar government was quickly evident to the Iraqis. In 1920 a British
official despaired of that country’s occupation of Iraq in words that are
prophetic: “How can the local population settle down when we won’t tell it
what we are going to do? We must either govern Mesopotamia or not govern
it.”
On one matter the administration seemed sure: the occupation would not
require many troops. “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces
to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to conduct the war
itself,” Paul Wolfowitz declared in congressional testimony last February.
Officials had privately estimated that by the end of the summer—now, that
is—U.S. troop levels in Iraq would be down to 40,000.
SUFFICIENT FORCE
Had the administration been more willing to learn from the past, it
would have noted that the United States was involved in several postwar
operations during the 1990s. Lesson No. 1 was: have sufficient forces. In
Somalia and Haiti, the United States placed too few forces on the ground.
The result: it failed. In Bosnia and Kosovo it deployed a large force, which
was able to intimidate all potential opposition. As a result, in those two
places Coalition forces have suffered zero combat casualties in many years
of operation. The Powell Doctrine may not be necessary for war, but it seems
to help in keeping the peace.
To match the number of soldiers per inhabitant as we have in Kosovo,
we would need 526,000 in Iraq. To match Bosnia we would need 258,000. Right
now there are about 150,000 troops in Iraq. The United States Army does not
have extra troops to spare. In fact it is currently spread dangerously thin.
Ninety percent of all U.S. military police, for example, are on active duty:
12,000 are in Iraq; most of the rest are in South Korea or Europe. There are
no more MPs to call on.
The shortage is not simply of military personnel. Iraq’s administrator Paul
Bremer is an able man who has made several smart choices since he has taken
charge. He is, however, understaffed and underfunded. The Coalition
Provisional Authority has about 1,000 people working for it. Douglas
MacArthur had five times the number when he was nation-building in Japan.
Perhaps as urgently as it needs troops, Iraq needs diplomats, political
advisers, engineers, agronomists, economists, educators and lawyers. Without
deploying this other army the occupation cannot succeed.
PICKING UP THE TAB
And Iraq needs money; lots of it. The fantasy that the country would
quickly pay for its own reconstruction can now be put to rest. For the next
year or two, while Iraq’s oil facilities are brought online, it must live on
foreign aid. Bremer has estimated that the cost of satisfying current demand
for electricity in Iraq is $2 billion. Estimates of the cost of repairing
and improving Iraqi oil facilities are between $5 billion and $10 billion.
Estimates of the costs of upgrading Iraqi infrastructure are $16 billion to
$30 billion. The amounts currently appropriated are a fraction of this. The
United States is currently providing 95 percent of total aid to Iraq and 90
percent of the troops, and suffering 90 percent of the casualties.
We have jealously held onto Iraq as if the rebuilding of it were some great
prize to be denied to everyone else. In fact it is better thought of as a
monumental, historic challenge that can best be accomplished with as many
partners and as much support as possible. The best and obvious solution from
the start was to turn the rebuilding of Iraq into a great international
project, in which all the major countries in the world were invested. To
accomplish this, other nations would have to be given some control over the
future of the country. Giving the United Nations more of a hand in Iraq’s
political affairs would actually help. The United Nations has developed
skills and expertise in nation-building over the last decade that are worth
having. Iraq needs more hardworking men like Sergio Vieira de Mello, not
fewer. It is difficult to shift policy now and convince the world that we do
so willingly. But it should be done. Specifically:
The United Nations should be given formal authority over the reconstruction
of Iraq. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Paul Bremer would be given U.N.
appointments in addition to their U.S. appointments. NATO could take over
the command structure of military forces. The administration’s concerns
about messing up the unity of command are mystifying since it gave NATO
command of operations in Afghanistan and NATO runs the military in Kosovo.
In return, the United States should ensure that non-U.S. troop contributions
total 100,000. India, Turkey, France and Germany could make up the bulk of
the force (adding to the contributions of Britain and the other Coalition
members). The United Nations must help recruit thousands of new nonmilitary
personnel to assist in the reconstruction. Similarly, non-U.S. aid
contributions should be 40 percent of the total, with the bulk coming from
the European Union and Japan, and some contributions from oil-rich Arab
countries. Without outside help, funding for Iraq will be too little too
late. The commitment of troops will give the United States some help on the
ground and other nations a stake in making post-Saddam Iraq work. It is true
that other countries will want a share of Iraq’s business but that would
also help get those countries invested in Iraq’s success. That is more
important than husbanding a few contracts for American firms, many of which
would win in an open bidding process anyway.
The administration should present Congress with a multiyear budget that
estimates the costs of the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, with
increases in all areas. The occupation of Iraq needs to look less like an
improvised, fly-by-night operation and more like a thought-through, massive
project. Truman did not keep everyone guessing about the Marshall Plan.
President Bush should make a speech explaining to the American people why it
is crucial that we succeed in Iraq, what the stakes are and why the costs
are justified. He should make clear in no uncertain terms that the United
States will stay committed to this course for as long as the Iraqi people
wish its help and assistance. Candor about the costs of the occupation and
our determination to stay will send a signal to the world and, most
important, to the Iraqi people that they will have a predictable, stable
future.
The Coalition Provisional Authority must assert its authority and ensure
rapid progress on governance and reforms—even when Iraqis are slow or unable
to act. The Governing Council is an admirable body, but it is a committee of
25 people, many of whom dislike each other and who have never worked
together. If things fall apart, Iraqis will not blame the Governing Council.
They will blame America. After order, the first priority must be to create a
system of justice: courts, police and a legal system.
The last point is important. The Coalition is increasingly staffing key
ministries with Iraqis; an excellent move. The Governing Council is an
important first step in constitutional government. Putting Iraqis in charge
of their own country is an essential step forward. But none of this absolves
the United States of its role and responsibility. Iraq will not become a
democracy simply by removing Saddam Hussein and replacing him with other
Iraqis. It will require a political and economic transformation, one that
will take years and one that the United States has committed itself to. It
took seven years in Japan. It has taken almost as long in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If we leave hastily, it is certain that Iraq will turn into something quite
different from a functioning democracy. There are voices beginning to sound
a theme: in the words of one columnist, “at the end of the day, it’s their
country.” Well, yes, but we did invade it. The line “Giving Iraq back to the
Iraqis” sounds nice, but what it means, in fact, is giving up.
Failure in Iraq would be a monumental loss for America’s role in the world.
Washington will have created instability in the heart of the oil-producing
world; weakened America’s ability to push for change in other Middle Eastern
countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, and given comfort to its foes.
The old order will rejoice and the Middle East would return to its stagnant
and self-destructive ways.
And things might even get worse. The fundamental purpose behind the
invasion of Iraq—more important than the exaggerated claims about weapons of
mass destruction—was to begin cleansing the Middle East of the forces that
produce terror. Were America to quit, it would give those armies of hate new
strength and resolve. A failed Iraq could prove a greater threat to American
security than Saddam Hussein’s regime ever was.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
----- End forwarded message -----
------------------------------------------------------------
Få din egen @start.no-adresse gratis på http://www.start.no/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
