Conflict In Iraq- Concern and Consequences

In few conflicts has intelligence played such a crucial role as it did in the run-up to the Iraq war. In dealing with a regime as brutal and isolated as that of Saddam Hussein, the West could draw on few open sources of information. National statistics were either falsified or missing. Publications were subject to rigorous censorship. Iraqis, especially the professional classes, were afraid to speak out. And Saddam Hussein had perfected strategies of deception to mask his arsenal and his intentions. Inevitably, the West had to rely on satellites, defectors and conjecture.

Foreign intelligence is inherently murky and flawed. How reliable is the information local agents are supplying? Has the defector really defected; or is he or she a double agent? During the Cold War, disputes raged about how many missiles the Soviet Union could field and was building. The Soviet economy was judged to be much stronger than it actually was.

For months the Bush administration treated the world to a series of lurid claims about the military threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. By far the most expansive description of the threat was made by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his speech before the U.N. Security Council on February 5. In a presentation replete with satellite photos and artists’ conceptions, Powell argued that Iraq posed an ominous and urgent threat.

In designating the United States and Britain as occupying powers in Iraq, the U.S.-sponsored resolution for the UN Security Council acknowledges American and British responsibility for running the country. The resolution is consistent with the Bush administration's approach to multilateralism. It is prepared to work with the United Nations when cooperation lends legitimacy or advances U.S. interests. The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, should not take on too expansive a role.

The US and Britain have realised that their occupation of Iraq will have a better image if it has the approval of the UN Security Council to give it legitimacy. Accordingly they have introduced a revised draft resolution that would endorse their occupation "until an internationally recognised, representative government is established by the people of Iraq and assumes its responsibilities".

Last Wednesday two top U.S. generals in Iraq held a news conference in Baghdad's half-wrecked convention center. The subject was deteriorating security and the two officers, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan and Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, were pummeled by the press about why they weren't doing more to make Baghdad safer. It was 102 degrees, and in the middle of the session all the lights went out. The two generals looked like they were enjoying this encounter about as much as a root canal. At one point General Blount, explaining why his men didn't just shoot looters, said: "They were not threatening soldiers. They were just stealing something."

They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq.

American troops took over bases in Germany and Japan at the end of World War II and are still there in force. The same goes for South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War and the Middle East since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Pentagon continually evaluates where ships, aircraft and soldiers are needed, but the relatively easy victory over Iraq makes this a fine time to take another look at staffing — especially in the Middle East.

Editorial

A certain unease is developing in US and UK government circles about their failure, so far, to uncover the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they so insistently charged the Saddam Hussein regime with possessing before the war. It is ironic that the US should be asking for more time to find Iraq's sinister arsenals, when it was earlier so impatient about the efforts of Hans Blix and his United Nations inspectors to do the same.

An important part of the second phase of the war in Iraq is now moving into full gear; namely, the battle for reconstruction and redevelopment contracts. And the early stages of this battle could become a political hot potato for the Bush administration, given that it already appears to be enmeshed in charges of political cronyism and insider connections; a sort of Enron in Babylon, one might say.

While about 100 Iraqi leaders met under U.S. auspices near Nasiriyah to talk about a democratic future for their country, thousands more were on the streets protesting the meeting, saying they objected equally to Saddam Hussein and to U.S. control over Iraq.

Symbolism is often as important as promises in winning attention and support. The decision by Iraqi opposition leaders to hold their first meeting with American officials in Ur, one of the oldest cities in the world and the birthplace of Abraham, a patriarch revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, was intended to send a message to all Iraq and beyond.

The occupation of Iraq by the United States and Britain will only add to the murk in the Middle East. There was no more talk about the alleged Iraq's mass-destruction weapons, nor about liberating the Iraqi people. The talk is now mainly about oil and contracts to rebuild the country after it has been damaged by US and British missiles...

American broke Iraq. Now America owns Iraq and the primary responsibility for normalizing it.

With the Iraqi war appearing to have moved into its final stages, the question that now raises its ugly head is: Who is next? Which countries figure on the list of states George Bush believes need decapitating.

President Bush and his advisers say they want democracy in Iraq. They also want a pro-Western Iraqi government, one that will be responsive to U.S. political, security and economic interests. What if those two goals turn out not to be compatible in the near term?

As each day passes without chemical or biological weapons being found in Iraq, questions increase. In Washington, battle lines are already being drawn about what the success or failure to find such weapons in Iraq might mean for the legitimacy of the war itself.

The weekend before the war started, President Bush signed on to a statement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledging to "work in close partnership with international institutions, including the United Nations," in postwar Iraq and to seek a Security Council resolution to "endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration." Yet a secretive Pentagon-led group is already far advanced in plans to unilaterally install a postwar regime dominated by Americans and Iraqi exiles -- one that would effectively exclude not only the United Nations but also European and Middle Eastern allies whose support will be essential to stabilizing the country.

Tony Blair acknowledged yesterday that there are disagreements between Britain and the US over postwar Iraq. Before the war started, admissions of this kind were a no-go area. But there will be more such talk when Colin Powell sits down with his EU and Nato opposite numbers in Brussels today to discuss the issue.

American forces maintained their offensive across southern Iraq yesterday, closing in on Najaf, but found themselves placed on the defensive after the death of several apparently unarmed civilians at checkpoints.

This week, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak warned that the war against Iraq would create "a hundred Bin Ladens"; so bitter are Arabs and Muslims about the US and UK over Iraq. Others made the same prediction even before the invasion started.

The recent U.S. allegations that Syria and Russian firms have sold military equipment such as night vision goggles and anti-tank missiles to Iraq are, as Yogi Berra supposedly put it, "déja...vu all over again."

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The Bush administration had envisioned a different kind of invasion in Iraq, one that would flood the Arab world with pictures of American soldiers feeding hungry people and giving medical attention to sick children. Instead, billions around the globe are seeing and hearing reports that women and children were gunned down yesterday while riding in a civilian van at an American checkpoint.

The American and British Administration’s drive to war is based on an Iraq-Niger uranium sale dossier. When the dossier was handed over to the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) on March 7, it was refuted and called a blatant forgery. Any government or intelligence sources from Washington or London have not disputed Dr. ElBaradei’s disclosure.

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