- SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ
- The head of the US military's Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, will
rule Iraq in the initial aftermath of a US invasion to overthrow President
Saddam Hussein.
-
- Administration officials briefed senators Tuesday on
postwar planning, stressing that the US goal is "to liberate Iraq,
not to occupy it," and last week a US envoy told leaders of Iraqi
groups opposed to Hussein about American intentions.
-
- The senators were told that even under good circumstances,
it would take two years before the military could fully transfer control
to an Iraqi government. As presented, the plan recalls postwar Germany
and Japan, where American military occupations paved the way for transfers
of power to democratic and constitutionally backed governments.
-
- Some Iraqi opposition leaders are already attacking the
plan, saying it amounts to a US military rule of Iraq that will favor the
existing power structure in the country. Instead of turning Iraq into a
beacon of democracy in the Middle East, an ambition articulated by some
US policymakers, the opposition leaders say the US plan seems designed
to ease the fears of Arabs and Turks unhappy with the prospect of a democratic,
federal Iraq.
-
- But Barham Salih, prime minister of an enclave in northern
Iraq controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), advises a pragmatic
view of the US plan. "Let's not get too hot about this," he said
late Tuesday in an interview at his home here. "Who is doing the heavy
lifting?"
-
- The answer is, of course, the US, and Mr. Salih's implication
is that shouldering the big load brings with it a few prerogatives. He
maintains an eyes-on-the-prize approach to the debate over how to run Iraq's
affairs immediately after the current leader is removed: "The key
thing for us is getting rid of Saddam Hussein."
-
- Some elements of Iraq's fractious opposition, including
groups funded by the US, have been determined to form a government-in-waiting
in order to ensure that Iraq's sovereignty stays in Iraqi hands. They argue
that Iraqis will see even a temporary US administration of Iraq as occupation,
engendering anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East.
-
- Even so, the US has decided to run the country itself,
although the structure outlined to Congress and the opposition groups envisions
a "consultative council" of Iraqis selected by the US to advise
American administrators.
-
- "To be kind, it is unworkable. Either reason will
prevail, or time will demonstrate to the authors [of the US plan] the error
of their ways," says Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi.
"I really shudder to think."
-
- A US civilian coordinator, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner,
is already presiding over committees of US bureaucrats preparing to address
humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and civil administration - all part
of a planning effort authorized by President Bush on Jan. 20. General Franks
retains overall responsibility for a war and its aftermath.
-
- Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday that "Central [Iraqi] government
ministries could remain in place and perform the key functions of government
after the vetting of the top personnel to remove any who might be tainted
with the crimes and excesses of the current regime."
-
- This formula sounds to some Iraqi opposition leaders
as though much of Iraq's existing power structure, dominated by Hussein's
ruling Baath Party, will maintain its role. "Power is being handed,
essentially on a platter, to the second echelon of the Baath Party and
the [Iraqi] Army officer corps," says Kanan Makiya, an adviser to
Mr. Chalabi who discussed postwar Iraq with President Bush on Jan. 10.
"It's going to have the opposite effect to what US wants it to have,"
he adds.
-
- The US plan also imagines, in Feith's words, a "Constitutional
commission ... to draft a new Constitution and submit it to the Iraqi people
for ratification."
-
- Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy to the Iraqi opposition,
briefed leaders of three groups opposed to Hussein about the plan in Ankara,
Turkey, last week. In interviews here, Chalabi and Mr. Makiya said they
were unable to attend because the US gave them just 18 hours' notice, but
added that they have been told about the discussions from opposition figures
who participated.
-
- Mr. Khalilzad met with the two Kurdish parties - the
Kurdistan Democratic Party and the PUK - that administer areas of northern
Iraq outside Hussein's control. A leader of the Iran-backed Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which represents major elements
of the country's Shiite community, also took part in the Ankara meetings.
-
- Both Kurds and Shiites rebelled unsuccessfully against
Hussein after the Gulf war, thinking the US would defend them. Instead
the US stood back as Hussein crushed the uprisings. But for more than a
decade US and British warplanes have kept Iraqi planes from flying over
both areas, a limitation that has offered Kurds, in northern Iraq, and
Shiites, in the south, some protection from Hussein's military.
-
- The Kurds and Shiites are important to the US in part
because both have men under arms. But they are also groups that may pose
complexities.
-
- Long disenfranchised by Hussein, despite their majority
status, the Shiites want to see a more just distribution of power in a
new Iraq. This desire makes the US wary, since SCIRI, the main Shiite group,
is supported by Iran's theocratic rulers. The US would like Iran's role
in Iraq kept to a minimum.
-
- Makiya asserts that installing a US military ruler "is
certified, guaranteed to make [SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim]
a major player in Iraq because he's gong to run in ... elections, along
with the rest of the opposition, on an anti-occupation platform."
-
- The Kurds want at least to preserve the de facto autonomy
they have gained over the past decade, and have insisted that the new Iraq
adopt a federal system of government. But federalism makes Turkey anxious,
on the theory that an autonomous Kurdish area in a federal Iraq might inspire
Turkey's Kurds to seek something similar. The Turks have relentlessly suppressed
Kurdish nationalism.
-
- At the same time, Turkish cooperation is an important
feature of US war planning, which may explain why US officials "told
the Kurds to be very, very careful and very realistic about federalism,"
in Chalabi's rendition of events in Ankara.
-
- Rather than allying itself with Iraq's opposition, an
ambitious and fractious collection of exiles and dissidents, the US seems
to be gambling that large segments of the Iraqi establishment will cooperate
in a American-led effort to rehabilitate the country and reform its political
system. Makiya says with evident disappointment that years of collaborative
effort with US officials - including US funding, an act of Congress promoting
Iraq's "liberation," and a "democratic principles working
group on Iraq" backed by the State Department - are "all down
the drain."
-
- But the US approach may increase the comfort level of
some US friends in the Arab world, who preside over autocratic regimes
and who may be uneasy with an effort to create a Western-style democracy
in their midst.
-
- "What concerns us a lot," Chalabi says, "is
the perception of the Arab governments and their friends in Washington
about the effect Iraq could have by its example on the future of the Arab
world."
-
- http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0213/p01s03-woiq.html
|
