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 re-election plans could cause the White House to virtually beg a favourite 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 a US 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 US leadership. The US Central Command will be in charge of a UN multinational military force and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), 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 US soldiers in the country, augmented by 21,000 "coalition" forces (half from the UK), and another 40,000 GIs in neighbouring Kuwait.
According to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, the US 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 US invasion. Should the resistance intensify, especially if the Shiite majority becomes activated, further troop supplements will be needed.
The Bush administration is perfectly capable of expanding the US 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 War 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 US control is going to cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars. Bush has acknowledged he is about to request another US$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 Bush's refusal to renounce his multi-billion-dollar giveaway tax cut for 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 US occupation. In the 1991 war against Iraq, which the UN backed, virtually the entire bill was paid by countries other than the US.
Developing disaster
Clearly, the Bush administration is turning to the UN in hopes that the world organisation 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 Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his neoconservative colleagues in the Pentagon evidently were the architects of the go-it-alone invasion and occupation approach that 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 quick marching into Baghdad in a display of overwhelming military might.
The masses of Iraqi people — including many who opposed the former Baath Party government of Saddam Hussein — are largely sullen and outraged by the violation of their national independence and sovereignty. They want the US 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 UN for that matter.
Guerrilla campaign
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 the Bush administration's 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-nationalised 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 US lives have been taken in the months since the president declared victory than in the actual invasion.
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 organisation because they opposed delegating a share of US 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 decision makers; they receive other benefits for their endeavours).
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 organisation 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 US 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 August 24 editorial: "Without a stronger UN political presence [in Iraq] the Governing Council recently appointed by Washington risks being perceived as America's puppet."
Joint Chiefs
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 US imperial interests from traditional allies. The "bad cop" is always performed by unilaterialist "Rummy", as the defence 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 endeavour 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 US 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 chairperson 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 CPA was proving itself unable to get the lights turned on, and millions of restive but still relatively quiescent Shiites were deciding just when to send the Americans packing.
The September 4 Washington Post divulged that the highest authority at the UN, 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 US position", the Post 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 US command', a notion that Powell believed he could sell in part because of the turn of events in Iraq. The idea of a US-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 travelled 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 materialising under their very jackboots.
At this stage, Bush's draft resolution calls on the UN Security Council to authorise 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 US 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 privatisation of socially owned assets, the control of the oil (and its eventual denationalisation), and most other facets of the occupation.
There's a good chance the Security Council will reject the US proposal as it stands. Both France (a Security Council member with a veto) and Germany immediately criticised the US 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.
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 US remains the principal power in Iraq, thus siding with aggression.
First of all, as the occupying power, it is the legal responsibility of the US to keep the peace and pay the bills. But that's not the main problem. It's this: As long as the US 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 terrorising the world with its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction — the US 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 criticised 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 US army of occupation gets out of the country. In our view, US troops should be withdrawn immediately.
Some ask, won't a US pullout create instability, mayhem and perhaps even a war? Actually, that's what happened when the US 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.
[Abridged from the September 7, 2003, email edition of the Mid-Hudson Activist Newsletter, published in New Paltz, New York State.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 17, 2003.
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