SHOULD THE UN GO INTO IRAQ?

[jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The following article appears in the Sept. 7, 2003, email edition of the
Mid-Hudson Activist Newsletter, published in New Paltz, NY, by the
Mid-Hudson National People's Campaign/IAC, via jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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SHOULD THE UN GO INTO IRAQ?

By Jack A. Smith

The Bush administration is in a panic as its political, military and
economic house of cards in Iraq is beginning to collapse card by card.  

Nothing but an impending debacle that might subvert President George
Bush's reelection plans could cause the White House this week to
virtually beg a favorite object of derision ? the United Nations ? to
come to its aid with a major infusion of new troops and financial
support.

With such resources the administration evidently believes it can crush
the Iraqi resistance and proceed with plans to transform the country
into an American satellite. Much depends on whether the UN Security
Council agrees with the administration's draft resolution, which it may
not do because Washington so far insists that the entire military and
civilian operation be placed under U.S. leadership. The U.S. Central
Command will be in charge of a UN multinational military force and the
Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Paul Bremer, will remain in
control of civil developments.

With its troops stationed around the world, the Pentagon is running out
of the human resources required for the unexpectedly long occupation
that has become necessary to claim a final victory over Iraq.  At
present there are 140,000 U.S. soldiers in the country, augmented by
21,000 "coalition" forces (half from the UK), and another 40,000 GIs in
neighboring Kuwait.   

According to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S.
cannot sustain the occupation at this level for more than six more
months.  At best, "coalition" countries are expected to pledge another
15,000 troops during the next year.  It is estimated that perhaps
300,000 troops will be required to defeat the opposition to the U.S.
invasion.  Should the resistance intensify, especially if the Shi'ite
majority becomes activated, further troop supplements will be needed.

The Bush administration is perfectly capable of expanding the Armed
Forces several times their present size by resorting to conscription. 
This is not even being contemplated because a military draft for a war
of this type will inevitably  result in a major expansion of the peace
movement and substantial opposition to an unjust war within the military
itself, as it did in the Vietnam era.

Another reason the White House was forced to turn to the UN is economic.
Over the next several years, the effort to bring Iraq under U.S. control
is going to cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars. 
Just last week President acknowledged he is about to request another $70
billion ? more than twice the amount Congress anticipated ? to pay for
the burgeoning cost of the Iraqi adventure.

Given the already huge military budget (plus frequent additional
supplements for the war), an expected federal deficit next year of
nearly $500 billion, and President Bush's refusal to renounce his
multi-billion dollar giveaway tax cut to the rich, it's going to be
nearly impossible to fulfill Washington's objectives in Iraq without the
large amounts of cash potentially forthcoming if the UN agrees to
support the U.S. occupation.  In the 1991 war against Iraq, which the UN
backed, virtually the entire bill was paid by countries other than the
U.S.

Clearly, the Bush administration is turning to the UN in hopes that the
world organization will save its political hide from a developing
disaster in Iraq. The hubris-blinded, imperial-minded White House
?intent upon conquering crippled Iraq as a prelude to transforming the
entire Middle East into an obedient protectorate of the United States ?
appears to have gotten just about everything wrong in its planning
beyond the "shock and awe" invasion.  

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his neoconservative colleagues
in the Pentagon evidently were the architects of the go-it-alone
invasion and occupation approach that President Bush enthusiastically
accepted, while Secretary of State Colin Powell and some top military
leaders always preferred a more multilateral method of conquering Iraq,
preferably with UN backing.

A virtually prostrate Iraq, weakened by two wars, 13 years of sanctions
and convulsed by ethnic, religious and political tensions, was supposed
to be a pushover for history's richest and most powerful military
state.  In the Bush administration's scenario for war, the Iraqi masses
were expected to greet the invaders with bouquets of flowers; the Iraqi
army was supposed to defect to the American side; a puppet government,
selected in Washington before the war, was to be swiftly established; 
Iraq's oil wealth and the sale of national properties and industries to
foreign investors was quickly going to pay the costs of the invasion.

None of this happened.  Instead, the Bush administration finds itself on
the political, economic and military defensive just months after
quickmarching into Baghdad in a display of overwhelming military might.

The masses of Iraqi people ? including many who opposed the former
Ba'ath Party government of President Saddam Hussein ? are largely sullen
and outraged by the violation of their national independence and
sovereignty.  They want the U.S. occupation to end.  They want to
control their own economy and make their own decisions about whether or
not to sell state enterprises to foreign buyers.  And they want their
own government, not one imposed upon them from Washington, or the United
Nations for that matter.

The White House evidently didn't seriously consider the inevitability
that the Iraqi people would resist a foreign invasion, or mount a
guerrilla campaign that seems to be expanding by the day.  Not only are
an unexpected number of GIs being killed and wounded but the resistance
struggle is largely responsible for wrecking Bush administration plans
to finance its colonial venture.  Sabotage is vastly reducing
anticipated oil revenues ? and what foreign corporations are going to
invest multi-billions of dollars in forcibly de-nationalized properties
and in reconstruction efforts in a war zone?

The toll of dead and wounded GIs resulting from the guerrilla attacks is
the administration's biggest immediate political worry because if the
body bags come home with increasing regularity this could cost Bush his
reelection.  More U.S. lives have been taken in the months since the
president declared victory  than in the actual invasion.   The latest
official figures reveal that 339 coalition soldiers (including 287 from
the U.S.) have died since the war began ? low compared to the punishment
dealt the Iraqi people, but more than the American people may be
prepared to accept.

The total number of wounded U.S. soldiers is 1,450, including 306 GIs
with "noncombat" injuries.  The Washington Post reports that "thousands"
of other soldiers have been sent back to the U.S. because they "became
physically or mentally ill."  A considerably higher toll was provided by
Lt. Col. Allen DeLand, who is in charge of the airlift of wounded
soldiers to Andrews Air Force base in the U.S.  He told National Public
Radio last month that a few thousand wounded GIs checked in at Andrews. 

The last thing desired by the swaggering neoconservatives occupying the
upper strata of the Bush administration was to ask the UN for help.
Rumsfeld was well aware the occupation had become a fiasco by July, but
he and his right-wing cronies held out against seeking support from the
world organization because they opposed delegating a shard of U.S. power
to other countries. (Members of the so-called Coalition of the Willing
which supports the war, including the UK, don't share authority with the
White House decisionmakers; they receive other benefits for their
endeavors).

The Defense Department's war leaders are counting on another scheme to
reduce the GI toll:  destroy the resistance and secure American control
by what might be termed the "Iraqization" of the war and occupation.
("Vietnamization," over 30 odd years ago, was based on President Lyndon
Johnson's racist call to "let Asian boys fight Asian boys," i.e., use
more Vietnamese to fight Vietnamese, thus sparing U.S. troops.) In the
absence of a significant donation of troops from the "Willing," the
Rumsfeld plan was, and remains, the swift training and deployment of a
large and well paid army, national police force and intelligence service
? all staffed by Iraqis ? under the control of the U.S. Central
Command.  These forces are to be thrown into the frontlines of the
counterinsurgency campaign, into performing security tasks in the
cities, into patrolling the borders and into infiltrating the ranks of
some two or three dozen resistance groups to report back their
activities. 

Given that the great majority of Iraqi men are jobless and poor without
any other prospects in a war-ruined country under foreign occupation,
the pool of potential recruits is huge.  Some 50,000 have already signed
up.  Rumsfeld indicated this week that his initial goal is for a force
of up to 100,000 turncoats, hired to fight the Iraqis of the resistance
and to keep the restive and angry population in line. The leaders of
Washington's surrogate army are thousands of  unemployed former Iraqi
army officers and ex-members of the Ba'athist secret police and
intelligence organizations. The U.S. is also training a large Iraqi
paramilitary militia to help patrol the cities and put down any
disturbances.

"Iraqization" is also taking place in the civilian sphere. Paul Bremer's
Coalition Provisional Authority ? which calls all the shots in this
regard ? is moving quickly to convey the impression that the Iraqi
Governing Council, Washington's puppet administration, actually has real
responsibilities and will soon metamorphose into a genuine democratic
government.  (At the moment, the council is demanding more foreign
troops defeat the insurgency.)  In reality there has been absolutely no
evidence that the Governing Council, or any other important institution
in the country, has been liberated from U.S. control, except for
religious groups, where Washington obviously fears to tread.

In Mid-August, a high administration official (possibly Rumsfeld, but
who knows)  told the New York Times that the White House would not go to
the UN for more troops and money.  Instead, the newspaper reported,
Washington  intended to "widen its effort to enlist other countries to
assist the occupation forces in Iraq."  The official, who asked to
remain anonymous, said "the situation in Iraq is not that dire." Two
weeks later, President Bush was asking the world organization for troops
and money.  What happened?  

"Other countries" quickly said "no,"  or "no without a UN mandate."
Meanwhile, the resistance struggle was becoming bolder, making Iraq
virtually ungovernable. Reflecting upon this stark reality, much of the
mass media and a gathering consensus within the U.S. political system
was  beginning to demand that the UN be asked to save the situation. The
powerhouse of the establishment mass media, The New York Times, had this
to say in an Aug. 24 editorial:  "Without a stronger UN political
presence [in Iraq] the Governing Council recently appointed by
Washington risks being perceived as America's puppet."

Even more importantly, however, Colin Powell and his "multilateralist"
devotees in the State Department had won the Joint Chiefs of Staff over
to the conviction that only a UN stamp of approval was capable of
retrieving Uncle Sam's chestnuts from the Iraqi fire.  The Bush
administration often enacts the "good cop, bad cop" routine, with
multilateralist Powell invariably playing the good cop, especially when
it is necessary to extract something of value for U.S. imperial
interests from traditional allies.  The "bad cop" is always performed by
unilaterialist "Rummy," as the Defense Secretary is affectionately known
by those who can tolerate him, although the vice president is
occasionally pressed into service.

In this case, the "good cop," understood, as did many administration's
insiders, that the entire endeavor was about to go down the tubes
regardless of "Rummy's" good idea about using a paid army of desperate
Iraqis to do the fighting instead of more American troops. Powell had
been working for months to create unity around the UN proposition
between the State Department and the only entity in government service
that might make the Commander in Chief sit up and take notice, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff (Powell is a former chairman of this body and retains
many allies in the commanding officer caste).   The Chiefs, above all,
knew they were running out of cannon fodder and were facing a possible
military stalemate because of the actions of a poorly armed band of
Iraqi irregulars, while the Coalition Provisional Authority was proving
itself unable to get the lights turned on, and millions of restive but
still relatively quiescent Shi'ites were deciding just when to send the
Americans packing.

The Washington Post divulged Sept. 4 that the highest authority at the
United Nations, who has several times come to Washington's aid in the
past, played a part in Powell's game plan: "A diplomat at the UN who
closely followed the evolution of the U.S. position," the newspaper
reported, "said the 'spark' for this week's decision [to engage the
world body] was a meeting between Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan at the United Nations on Aug. 21, two days after the car-bombing
of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.  The diplomat said Annan made it
clear in that meeting that 'the best feasible option was a multinational
force under U.S. command,' a notion that Powell believed he could sell
in part because of the turn of events in Iraq.  The idea of a U.S.-led
multinational coalition with a UN mandate was broached publicly for the
first time on Aug. 26 by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,"
the "good cop's" close ally.

Powell traveled to Bush's vacation home in Texas and quickly convinced a
worried president to call for UN help after explaining that the entire
Joint Chiefs had no confidence in Rumsfeld's "smaller but better" army
strategy and that, in fact, the dreaded quagmire (once again the Vietnam
analogy) was materializing under their very jackboots.

At this stage, Bush's draft resolution calls on the UN Security Council
to authorize a large enough multinational army to defeat the resistance
and to impose a long occupation on the Iraqi people.   In addition, the
UN would participate in the formation of a new government, the
reconstruction of the decimated country, and in raising money for the
continuing occupation.  

The U.S. draft resolution offers the UN very little in the way of
authority for its many proposed responsibilities, while the Bush
administration obtains the wherewithal to avoid the collapse of its
adventure in Iraq and a possible four-year extension of his presidency. 
Washington will still oversee the entire operation, including the
military, the Iraqi Governing Council and its transition to an actual
government, construction of a market-oriented economy, the privatization
of socially-owned assets, the control of the oil (and its eventual
denationalization),  and most other facets of the occupation.

There's a good chance the Security Council will reject the U.S. proposal
as it stands.  Both France (a Security Council member with a veto) and
Germany immediately criticized the U.S. draft resolution because the
role it envisioned for the UN was ridiculously small.   The White House,
however, may be so desperate that it is willing to make a few
concessions.  This will be decided in coming weeks.

In our view, the good thing about these developments is that the Bush
administration is in such deep trouble that it has had to ask the UN to
bail it out.  The bad thing is that the UN may do it while the U.S.
remains the principal power in Iraq, thus siding with aggression. (See
the accompanying article about the bombing of UN headquarters in
Baghdad, titled "The U.S., UN and Iraq," for more details about the UN's
long and unfortunate role in Iraq.)

First of all, as the occupying power, it is the legal responsibility of
the U.S. to keep the peace and pay the bills.  But that's not the main
problem.  It's this:  As long as the U.S. remains in actual charge in
Iraq, regardless of whatever empty symbols of power Bush may concede to
the UN in negotiations, the world body will simply be providing the
White House with a figleaf to cover, and the means to achieve, its
imperialist ambitions.

By invading Iraq ? particularly on the absurd pretext of preventing
Baghdad from terrorizing the world with its nonexistent weapons of mass
destruction ? the United States openly trampled upon the UN Charter and
the peace-loving humanitarianism for which it claims to stand.  For the
UN, which so far has not criticized this violation of its Charter, to 
reward the aggressor by supplying troops, money and other support when
it continues as the occupying power contradicts the very reason for the
UN's existence.  

The UN may have a big role to play in Iraq ? but not as a subordinate
partner to the Bush administration's brutal and illegal occupation.  Any
UN role should begin at the request of the people of Iraq, and only when
the U.S. army of occupation gets out of the country.  In our view, U.S.
troops should be withdrawn immediately.  Some ask, won't a U.S. pullout
create instability, mayhem and perhaps even a war?  Actually, that's
what happened when the U.S. went in, and it's getting worse as the
occupation grinds on.  Left in Iraqi hands, the determination of the
country's future may be resolved peacefully or through struggle. In any
event, it must be resolved by the Iraqi people themselves.


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