OPINION
5 July 2003
Iraq needs ‘old friends’ in charge to feel secure
Things are not going well in Iraq. Before long the toll of US soldiers
killed since the fall of Baghdad will outnumber the 160 troops who lost their
lives in the campaign, and repression will appear as an inevitable response that
will further alienate Iraqis. Worse yet, the likelihood of some big bomb
Oklahoma-city style, or Beirut or Nairobi will send a shockwave throughout the
world. This must be prevented. Although the point of no return has not been
reached yet, the background and behavior of those in charge do not bode well.
On the UN side, the old-boy apparatchik network, epitomized by Kofi Annan and
his envoy to Baghdad Sergio de Mello, is in a tough position. While it may be
crucial to have the UN in Iraq, one recalls that these top UN officials
scarcely said a word in the past on Saddam Hussein’s human rights record. Kofi
Annan and his previous envoy, Lakhdar Ibrahimi, are remembered in Iraq for the
deal struck with Tarek Aziz in February 1998 Saddam Hussein did not deign show
up at the triumphal signing ceremony. With that deal, infamous in Iraqi memory,
they delayed for five years the need to confront the regime, while consecrating
the status quo in favor of leaving the dictator in power.
De Mello’s appointment also comes as a surprise: Not a single meaningful
statement on Saddam Hussein’s human rights record is associated with him,
despite his eight-month-long position as human rights high commissioner. It is
also puzzling to see a person in charge of human rights the world over take on a
narrow Iraqi mandate for only four months, presumably because he wants to keep
the two positions simultaneously. If this is a career move, it is in bad taste.
Also, nothing from either Annan or de Mello has been heard since on the horror
of the mass graves discovered across Iraq, let alone how to establish the
accountability of those responsible for them or what to do to prevent further
bloodshed in Iraq. The point is this: UN apparatchiks cannot bring confidence to
Iraqis after leaving them to their fate for at least a decade, because a central
issue of accountability is missing. Iraqis are right to wonder about their
country which, by UN fiat, is being run by people whom they do not associate
with either their previous suffering or their present “liberation.”
The same is happening, though differently, at the level of the top American
appointees. The difference is that the American officials in Iraq can at least
claim that without their government’s decision, Saddam Hussein would still be in
power. The problem is that the US State Department and the US Defense Department
are at loggerheads, with the CIA heavily supportive of the former. Meanwhile the
US Congress is wavering between blind support for Defense Secretary Ronald
Rumsfeld, and insistently questioning the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
In this bureaucratic tug of war, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA
Director George Tenet are seeking to profit from a war they did not want
initiated in the first place, and are now trying to advance their position by
insisting on shaping Iraq’s future.
The American civilian representative in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, is the product of
the continued bureaucratic wrangling. Bremer, like the UN apparatchiks, is not
readily identifiable to Iraqis as one who advanced their freedom. He has
unnecessarily delayed the appointment of a transitional Iraqi government and has
done himself no good through the offhand dissolution of the Iraqi Army, leaving
350,000 troops jobless and with no minimal safety net. This is compounded by
that Iraqis see Bremer as a protege of the unpopular former US Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger hardly a paragon of democracy in modern world history.
Bremer, whose toughness doesn’t seem to be bolstered by natural liberal
convictions, appears unable to articulate a convincing democratic horizon for
the Iraqi people. All his acts and declarations are reminiscent of traditional
British colonialism.
A clear vision for Iraqi democracy is needed immediately, but men (and women)
are no less important. There is no democracy without convinced, seasoned
democrats. Any role for Annan and de Mello, if needed at all, should be
restricted to humanitarian aid, while a legitimate fighter for Iraqi democracy
should be brought in to articulate a serious human rights program for the
country by people associated with active struggle against Saddam Hussein.
As for Bremer, perhaps the wisest move for Washington would be to announce his
imminent departure, and adopt as a principle a quick rotation of their top
appointee in the country, preferably with people associated with those in
America who have adopted human rights as the main reason for changing the
regime. In this way, ugly clientelism, which is in the nature of foreign
occupation, would be avoided and a clear signal given to Iraqis that it is in
America’s best interests that they rule over their country democratically. This
would also allow the State Department and the CIA to undeservingly recover the
terrain lost on Washington’s bureaucratic turf. As for the UN and the US, those
in charge in Iraq must appear to Iraqis as people who supported them during the
dark days of the dictatorship, not bureaucrats in search of a prestigious
career.
The initial inclination of US President George W. Bush to support those openly
associated with fighting Saddam Hussein because of his appalling human rights
abuses should offer a guideline for the dominant policy that will allow America
to win the peace. This also means assisting Iraqis who fought to liberate their
country both domestically and internationally over the last decade.
Without such drastic changes of the ruling UN and US guard, the clock for the
next history-cleaving bomb will keep ticking inexorably. A democratic causal
chain is needed in Iraq and the first step is to get the right persons with the
right record in place.
Chibli Mallat is a law professor and a lawyer in Beirut. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR