Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: A New Course in Iraq

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0412iraq.html
A New Course in Iraq
By Erik Leaver | December 10, 2004 
Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) 
Foreign Policy In Focus 
www.fpif.org
 
 
 As many members of Congress and President George W. Bush’s
administration argue that it’s unacceptable to leave Iraq as a failed
state, it becomes clearer every day that U.S. operations and policies
are fueling violence and instability. It’s time for the government to
directly confront the question of how to fulfill U.S. obligations
under international law, restore basic security, and responsibly
withdraw U.S. forces.
Central to this point, Washington must not simply abandon the Iraqi
people to the chaos it has created. But the U.S. needs to accept the
fact that continued military occupation by the U.S. will only cause
more casualties, foster division in the country, and keep
reconstruction from advancing.
In the six months since the transition to Iraqi sovereignty officially
got underway on June 28, 2004, the human cost of the U.S. occupation
of that country has risen dramatically. U.S. 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 U.S.-led invasion of
that country. And soaring rates of disease and a crippled health
system are threatening to kill more than have died in the aftermath of
the war.
This dynamic is unlikely to change in the near term. The Bush
administration’s stated two-pronged plan of staging elections and
putting Iraqis in charge of their own security is clearly the right
objective. But on the ground this is failing for a variety of reasons.
Iraqi elections held under U.S. military occupation and under election
rules written by the U.S will lack legitimacy both inside and outside
Iraq. Furthermore, the lack of UN election experts on the ground,
coupled with continued fighting, and the fact that any polling
location guarded by U.S. troops will be a military target, means free
and fair elections can’t take place as scheduled in January.
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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. troops and end offensive operations: As a first step
to withdrawal, the U.S. 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
U.S. 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 U.S. forces.
2) Declare that the U.S. 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 U.S. troops from Iraq. By making this statement through a
congressional resolution, the U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. spending for the Iraq War: To date the
U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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
U.S. should cancel previously awarded contracts to companies whose
workforces don’t have a majority of Iraqis.
The current U.S. 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.
Erik Leaver is the policy outreach director for the Foreign Policy In
Focus (
http://www.fpif.org/
) project at the Institute for Policy
Studies (
http://www.ips-dc.org/
). 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."
 

 
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