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[casi] News, 02-09/04/03 (8)



News, 02-09/04/03 (8)

ASSUMING THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

*  Pentagon squares off against Powell, Europe
*  Iraqis fear Americans may run country after war
*  UN spells out limits of US post-conflict rights
*  Empires don't go home
*  The Bush administration's dangerous colonial adventure
*  Can U.S. Rebuild Iraq Without Baathists?
*  U.S. may rely on Baathists after war
*  Lead role for US, UK in post-war Iraq reaffirmed
*  Former general to head post-war administration
*  US begins the process of 'regime change'
*  UK to appoint deputy for interim authority
*  US and UK focus on legitimacy of interim rule


ASSUMING THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED03Ak06.html

*  PENTAGON SQUARES OFF AGAINST POWELL, EUROPE
by Jim Lobe
Asia Times, from Inter Press Service, 3rd April

WASHINGTON - Even as United States troops grind their way toward Baghdad,
the administration of President George W Bush remains at odds over its
post-war plans to occupy Iraq. The main issue - who will be in charge of the
occupation - pits the Pentagon against the State Department and its allies
in Europe, notably British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Pentagon appears determined to maintain as much power for itself and its
favorites in the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC) as possible, while
the State Department, backed by the intelligence community and Blair, is
arguing for major roles for other US allies, the United Nations and other
opposition figures.

The Pentagon recently vetoed as many as eight current and former State
Department officials for key posts in the occupation administration,
according to the Washington Post. Excluded were a number of former
ambassadors and high-level foreign service officers with expertise in the
Arab world.

Some sources said that they were vetoed because they were "run-of-the-mill"
and not "doers", while others revealed that they were opposed by Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, who has supported Israel's
Likud Party in the past and is said to consider some candidates to be too
pro-Arab, a bias that neo-conservatives believe is endemic to the State
Department's Near East bureau. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld has also
reportedly insisted that all relief and aid work come under the jurisdiction
of retired army general Jay Garner, the coordinator of the Pentagon's office
of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, who will report directly to
the chief of the US Central Command, General Tommy Franks.

Secretary of State Colin Powell argued in a letter to Rumsfeld last week
that US government relief work should be headed by the US Agency for
International Development, which reports to the State Department. He
reportedly said that international agencies and voluntary relief groups were
unlikely to accept an arrangement in which they reported to the military.
The aid groups themselves have called for the United Nations to assume
control of relief operations.

But the Pentagon rejects that scheme. In testimony late last week, Feith
insisted that as long as the situation on the ground is insecure, the
military has to remain in control. "If things go well, we will be able to
hand things over to the Iraqis so there would be no need for UN
participation," he said.

In addition to being opposed by Powell and the relief groups, the Pentagon's
anti-UN position has come under fire from Blair and the European Union,
which has long called for a major role for the world body in any relief and
reconstruction effort, similar to that it assumed in Afghanistan after the
ouster of the Taliban. "We believe that the UN must continue to play a
central role during and after the crisis," EU leaders said last week.
France, in particular, has threatened to veto any Security Council
resolution that subordinates the UN to a US occupation authority.

The breach between the Pentagon on the one hand and Powell, the aid groups
and the Europeans on the other, has become so serious that 29 prominent
Democrats, neo conservatives and right-wing Republicans published a joint
letter this week that they proposed as the basis for an acceptable
compromise.

Signed by analysts and former policy makers from the mainstream Brookings
Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations and from right-wing think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution,
the letter called for Washington to "seek passage of a Security Council
resolution that endorses the establishment of a civilian administration in
Iraq, authorizes the participation of UN relief and reconstruction agencies,
[and] welcomes the deployment of a security stabilization force by NATO
allies".

"While some seem determined to create an ever deeper divide between the
United States and Europe, and others seem indifferent to the long term
survival of the trans-Atlantic partnership," the letter stated in what some
sources called an implicit rebuke to both Rumsfeld and French President
Jacques Chirac, "we believe it is essential, even in the midst of war, to
begin building a new era of trans-Atlantic cooperation".

"To my mind, it's a statement of opposition to the 'scorched earth' sense we
have crossed the Rubicon and we can do everything by ourselves," said one
right-wing signer, Tod Lindberg of the Hoover Institution.

"The message is: 1) The US doesn't need to go it alone; and 2) That it
can't," said Lee Feinstein, another signer and former Bill Clinton official
currently with the Council on Foreign Relations.

While the administration may indeed opt for such a solution, it appears
clear for now that the Pentagon is still insisting on complete control of
the occupation.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the Defense Department was
insisting on a prominent role for former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
director R James Woolsey, a protege of the controversial former chairman of
Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB), Richard Perle, who has also been one
of the most outspoken champions of radical change throughout the Arab Middle
East.

Woolsey, who also helped lead the media campaign to link Iraq to al-Qaeda
and who has blamed Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi establishment for anti-US
sentiment in the region, was reportedly being promoted by Feith as the
occupation's minister of information, but other officials thought that his
previous link to the CIA might reduce his credibility in that post. Woolsey
has also been one of the strongest Washington supporters of the INC, and its
controversial leader Ahmed Chalabi.

Both Woolsey and Garner have been associated with the Jewish Institute of
National Security Affairs (JINSA), which promotes military and strategic
ties between the US and Israel. Woolsey serves on the board of advisers of
JINSA, as well as the Pentagon's DPB, and several other neo-conservative
groups, including Americans for Victory Over Terrorism.

Garner, who was also promoted by Feith and Perle as the best candidate for
administering the occupation, helped the humanitarian effort to save
hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq in 1991. He
visited Israel as a guest of JINSA in 1998 and in October 2000 was one of 26
US military leaders to sign a staunchly pro-Israel statement released by
JINSA that condemned the escalating Palestinian intifada.


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313411887&p=1045511312785

*  IRAQIS FEAR AMERICANS MAY RUN COUNTRY AFTER WAR
by Roula Khalaf in London and James Harding in Washington
Financial Times, 3rd April

The suggestion that prominent American figures will take part in the running
of postwar Iraq has alarmed many Iraqi exiles, as well as European and Arab
officials.

Among the more bizarre elements of US plans is the suggestion that James
Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, should be
considered for the top job in the administration of Iraq.

Although the White House has apparently overruled a Pentagon suggestion that
Mr Woolsey be assigned to the ministry of information, he is said to still
be under consideration for other posts.

Randy Scheunemann, executive director of the committee for the liberation of
Iraq - a powerful Washington group in which Mr Woolsey is a member of the
advisory board - says the former head of the CIA is being looked at for a
number of positions. "Jim would be a huge asset in many areas. He has a very
clear vision of how to build a democratic society in the aftermath," says Mr
Scheunemann.

Notwithstanding the talents of Mr Woolsey, the concern is that appointing US
figures to oversee the post-Saddam Hussein government will reinforce
perceptions of a neo-colonial American attitude and further undermine the US
stated aim of "liberating" Iraqis.

"It makes no sense for the US to involve itself in details," argues Adnan
Pachachi, the former Iraqi foreign minister who has been lobbying for the UN
to oversee the postwar transition. "It's not what Iraqis want and what the
international community wants, it's not even what the US's allies want."

Within the administration, there is a wider argument raging over the shape
of a future Iraqi government.

US plans call for a military administration headed by General Tommy Franks,
head of the US Central Command, or a deputy, and a form of civil
administration directed by Jay Garner, a retired general who is now head of
the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian assistance.

The expectation is that Mr Garner will oversee the civilian administration
and attach US officials to various ministries, then gradually pass over
control to an Iraqi administration.

Imad Dia, an exiled Iraqi from Michigan, is now running the Iraq
Reconstruction and Development Council, which comes under Mr Garner's
authority. This entity has been recruiting Iraqis and training them to
assist in a future administration.

But disagreements have emerged between the State Department and the
Pentagon, stretching from the minutiae of personnel appointments in postwar
plans to the defining question of the Bush administration's approach to
multilateralism and the role of the United Nations.

One of the most serious differences between the Pentagon and the State
Department is over the role of the exiled opposition, particularly the Iraqi
National Congress, headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an ex-banker.

People familiar with the debate say the Pentagon sees a far greater role for
the INC than the State Department, which views Mr Chalabi with suspicion and
questions whether he has any backing inside Iraq.

Some experts and former US officials blame the INC for raising expectations
in Washington that Iraqis, particularly the southern Shia population, would
celebrate the arrival of US troops - a jubilation yet to be seen.

"It's the INC that has always told the US that there would not be any
significant resistance and that people would greet the US with flowers,"
says Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the UK's University of Warwick.

Mr Chalabi has appeared to distance himself from the US by forging closer
ties with Iran in recent months. He has also criticised the US failure to
involve opposition groups in the military campaign, blaming this for the
ambivalent reaction seen by Iraqis in the south. But diplomats say the INC
remains the Pentagon's favourite group to help run Iraq.

The other main groups are the two Kurdish parties based in northern Iraq and
Sciri, the Iranian-backed shia group.

"It would not surprise me if minions at the State Department were trying to
block everybody close to the Iraqi democrats from playing a role in
post-Saddam Iraq because many don't support democracy in Iraq," charges Mr
Scheunemann, whose committee supports the INC. "The enemies of the INC are
truly shameless in their argument."

The emerging difference of opinion between the State Department and the
Pentagon over the Iraqi appointees - not to mention the proposed US names -
for the next Iraqi administration is being echoed in a debate inside the
White House.

Administration officials have recently tempered their public enthusiasm for
Iraqi exiles, emphasising the role that Iraqis in the country will play in
constructing the next government.

The White House has been stressing that the next leadership will come from
inside Iraq: "The interim Iraqi authority is to be a group made up both of
external opposition, people who have worked on behalf of the Iraqi people on
the outside, but also with heavy representation of people who are on the
ground in the country." Additional reporting by Victor Mallet in Kuwait and
Christopher Adams in London


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313453147&p=1031119383196

*  UN SPELLS OUT LIMITS OF US POST-CONFLICT RIGHTS
by Mark Turner at the United Nations
Financial Times, 3rd April

Mark Malloch Brown, head of the United Nations Development Programme, said
on Thursday the US would have little choice but to return to the UN in
establishing a post conflict Iraq administration, stressing it had no
international right to take over Iraq's oil industry, and warning that
rebuilding costs would far exceed current oil revenues.

"Under the Geneva Conventions, [the occupying power is] only able to deal
with day to day administration: you are not able to change the constitution,
or make legal commitments going ahead many years," said Mr Malloch Brown.

"Sorting this out in a legally acceptable way drives you back to that little
stuffy table [at the Security Council]: all roads lead you back to that," he
said.

His remarks were the closest a senior UN official has come to a rhetorical
broadside against US thinking on Iraq, and were an expression of frustration
at the damage being done to economic and political development across the
planet.

Peppering his remarks with caveats, but growing stronger as he warmed to the
theme, Mr Malloch Brown warned of deep disquiet at the damage being done to
the millennial development agenda of halving world poverty by 2015, as fuel
prices went up, and tourism and investment fell. "All of that has at best
been stalled; at most it could be reversed," he said.

While the UN was not seeking a role in Iraq - not least because half the
world was still looking to it to "stop the conflict" - Mr Malloch Brown said
political realities meant it was almost certain that the Security Council
would come back together and build a common approach.

He warned of a scenario where "large parts of the country are disputed,
there is a high level of intercommunal violence, where the US will not have
any access". While Jay Garner, the US retired general expected to take over
Iraq's administration, was "highly competent", the viability of unilateral
plans had to be questioned.

"For every reason, everyone is going to want to be back round that table",
but "it's going to take some time for everyone to recognise the incentives."


http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id=F947778B-6E4F-479A-995A
74C63526C5B6

*  EMPIRES DON'T GO HOME
 by Andrew Coyne
National Post, 4th April

As every schoolchild knows, this month marks the 186th anniversary of the
signing of the Rush-Bagot Treaty, an event of monumental importance to every
Canadian as it is all that stands between us and an American invasion. Those
of you no longer of school age will nonetheless instantly recall that the
treaty demilitarized the Canada-U.S. border after the War of 1812: each side
was limited to no more than four warships on the Great Lakes, none to exceed
100 tons. And so it remains to this day, an inspiring example of the power
of international law to restrain American imperialism and the sole guarantee
of our security from American attack.

I recite all this stale history for the benefit of Stephanie Nolen, The
Globe and Mail's correspondent among the Kurds in northern Iraq. Ms. Nolen
reports on having recently had the unusual experience of having to defend
her country from criticism by the locals, for having opted out of the
American-led war against Iraq. (Apparently, in that part of the world,
people actually welcome an American invasion.) She made a game try at it.
"The people of Canada," she began, "understand that Saddam is a dictator,
and that the Kurdish people, like many other Iraqis, have suffered terribly
under his regime."

But. But "what we object to is unilateral action by the United States. We
believe that if the Americans are allowed to decide today that Mr. Hussein
must go, they may decide next week that it should be the leader of another
country -- perhaps it will be Canada who annoys them, because we will not
give them cheap access to our forests or our water." Stephanie, Stephanie.
Have you forgotten? It could not happen. We have a treaty.

But Ms. Nolen is far from alone. Probe a little beneath the surface of any
critique of the war, and you will find the same anxiety: that this is just
the start, that America has let slip all civilized restraint, at last daring
to assert what previously it had only dreamed of -- empire. Rick Salutin,
also writing in the Globe, sees the liberation of Iraq as "the first in a
limitless chain of assertions of U.S. power." The Independent newspaper
wonders whether the war has "a sinister, wider purpose, warning other rogue
states, and perhaps other states, too, that this is what they can expect if
they trouble the world's only superpower?" (Emphasis added.)

The notion that this conflict heralds the arrival of the American Empire is
by now a commonplace. Even America's friends, such as Niall Ferguson or
Michael Ignatieff, urge it to embrace the title. It is, they say, an "empire
in denial." Some on the American right have taken them up on it, if only for
the shock value. Max Boot, fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
likens it to gays who embrace the "queer" label. Aren't we naughty?

No, just silly. An empire is an explicit scheme of territorial
aggrandizement, born of military conquest and maintained by force of arms.
The conquered territory is wholly absorbed within the legal and
administrative structure of the imperial power. Most important, this
arrangement is permanent. Empires don't go home.

There is no comparison with what the Americans are attempting in Iraq, or
even the more far-reaching ambitions of the administration hawks for
reshaping the Middle East. At most, they hope to displace the rulers of a
small number of dictatorships that, like Iraq, have been waging a
low-intensity war upon the United States and its citizens for many years --
a situation American governments of both parties have put with for far too
long, and which no American government of either party would accept after
Sept. 11.

In the case of Iraq, this new assertiveness has taken the form of a
willingness to go to war (though just barely: say what you will about Colin
Powell, Tony Blair and the United Nations, but without them George W. Bush
would never have been able to win the support of a majority of the American
people for war). But no one sane believes that the Americans intend to
permanently annex these territories, as the 51st states and beyond.

"Empire" may be useful shorthand for a situation of unrivalled American
power, together with a willingness to use it. But that's not, in fact, what
the word means. Rome was an empire. America, whatever anyone says, is not
Rome.

In most respects, America's power has nothing to do with military might. It
is found in the richness of its economy, the vigour of its intellectual
life, the appeal of its culture. It also wields military power, of course,
on a scale that dwarfs any rival. But it is difficult to see how anyone
could seriously view this as a threat -- anyone that is, that does not wish
it ill. One has only to look, in support, at how that power has actually
been used. I have mentioned before that the United States is the only
country ever to ask the world's permission to use its own forces: in Korea
in 1950, and again in 1991, in Kuwait. But it is worth repeating the reasons
it was deployed in both cases: to defend other countries from being annexed
by bestial dictatorships; to halt the growth of other empires, not to embark
upon its own.

Well, that's two examples. Big deal. But the pattern has been repeated again
and again and again. Freedom House, the human rights group that rates the
democratic and liberal credentials of states around the world, lists 85
countries as "free." (Another 60 are classed as "partly free.") Of these, by
my count more than 30 owe their freedom directly to American military power.
There are the countries liberated from totalitarian rule in the Second World
War, and sheltered from it ever since: France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Norway, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Germany, Italy and Japan. There are the
countries of Eastern Europe, who would still be behind the Iron Curtain had
the United States not first contained the Soviet Union, and ultimately
outlasted it: Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak republics, a dozen or
more in all. There are Taiwan and Israel, lonely outposts of freedom who
wouldn't last a minute without American support. And there are the countries
in the United States' own backyard: the Dominican Republic, saved from a
communist takeover in 1965; Grenada, which was threatened with the same in
1983; Panama, which was freed from the narcocrat Noriega in 1989. In every
case, as soon as the troops were done, they came home.

I realize that American power has been used to less benign ends. Just as the
West made parley with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis, so the United States
acquired some unpleasant allies in the darkest days of the Cold War, a
rogue's gallery of clients that included Saddam himself. But that was
decades ago. And whatever blemishes there may be on the U.S. record, it is
incontestable that it has been on balance a force for freedom.

Empire? The last permanent addition to American territory by force of arms
was in the Spanish-American War, more than a century ago. Empires don't go
home.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/04_04_03_b.asp

*  THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DANGEROUS COLONIAL ADVENTURE
by Patrick Seale
Lebanon Daily Star, 4th April

The message from Washington and London is that the war in Iraq has entered a
"decisive phase." Allied forces at the gates of the Iraqi capital are said
to be engaging Saddam Hussein's elite troops in fierce combat. What
conclusions can one draw?

‹ First, the coalition's political and military leaders appear to be under
great strain, not only in Washington and London, but also in Madrid. They
are losing ground to their domestic opponents. Rows are breaking out, such
as the widely reported clash over strategy between US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, the US military commander.
American and British leaders must now heed the dictum of Field Marshal Von
Moltke, chief of the Prussian General Staff and victor of the 1870-71 war
against France. "No military plan," he said, "survives the first contact
with the enemy".

Pressures to bring the war - and the Iraqi regime - to a quick end are now
so intense that General Franks is not even waiting for the 4th Infantry
Division to join the battle, although it is probably the best mechanized
division in the US Army. Having been rerouted from Turkey, its troops have
only just started arriving in Kuwait, and will not be ready to fight for
another two or three weeks. Yet, in the desperate hope of a quick victory,
the US is pressing ahead with the attack on Baghdad. There is clearly
immense anger, frustration and impatience at Iraq's continued resistance to
the invasion. Arabs were not meant to behave like this! They should have
surrendered or run away! In its arrogant expectation of a decisive outcome,
America may once again have created mirages in the sand.

‹ Second, the US is adjusting its military means to cope with the new
situation. Reinforcements are being flown in and greater firepower - giant
bunker-busting munitions and carpet bombing by B-52s - is being used to
attempt to destroy Iraq's Republican Guard divisions defending the capital.
As a direct consequence of the new strategy, the toll of Iraqi civilian
casualties is rising rapidly. The trumpeted "concern" to avoid civilian
deaths is now being abandoned by a desperate United States.

‹ Third, anxious to isolate the Iraqi battlefield and deny the Iraqis any
help from outside, the US has issued severe threats to Syria and Iran not to
intervene. It is worried that weapons, supplies and volunteers might begin
to infiltrate across Iraq's porous frontiers and stiffen the resistance. But
Syria and Iran may have an interest in weakening the US forces as much as
they can so as not to be the next targets of an American attack. Secretary
of State Colin Powell's visit to Ankara suggests that the US is also
concerned to ensure that Turkey does not complicate the situation in
northern Iraq by moving against the Kurds as they harass Iraqi positions
around Kirkuk. Having fought with American special forces, as in this week's
campaign against the al-Ansar enclave, the Kurds will expect a post-war
political reward in the form of increased autonomy. This, above all, is what
worries the Turks.

‹ A fourth conclusion is that we are witnessing a clash between two military
doctrines. The US cannot afford to retreat but nor can it tolerate a long
war. Its declared objective is Saddam Hussein's unconditional surrender.
Hence its strategy is to blast Baghdad with overwhelming firepower and force
the regime to its knees. In contrast, Iraq's strategy is to bleed the
American bull (like a picador in a bull ring) and sap its morale by sucking
it into a long drawn-out urban guerrilla war. Saddam Hussein appears to have
prepared his forces for this sort of war by decentralizing army command and
control to the lowest level possible, by delegating responsibility for each
urban center to a trusted senior officer, and by supplying each town with
troops, weapons, fuel and food.

‹ A fifth broad conclusion is that, in spite of undoubted pressures and
internal strains, the mindset of the Bush administration remains so far
unchanged. The war we are witnessing is the application of the wrong
conclusions America drew from the attacks of Sept. 11. With its ideology
shaped by right-wing think tanks and pro-Israeli lobbyists, the Bush
administration refused even to consider that America had been attacked
because of its biased and mistaken policies in the Arab and Muslim world.
Instead it was persuaded that the "roots of terror" lay in the "failed,"
"sick" and "corrupt" societies of the Middle East. It followed that it was
necessary to change these regimes and reform these societies. Hence the Iraq
war as a first step to the "remodeling" of the entire region!

What is to happen in Iraq after the war? As both the Pentagon and Colin
Powell have made clear, the United States wants "dominant control" over a
post-Saddam Iraq. It appears to be planning direct rule, somewhat on the
model of British colonial rule in Egypt after the 1882 occupation. The civil
administration of Iraq, as well as humanitarian assistance and
reconstruction, will be the responsibility of retired Lieutenant General Jay
Garner, a man notorious for his arms dealing and his close personal ties
with Israel's Likudniks, acting as a sort of pro-consul on the model of Lord
Cromer in Egypt. Meanwhile, military affairs and security will be the
responsibility of General Franks' deputy in CENTCOM, Lieutenant General John
Abizaid (apparently on the strength of his knowledge of Arabic!) on the
model of Britain's Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.

Thus, two US generals, Garner and Abizaid, both strikingly ill-fit for the
job, will have the destiny of Iraq in their hands. Backed by US military
force, they will be assisted by a small army of American administrators to
run the various regions and "ministries." In a throwback to colonial rule,
the US even wants to take over the running of Iraq's oil industry, the
foundation of its economy, which has been run for decades by Iraqis and
employs 50,000 people. No role seems to be in consideration for US-backed
Iraqi opposition figures like Ahmad Chalabi or Kanan Makiya who, if they
make an appearance at all, will almost certainly be considered traitors and
Quislings by Iraqis.

The British view is quite different. Prime Minister Tony Blair is pressing
for a UN-sponsored conference of all Iraq's political groups. He wants the
UN, not the US, to play the leading role. Needing political cover, Blair has
other demands as well. He wants real progress toward a resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including a total freeze on Jewish settlements
and an effective monitoring mechanism. This is causing a crisis in
Anglo-Israeli relations. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has already
sent Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to Washington to undermine the British
position. Blair will soon discover that Sharon has more clout than himself
in the American capital. In Iraq, Blair does not want British troops,
already stretched to the limit, to be given policing duties in occupied
Iraq, where they would inevitably be seen as lackeys of a US colonial-type
administration. British opinion would rebel against any such thankless and
subordinate role.

But it is unlikely that Blair will get his way with Bush on any of these
counts. Indeed, the growing perception that Blair lacks real influence in
Washington is beginning to sap his position at home. He has split his own
Labor Party, damaged Britain's ties with France and Germany, and shown that
the "special relationship" with the United States is nothing but a one-way
street, with no rewards for Britain but only burdens. With such a lamentable
record, Blair's political future must surely be in doubt.

Bush's other ally, Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, is also facing domestic
problems and possible defeat at national elections in 2004. He was rash
enough to give his support to Bush against the wishes of the great majority
of Spaniards. Municipal elections in May are likely to confirm that his
conservative party has lost ground to its Socialist opponents, led by Jose
Luis Rodrigues Zabatero.

Led by Bush and a cabal of neoconservatives, the United States has embarked
on a colonial misadventure. It has always opposed the emergence of an Arab
power able to challenge its interests. But now we are witnessing a
qualitative change in US policy. The United States already has a military
presence in almost every Arab country, and exerts enormous influence
everywhere. Bush has gone further still. He is applying naked military force
against a major Arab country in pursuit of unchallenged hegemony. The coming
months are likely to prove the folly of his gamble.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2510213

*  CAN U.S. REBUILD IRAQ WITHOUT BAATHISTS?
by Paul Taylor
Reuters, 4th April

CAIRO: With U.S. troops rattling at the gates of Baghdad, leading experts
believe Washington may end up having to rely on former members of President
Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath party to run post-war Iraq.

The Bush administration has talked ambitiously of reshaping Iraq into a
democracy that would be a beacon to the Middle East after an initial period
of military rule.

But Arab and Western analysts say that seems unrealistic in a divided
country with no democratic tradition that has endured 34 years of
totalitarian rule built on fear, tribal and blood ties and patronage.

If the United States wants its troops to go home in the next five years, it
will have to limit purges to the highest echelons of the Iraqi power
structure and build an administration largely on the technocrats and
officials who served Saddam, they argue.

"Short-term pragmatic criteria on the part of the U.S. or coalition
occupying power may well create the temptation to rely on those who can
'deliver' at least cost to the center," Charles Tripp, a historian of Iraq
at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, wrote in the journal
Survival.

Drawing on Britain's colonial experience in Iraq in 1917-20, Tripp questions
the United States' stamina for a nation building project requiring long
engagement that could expose U.S. personnel to serious risk with no
certainty of success.

Iraqi exiles sponsored by the U.S. administration had long been abroad and
had little credibility and few contacts in the population, he argued.

"The Iraqis inside are the ones who can deliver the goods," he told Reuters,
forecasting that U.S. occupation forces "will let the Baathists reinvent
themselves."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seemed to hint as much on Thursday when he
appealed to Iraqi military officers not to fight to the end for a doomed
cause.

"For the senior leadership, there is no way out. Their fate has been sealed
by their actions," Rumsfeld told a news conference. "The same is not true
for the Iraqi armed forces. Iraqi officers and soldiers can still survive
and help to rebuild a free Iraq if they do the right thing."

The Baath Party, built on a pan-Arab nationalist and socialist ideology,
seized power in Baghdad in a coup in 1968 and Saddam assumed total control
in 1979.

Initially a tiny vanguard of a few hundred members, the party swelled to a
record 1.8 million members in 1990, the year Iraq invaded Kuwait, according
to Iraqi historian Faleh Jaber.

But membership slumped and the party's importance dwindled after 1991, when
many members either took part in a failed uprising against Saddam after the
Gulf War defeat or failed in his eyes to do enough to protect him.

>From then on, Saddam ruled through his immediate blood relatives, extended
family and Albu Nasir tribe, encouraging tribal, clan and informal networks
more important than the party or government structures, experts say.

The cult of Saddam's personality largely replaced Baathist ideology and a
"shadow state" exercised real power.

Estimates of the size of the ruling elite vary from some 30,000 to 500,000,
depending on which security forces and party officials are counted.

"It's almost impossible to weed all these people out. You'd have to go
through the state with a fine toothcomb," said Toby Dodge of Warwick
University. "I think the Americans will end up ruling through them,
accidentally or deliberately."

As with the Communist party in the former Soviet bloc, many Iraqis joined
the Baath party to advance their interests rather than out of conviction.

"People had to be in the party to get an education, jobs or housing," said
Judith Yaphe, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst on Iraq during the
1991 Gulf War who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington.

"You don't need to get rid of every Baathist," she said.

Former Communists converted to social democracy now govern several
ex-Communist central and east European states, and a former member of the
Soviet KGB intelligence service is today president of Russia.

U.S. officials have spoken of putting some Iraqi leaders on trial for
alleged crimes against humanity but it is not clear whether the Baath party
would be banned in post-Saddam Iraq.

Tripp said exiled Iraqi opposition leaders wanted a vast purge, arguing that
many thousands of people were involved in crimes during Saddam's rule,
including torture, killings, and using chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds
and Iranian soldiers.

"That might provoke violence, strip the Iraqi state of administrative
competence and lay a powder trail for violence," he said. (Additional
reporting by Alistair Lyon)


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/04/05/MN10864.
DTL

*  U.S. MAY RELY ON BAATHISTS AFTER WAR
by Matthew B. Stannard
San Francisco Chronicle, 5th April

U.S. and British forces may be pounding buildings belonging to the Arab
Baath Socialist Party and rounding up its members today, but the two
countries and the United Nations will probably be working side by side with
members of Saddam Hussein's party in the very near future, experts say.

Iraq's sole political party may be corrupt and violent, but it is also
running Iraq's essential infrastructure, according to a number of experts in
Iraq's history and politics. Any new government will probably have to pick
members of the party to work with, experts say -- and that won't be easy.

"I think this is an absolutely unprecedented, massive experiment in cultural
and political change, and I think it's anybody's guess as to how it's going
to turn out," said James Noyes, a research fellow at Stanford University's
Hoover Institution and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near
Eastern, African, and South Asian affairs.

Since coming to power in 1979, Hussein has used the party apparatus to exert
his control over Iraq, experts said, creating a vast network of spies and
placing kinsmen and party loyalists in crucial positions throughout society.

The nation's civil service boomed -- government employment increased from
just 14 percent of the work force in 1968 to more than 45 percent in 1987,
according to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG). Party
membership grew even faster, from just 150 or so members in 1968 to 500,000
a decade later and as many as 2 million in the 1980s.

As a result, the Iraqi bureaucracy -- which will still be needed to help
oversee the rebuilding of postwar Iraq -- is solidly packed with party
members.

Yet not all party members are equal, nor does membership always imply
support for the regime, experts said. They noted that many people have
joined the party simply to increase their chances of getting a good job or
an advanced education -- or because they had no choice.

"The great majority of those who joined the party have done so to put food
on the table," said Feisal Istrabadi, a Chicago lawyer and Iraqi activist
who has worked with the U.S. State Department on its future plans for Iraq.
"I would say the overwhelming number of those -- 90 percent or better --
joined not because of any ideological reason, but because a failure to join
when asked could result in something as benign as losing your job . . . to
as severe as losing your life."

In its report on the future of Iraq, the ICG estimated that the number of
Baath Party members fell to no more than 800,000 after the 1991 Gulf War, in
a country of 22 million. Of those, the report said, just 10 percent are
truly loyal to the regime.

But finding those core Baathists won't be easy, even with assistance from
nonparty members and the regime's own meticulous documentation.

"In Iraq, the most important Baathist member may be the janitor instead of
the leader of the English department," Istrabadi said. "The janitor may in
fact occupy a higher place in the Baathist hierarchy, and he may be able to
give orders to the head of the English department."

Cut too little out of the Baath Party, experts said, and you risk leaving
quiet loyalists who later could try to regain power. Cut too deeply,
however, and a new host of problems emerges.

"This is one of the world's worst regimes," said Daniel Byman, a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
"I would like to see the top echelon removed from public life in some way.
For the very top, war crime tribunals are valid and have value."

The State Department and Iraqi expatriate groups already have begun planning
for such trials, with planning assistance from South Africa's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.

Some experts said that cutting the Baath Party completely out of a post-
Hussein government would effectively take power from Iraq's Sunni Muslims,
the party's backbone, and hand it to the country's Shiites, Kurds,
Christians, Chaldeans, Turkomans and other groups. All those groups,
marginalized by Hussein, have their own histories of strife, and some of
them have links to powers outside Iraq that might not want to see a new
secular U.S.-backed government emerge in the Middle East.

"The role that the Baath Party has played is very similar to the role the
Communist Party played in Stalinist Russia: It used brute force . . . to
bring a kind of a unified Iraq out of these fragmented pieces," said Abbas
Milani, professor of history at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont
and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. "Unless people perceive
that there is still a center . . . you're going to have chaos."

While Baath members might ultimately have to be part of a postwar Iraq,
Milani is skeptical that it will be an easy integration.

"The Baath is so hated in society, and neighborhood by neighborhood, family
by family -- there are people who have suffered at the hand of these
people," he said. "It is going to be very difficult, in my opinion, to make
out of these guys a viable democratic force."

At a minimum, Milani and other experts said, it will take a long time to
pick apart the Baath Party and combine it with other elements into a new,
democratic country.

"This process potentially will take years," said Istrabadi. "(But) I'm
willing to let the trains run a little late if it means doing the vetting
process carefully and thoughtfully."


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=1821&version
=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258

*  LEAD ROLE FOR US, UK IN POST-WAR IRAQ REAFFIRMED
aljazeera.net, 6th April

Condoleeza Rice, national security adviser to US President George W. Bush
said the "coalition" will be playing the central role in post-war Iraq while
the United Nations' job is currently not under discussion.

"The coalition intends to have the leading role. Given what we have been
going through, what we are going through, it is no surprise that the
coalition should have the leading role," she told reporters.
Condoleeza Rice
 
"Rice's comments show that she wants to put an end to rumours or
speculations about the post-war administration in Iraq," Al Jazeera's
correspondent in Washington Thabet Bardissi said.
 
Russia, Germany and France - outspoken opponents of the war against Iraq -
have made clear they want to see the UN taking over after the conflict.
 
Differences between Europe and Washington over how and by whom Iraq will be
run emerged during talks in Brussels on Thursday.
 
Britain, Washington's closest ally and partner in the war, has repeatedly
said that Iraq will be governed by the Iraqis themselves - a position that
contradicted statements made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell last
month.
 
Powell said "we would not support essentially handing everything over to the
UN for someone designated by the UN to suddenly become in charge of the
whole operation." -
 
"Rice insisted the UN's role will be restricted to easing the suffering of
the Iraqi people and reconstruction efforts. It will have a supporting and
not controlling role," Bardissi said.


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=1867&version
=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258

*  FORMER GENERAL TO HEAD POST-WAR ADMINISTRATION
aljazeera.net, 6th April

The United States plans to install the first stages of a civil
administration to run post-war Iraq in the southern port of Umm Qasr within
days, a US official said on Saturday.
 
The official, who was quoted by Reuters and asked not to be named, said
member's of the Pentagon's office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian
Assistance (OHRA) are scheduled to begin operating in the port as early as
Tuesday.
 
Local Iraqis watch as members of 42 Commando Royal Marines patrol in Umm
Qasr in southern Iraq
OHRA has become the focus of international controversy, with Washington
facing criticism for assuming the leading role in immediate post-war Iraq
instead of the United Nations.
 
France and Germany, spearheading an anti-war movement in Europe, want the UN
to be involved from the on-set in an interim administration.
 
US President George W. Bush appointed retired US General Jay Garner to
head a temporary civil administration and the OHRA. 
 
Garner's role will be to "introduce a capitalist system where there's been
central-control socialism since the 1960s," said Ariel Cohen, a
foreign-policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
 
The US official said OHRA's operation in Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep water
port, will expand quickly and is expected to spread to other areas.
 
Garner's team will administer three regions, with retired General Buck
Walters in the south, retired General Bruce Moore in the north and former US
Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine in the central region.
 
The official declined to comment whether Iraqi-Americans would join the
first OHRA group working for Walters at Umm Qasr. He denied reports that
Washington would announce a post-war administration of 23 ministries. Some
reports have said each ministry would be headed by a US official and four
Iraqi advisors.
 
OHRA will be responsible for reconstructing what remains of Iraq and
installing a civil administration.
 
There are concerns that Washington would award all contracts to US companies
in the reconstruction effort.
 
On Friday, the House of Representatives passed a supplementary budget
amendment excluding France, Germany, Russia and Syria from taking part in
US-funded reconstruction bids in Iraq because of their opposition to the
US-led war.
 
"Basically, the Americans want to run the show by themselves," said Dr.
Joost Hiltermann, a researcher at the International Crisis Group. Contracts
will likely be awarded to countries' Washington believes "behaved properly,"
he added. 
 
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking recently on Abu Dhabi TV,
insisted Baghdad would decide which companies would receive reconstruction
contracts, denying accusations that all contracts would be awarded to
Washington. 
 
Splits have again resurfaced within the US administration of George W. Bush
over the role of the United Nations in a post-war Iraq, ahead of a key
emergency summit in Belfast next week.
 
Bush will hold talks with Blair on Monday and Tuesday, the second time the
two leaders meet in 10 days. The leaders are expected to cover a range of
issues including the Iraq war, the Palestinian-Israel crisis and Northern
Ireland.
 
The Bush-Blair talks is expected to hammer out an agreement over the role of
the UN in reconstruction and administration. 
 
US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleeza
Rice made conflicting statements over the world body's role, raising
speculation there were splits in the Bush cabinet.
 
Rice said a UN role was not currently under discussion while Powell said a
dialogue over the world body's function had started.
 
Rice implied the world body would not become involved in Iraq until after a
new government was established. But Powell, speaking on the same day, said,
"We are at the beginning of a process of dialogue to determine what the
appropriate role of the UN should be; the UN will be a partner in all of
this."
 
For his part, Blair recently said on Abu Dhabi TV that an Iraqi interim
administration would be endorsed by the UN.
 
Speaking to the Arabic television station Blair said, "Our aim is to move as
soon as possible to an interim authority run by Iraqis. This will pave the
way for a truly representative Iraqi government."


http://observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,930794,00.html

*  US BEGINS THE PROCESS OF 'REGIME CHANGE'
by Ed Vulliamy in New York and Kamal Ahmed
The Observer, 6th April

The US is ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the
new Iraq as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad,
officials said yesterday.

America's readiness to establish the first stages of a civil administration
to run post-war Iraq comes at lightning speed and constitutes a rebuff to
European ambitions to stall on the process until some kind of role for the
United Nations is agreed.

It was reported yesterday that the National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice has also ruled out any key role for the UN.

The decision to proceed with an embryonic government comes in response to
memoranda written by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week, urging
that the US begin to entrench its authority in areas under its control
before the war is over.

Pentagon officials told The Observer that the administration is determined
to impose the Rumsfeld plan and sees no use for a UN role, describing the
international body as 'irrelevant'.

The proposal is due to be discussed by George Bush and his closest security
officials when he returns from this week's Northern Ireland war council with
Tony Blair.

But according to US offi cials in Doha, elements of an embryonic new
government will be established in the southern port of Umm Qasr, taken by
coalition forces during the first days of the war.

It will be installed by the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance, under the former US army Lieutenant General Jay
Garner, and answerable to the Pentagon.

'What we are going to start trying to do, even before the fighting is over
in Iraq, is to move to the areas in Iraq that are relatively peaceful,
places like Umm Qasr, and to start moving [the office of reconstruction]
into Iraq,' the official said. 'It is a fair assessment to say that this is
the first step to set up a civil administration in Iraq.'

The decision is a rebuff to European diplomats who pleaded with US Secretary
of State Colin Powell on Thursday to allow for a UN role.

By brushing the UN aside at such an early stage, the move also places Tony
Blair - whose own preference is for a UN role - in a difficult situation
ahead of his meeting with Bush this week.

Rumsfeld presented two memoranda to the White House last week, urging the
President to begin setting up government institutions in areas under US
control. He said the new organs could install Iraqis returning from exile
under the tutelage of American civilians answerable to General Garner.

But his plan has been opposed even within the administration. Colin Powell
is known to favour a military government established after victory is
assured, prepared to nurture an Iraqi government centred around citizens
resident in Iraq, rather than exiles sponsored by neo-conservatives in the
Pentagon.

General Garner is already set to make his media debut in Kuwait tomorrow as
the man whom the US has named to be Iraq's temporary post-war civilian
administrator.

The US viceroy of the Southern region will be retired General Buck Walters;
one of three governors slated to minister the new Iraqi provinces.

The others are General Bruce Moore in the largely Kurdish north and former
U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine based in Baghdad, governing the
central region.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,931986,00.html

*  UK TO APPOINT DEPUTY FOR INTERIM AUTHORITY
by Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian, 8th April

Britain is planning to appoint a senior army officer to act as deputy to Jay
Garner, the former US general appointed by the Pentagon to head an interim
authority to control Iraq after the war.

Major General Tim Cross, who has been coordinating humanitarian aid to the
port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq, has been earmarked for the job, the
Guardian has learned.

Gen Cross is a logistics expert and has previously organised refugee camps
in Macedonia and Kosovo.

Officials from government agencies, including Clare Short's Department for
International Development, are also being lined up to act as deputies to
Americans in the Pentagon's Office for Restruction and Humanitarian
Assistance, Whitehall sources said.

However, they said the government is far from happy with the Pentagon's
appointments to the authority, which include a number of cronies of hawks in
the Bush administration, such as James Woolsey, former head of the CIA.

Ministers are concerned about the Pentagon's ambitions in Iraq and
Washington's antipathy towards giving the UN a role. The issue is on the
agenda of the Bush-Blair summit in Belfast.

Yesterday, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said he expected his
organisation to play an important role in rebuilding Iraq. He named
Rafeeuddin Ahmed, a Pakistani UN official, as his special adviser on Iraq.

The main Shia opposition and Kurdish groups this week dismissed the
Pentagon's plans and the decision to put Gen Garner in charge.

Further questions about the shape of the proposed interim authority were
raised yesterday when Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress,
an opposition group in exile, was reported to have turned up in the southern
Iraqi town of Nassiriya at the head of 700 fighters.

An INC statement on Sunday said they would take part in delivering
humanitarian aid and maintaining law and order.

Chalabi is a favourite of the Pentagon but is distrusted by the US state
department.


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313577116&p=1012571727159

*  US AND UK FOCUS ON LEGITIMACY OF INTERIM RULE
by Guy Dinmore in Washington, Mark Turner in New York and Roula Khalaf in
Kuwait City
Financial Times, 9th April

Discussions between the US and UK on defining the United Nations' role in
Iraq focus on how to obtain international legitimacy for the planned interim
government - and how to achieve a new UN resolution after alienating the
majority of Security Council members in the build-up to war.

The UN has repeatedly pointed out that the occupying powers have no right to
begin setting up an interim authority in Iraq and that any administration
installed by Washington would not be recognised without Security Council
endorsement. Otherwise, many nations would refuse to contribute to
reconstruction costs, or a future security force.

"They [the occupying powers] really have no rights under the Geneva
Conventions to transform the society or the polity or to exploit its
economic resources or anything of that sort," Shashi Tharoor, UN
under-secretary general, said on Tuesday.But he added that the UN did not
want the "poisoned chalice" of running Iraq either.

Colin Powell, secretary of state, said the US had teams working on a
resolution, and that a joint US-UK group was ensuring a common view.
Discussions had just started and the media had exaggerated differences
between London and Washington, he added.

Mr Powell insisted the coalition must have the final say in the transition
to putting in place a representative government - a process that opposition
Iraqis, as well as the US and UK, believe could take two years.

A meeting between US officials and representatives of opposition parties and
personalities is expected to take place in Iraq as early as next week.
Officials from the Iraqi National Congress, headed by ex-banker Ahmad
Chalabi, as well as Kurdish parties, were expected to attend. Adnan
Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister billed for a possible role in a
leadership council, will send his own representative.

Exiled opposition parties have complained that they are being excluded from
participation in the invasion and in US post-war plans.

Mr Chalabi, who is close to the Pentagon, appeared to have secured the most
prominent role in the opposition when soldiers belonging to his group
arrived in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya this week.

The move fuelled speculation that Mr Chalabi, who is not known to have any
popular base inside Iraq, was nonetheless being promoted for a top position.

But officials in the Iraqi opposition said the meeting was partly designed
to send the message that the US was not favouring the INC over other exiled
groups.

Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, will look for common ground on
reconstruction during his tour this week of France, the UK, Germany and
Russia. But those countries that opposed the war have no intention of
becoming a rubber-stamp.

Within the UN, there has been soul-searching over lessons learned from
post-conflict experiences, such as in Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor and
Bosnia.

Mark Malloch Brown, head of the UN Development Programme, said: "The UN
should never again take on responsibilities for which it doesn't have the
capacity, financial resources or political will.

"The secretary-general is extremely wary of being the default solution for
Iraq. We have had enough of governments pushing us into these roles, telling
us they'd be there throughout and within a year moving on. There is a real
caution about the UN taking on roles without a clear consensus."

No country disputes that the UN should play a humanitarian role, but recent
Security Council wrangles on even temporary amendments to the oil-for-food
programme demonstrated how quickly any issues become fraught.

Peter Galbraith, formerly the UN deputy administrator in East Timor, argues
that a UN role is essential. "One of the most successful things the UN does
is organise elections. The elections in East Timor were a lot better than
the US presidential election," he said.




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