Mother Jones Daily: War Watch
May 12, 2003
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Baghdad Security Crisis The reconstruction authority is playing musical chairs while Baghdad is on the verge of burning.
Cutting Out the UN
As expected, the US proposal for postwar Iraq shuts the United Nations out of any meaningful role. 
"A polity suddenly accorded complete freedom of expression and popular power in the absence of peace, law, order, and opportunity may indeed dissolve into a war of all against all. A polity assured of peace, law and order, opportunity, at least partial freedom of expression, by contrast, stands a good chance of acquiring habits of give and take, compromise, log-rolling, and cooperative human interaction."The de facto mayor of Baghdad, Barbara Bodine, was abruptly transferred away from her position via a late night call from the State Department last Thursday. She took the call on a phone line that had only been working for a few hours. In a sign of the general state of things at the reconstruction authority, Bodine told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that when she heard the news, "she had just gotten glass in her office window and running water in the building. She had been sleeping in the dust on the floor and eating the military's MREs (meals ready to eat)."
--Walter A. McDougall, a historian at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Bodine is leaving Iraq with her former boss, retired General Jay Garner, barely a month after signing up for the job. Garner's original demotion was heralded as a victory for the State Department, since the new chief L. Paul Bremer is a former State Department official. The State Department argued that a civilian and a diplomat like Bremer would be better equipped to oversee the reconstruction and to enlist other nations in the costly task of rebuilding Iraq.
Bremer had clashed with Bodine in the past, and her departure's timing probably has more to do with his arrival then her performance. Nevertheless, the general shake-up of the reconstruction authority in Iraq amounts to an attempt by the United States "to relaunch its efforts to restore the shattered country and create a Washington-approved transitional Iraqi government after a start that has been little short of disastrous," writes The Independent in London. Bremer is being handed a city in shambles. Baghdad has barely 40 percent of its electric grid up and running. The Gulf News reported that a massive fire took out the main telephone exchange in the city on Sunday. Daily looting and violence continue in the streets. UN food trucks have not yet arrived in Baghdad, and officials are quoted in several papers saying that the Iraqi reserves may last only a matter of weeks.
While a slight majority of Iraqis now seem to have some water, last week, hospitals in Basra warned of an impending cholera epidemic. War damage to the water and sanitation systems may have contaminated the supply. Doctors protested in the streets last Thursday, demanding the basics they need to do their job. UNICEF and the World Health Organization are also voicing their concerns about water-borne diseases:
"The dirty water equation is a simple one," Kathryn Irwin of UNICEF's office in Basra, Iraq's second city, said over the weekend. "Young children have developing immune systems and low body weight. Add a bout of diarrhoea or cholera picked up from dirty water and you can lose them very quickly."
UNICEF, the WHO, and the average Iraqi quoted in the papers all agree that security must be priority number one in order for any other progress to be made. But the U.S. simply doesn't seem to have the manpower on the ground to bring Baghdad under control. The Christian Science Monitor's Peter Ford reports that overall, things are getting worse:
"Security in Baghdad, the top of everybody's list of priorities, including the Americans', is deteriorating. Gunfire is heard more often than it was two weeks ago, thieves drag drivers from their cars in broad daylight, and looters continue to steal whatever is left from public buildings in full view of passers by.Whether gasoline or electricity, energy is only becoming more indispensable in Baghdad as summer approaches. People are now waiting in line for ten hours or more to get gasoline for their cars and stoves. Energy is needed not only to drive, but also to boil the increasingly jeopardized water supply. People need power for air conditioning, as Iraq's scorching summer temperatures begin. Electric lights might also help bring stability back to the city, but vandals have been shooting power lines to keep things dark.Sunday, the telecommunications tower, which had survived heavy bombing, was burned and damaged by vandals.
US officials say they cannot fully control the situation. With less than 150,000 troops in Iraq, a country the size of California, "there are some areas that we don't have totally covered," said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of US ground forces, last week."
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While water supplies are improving - 65 percent of Iraqis now have potable water, according to retired General Garner, the outgoing head of ORHA - electricity is still a major headache in Baghdad.Though power stations in the north and south of the country are generating more electricity than their regions need, damage to the national power grid means it cannot be distributed to the capital. There, only 50 percent of needs are being met, and some districts enjoy electricity for only two hours a day."
Crime in Baghdad may even be getting worse since the end of the fighting. The papers are now reporting increasingly horrific incidents of rape, kidnapping and murder in the city streets. After reporting a particularly appalling incident of the rape of two teenage girls, the Washington Post reports that their doctor, OB-GYN Enas Hamdani "reserves a special contempt for American forces who conquered Baghdad more than a month ago":
"She and others have heard repeated promises that reconstituted Iraqi police patrols, accompanied by military units, will be here soon. But in many neighborhoods, military commanders say their troops are stretched thinly and have no training in police work.So while Garner has been criticized for a lack of charisma, a lack of relevant experience, and his close ties to the military, the primary problem seems to be his overall lack of a plan. Reporting that Baghdad residents feel the utter absence of any strategy to get the city functioning again, The London Times' Richard Beeston writes:
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Reports of rapes, holdups and murders are multiplying citywide, in both poor and upscale districts. In this city of 5 million, the dearth of police is a fundamental problem, but certainly not the only one: Electrical power, gasoline, clean water and medical supplies remain unavailable or out of reach for many residents. The looting that broke out after the fall of Baghdad was a harbinger of a slow devolution into fear and despair, especially after dark, especially for women.
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"Security, security, security -- that's our mantra too. That's our number one priority," says Nales, 46, a reservist with the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion ... His men patrol constantly in tanks and other vehicles equipped with heavy weapons. But security for the general public was never meant to be the mission here. The priority was security for U.S. troops, who still face random attacks.
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"I'm sorry," he says he tells Iraqis, but it's just too early to expect reliable utilities or supplies of food and water. "I'm sorry the police agencies and judicial system isn't here. I'm sorry we don't have enough soldiers to help you."I'm sorry."
In the hallway, Sgt. 1st Class Keith Hudson, the enlisted man in charge of security for the neighborhood, has moved beyond frustration to anger. He blames top U.S. officials in charge of the reconstruction effort for failing to plan for the chaos."
"The [U.S.] headquarters is as detached from Baghdad life as was Saddam Hussein's leadership when he was in power. It is not possible for ordinary Iraqis to meet members of their new government, to telephone them or to have any direct contact, other than with US Army soldiers guarding the gates.In the wake of this mess, Bremer's success may not depend on his experience as a diplomat or even his ability to bridge the chasm between the State Department and the Pentagon. It may depend on whether he arrives with a plan. In any case, he has his work cut out for him. With every passing day, the good will of the Iraqi people towards their American "liberators" is slipping away. And elsewhere in the Arab world, BBC reports that the press is growing more and more skeptical of America's intentions and its seriousness about finding a solution to these basic problems.
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Government workers, most of whom are eager to return to work, have been unable to make contact with their new masters. Often they report to a gutted ministry building, sign up for work, return the next day and repeat the process without ever meeting a member of the new authority. Yesterday 300 Iraqi soldiers marched on General Garner's headquarters in Baghdad to demand back pay and a role in the country's future.
What normality has returned to Baghdad is due largely to the Iraqis themselves. Volunteers help to direct traffic. Merchants have reopened for business, but rely on their own weapons and gunmen for security. Hospitals and schools are running largely due to the dedication of unpaid staff."
As one paper in Syria put it: "In Iraq there is now hunger, cholera ... and 'democracy' of course!" (Al-Thawrah - Syria)
Discuss this article.
Cutting Out the UN
Last week, the Bush administration finally let the United Nations in on its plans for postwar Iraq. Unsurprisingly, those plans don't envision much of a role for the UN.
Sure, Washington tossed the international community a few bones here and there -- grudgingly conceding, for instance, that the Geneva Convention applies to the occupation of Iraq. But, as critics note, the proposal's main thrust is to consolidate power in American -- and, to a lesser extent, British -- hands for the indefinite future.
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In fact, the draft resolution reads like a White House wish-list, calling for an end to economic sanctions, the dismantling of the oil-for-food program, and the transfer of Iraqi oil proceeds from a UN account to one controlled by Washington. Far from its promised " vital" role, the UN would be relegated to an advisory position with limited oversight. In other words, food aid is welcome; policymakers and weapons inspectors aren't. So far, France and Russia are pushing gently for a larger UN role, but few expect the sort of diplomatic free-for-all that characterized the run-up to war.
The ultraconservative editors of the New York Post couldn't be happier. After all, they crow, to the victors go the spoils.
"Even the 'vital role' that President Bush initially promised the United Nations has now been reduced to an advisory role on a new Iraqi Assistance Fund.This, frankly, is how it should be.
It was the Coalition of the Willing that willingly accepted the challenge and shouldered the burden of ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's threat. Those who eagerly stood in the way of military action -- to protect their own narrow economic self-interest -- abdicated any legitimate claim to a role in rebuilding a free Iraq."
Even the editorial board of the New York Times sees some value in the proposal. While encouraging Washington to allow UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq, the editors note that the UN's seal of approval is a crucial piece of the postwar puzzle.
"The resolution amounts to a grudging admission by the United States that it needs some help from the U.N. if it hopes to get Iraq back on its feet and on course toward becoming a democratic model for the Arab world. Only the U.N. can confer legitimacy on American occupation, end sanctions, open the door to substantial international reconstruction aid and attest to the representative nature of Iraq's future government."
For Abdulwahab Badrakhan, however, the proposal merely confirms his suspicions of US intentions. Writing in the Arab daily Al-Hayat, he declares that the resolution would provide a gloss of legitimacy for an unjust occupation.
"At first glance, the American initiative seems to be a return to international legitimacy. The reality is totally different, however. It is a rallying [call] to obtain this legitimacy for war, occupation and even for everything Washington wants to do in Iraq ... without any supervision, questions or discussions.The new draft resolution appears to be the one last chance for the UN to gain a secondary role in Iraq; but this would bring the international organisation under American law, thus making it meaningless."
The London Guardian's Jonathan Steele is troubled by the proposal too. Noting that the draft "awards the US almost total control over Iraq's oil revenues," Steele blasts Washington for its sudden, overwhelming concern for Iraqis still suffering under sanctions.
"The US is trying to steamroller the resolution through the security council with the argument that sanctions must be lifted urgently to help the Iraqi people. Never mind that it was the US that insisted on maintaining sanctions long after the first Gulf war in spite of opposition from ordinary Iraqis. They pleaded in vain that they were the ones who suffered, while the regime's elite was untouched."
In short, Rahul Mahajan opines in Common Dreams, the resolution is simply a confirmation of what everyone already knew: It's Washington's world. The rest of us just live in it.
"In fact, overt subordination of the United Nations to the United States is a central part of the Bush administration agenda. It has served notice that the U.N. has no role in anything 'important,' not in weapons inspections, in the Iraqi political process, in major reconstruction decisions, nor in peacekeeping (where a multinational 'coalition of the willing' is being assembled)....
No longer content with a system where nominally the U.N. is the ultimate authority but the United States dominates it by coercion and bribery, the Bush administration wants explicit recognition that the U.N. should play only the roles allowed to it by the United States."
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