VOL. XLVI
No 13
The war in Iraq is not going according to plan, at least from the US point of view. After considerable confusion, the US and Turkey seem to have agreed on what to do in the north of the country, but the Iraqi opposition and the US are having public differences over post-war plans.
Coalition Struggles
While the military situation in Iraq remained unclear – but extensively chronicled – at the end of the week, what has emerged from the first 10 days of the war is that the thinking behind the US-led invasion was a best-case scenario based on a number of assumptions that have turned out to be false. In this scenario, the Iraqi military and political leadership was to be “shocked and awed” by the ferocity of the American onslaught, with the result that the regime in Baghdad would crumble from within while the regular army would melt away through desertion and surrender. Meanwhile a civilian insurrection would deliver cities such as Basra, Kerbala and Nasiriya to coalition forces, who would be greeted as liberators by cheering crowds as they closed in on Baghdad. The reality has turned out to be very different. The attempt to “shock and awe” the Iraqis didn’t. The regime of Saddam Husain remains in place and in charge. Just what has become of the regular army is something of a mystery, but it has certainly not been captured by the Americans. And it turns out that the Shi'as of south of Iraq, while undoubtedly none too fond of Saddam Husain, are none too fond of the Americans either, very possibly because they remember what happened in 1991 and know who to blame for the privations of 12 years of sanctions. As a result, instead of a swift and sanitized advance on Baghdad, the Americans find themselves fighting their way through hostile territory with what appear to be inadequate forces – of the 250,000 or so in theater, only 90,000 are in Iraq, while a further 120,000 are en route – and overstretched supply lines which are vulnerable to guerrilla attack from the various strongholds (such as Nasiriya) that they have simply bypassed. They also face the daunting prospect of having to subdue Baghdad street by street, which is likely to prove expensive both militarily and politically. All in all, the senior US ground commander in Iraq, Gen William Wallace, was probably more to the point than he intended when he said on 27 March that “the enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we’d war-gamed against.”
Confusion In The North
It is a fairly safe bet at this stage that the Americans are beginning to regret even more keenly that their failure to persuade Turkey to allow them access to Iraq across Turkish territory means that they do not have the option of opening a full-fledged second front in the north of the country, where it would be an understatement to describe the situation over the past week as confused. After the Turks agreed in principle on 20 March to allow the US to use Turkish airspace, Turkish officials indicated that the quid pro quo was American consent to the dispatch of Turkish troops to the Kurdish enclave in north Iraq. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Abdallah Gul on 21 March, “all problems with the US have been resolved. Turkish soldiers will go into northern Iraq.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed on 22 March that in exchange for overflight rights the Americans had approved Turkey’s request to send troops up to 19 kilometers into Iraq, saying that “our foreign minister made this agreement during a discussion with Colin Powell.” The only snag was that Mr Powell himself made it clear on 21 March that “our position is that these two items should be separate,” adding that “we don’t see a need for any Turkish incursions.” The Turkish army felt compelled to issue a statement on 22 March that reports that it had entered Iraq “are not true.” President Bush weighed in on 23 March, saying that “we’re making it very clear to the Turks that we expect them not to come in to northern Iraq,” to which Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek replied the next day by declaring that “the current and future presence of Turkish troops in Iraq is the result of humanitarian considerations and concerns about terrorism. We will make our own decision on the deployment of forces in Iraq to achieve these aims.” In Ankara, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad indicated on 25 March that the two sides had still not managed to agree. And while the belated arrival of 1,000 US airborne troops by parachute in the Kurdish enclave on 26 March suggested that the Americans and Turks had finally reached some kind of accommodation, remarks on the same day by Turkish army chief Hilmi Ozkok also indicated the extent of the damage that the invasion of Iraq has done to relations with one of Washington’s staunchest allies. Gen Ozkok acknowledged that several thousand Turkish soldiers were already in Iraq and said that “I think a decision can be taken for the Turkish armed forces to send extra soldiers into northern Iraq if…it becomes obvious that our forces there are unable to deal with” various threats. However, he emphasized that “our action will be coordinated with the US and other necessary steps will be taken to prevent misunderstandings” and that “we have no intention of setting up a permanent buffer zone. We are not going to engage in hot confrontation except for self-defense. We do not have any secret intentions.” But there was an unmistakable note of bitterness when he commented on what he described as “suspicious, unjust and sometimes hurtful” criticism of Turkey’s intentions. In a clear reference to the US, he said that “I have difficulty in understanding how those who see dangers from overseas do not find Turkey convincing when it says that the same danger is just across its border. If things get out of control one day, I hope our friends will not have to ask us to do what they oppose now.”
And After The War?
In the meantime US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been informing Congress of the administration’s current thinking about Iraq’s post-war government and making it clear that the UN plays a subordinate role in American plans. “We didn’t take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future,” he told the House budget subcommittee on 26 March. “We would not support…handing everything over to the UN for someone designated by the UN to suddenly become in charge of this whole operation. We have picked on a greater obligation – to make sure there is a functioning Iraqi government that is supported by the coalition, the center of gravity remaining with the coalition, military and civilian.” In the current scenario, the US military would take control in the immediate aftermath of the war, and would be replaced soon afterwards by an “Iraqi interim administration…that will provide the nucleus of a new government and will begin to exert authority over various functions of the emerging Iraqi government. We will do this with full understanding of the international community and with the UN presence in the form of a UN special coordinator.” These remarks do not exactly resolve a number of questions, such as when, how and by whom the interim administration will be selected, what its functions might be, and what the UN coordinator will coordinate. (They do, however, suggest that the Pentagon intends to be the branch of the US government calling the shots in post-war Iraq, a fact confirmed by MEES sources. The same sources also indicate that at the moment the Pentagon does not appear to be up to the job.) Moreover countries who are against the war such as Russia and France have indicated that they would regard the appointment of a coordinator as providing retroactive UN endorsement of the invasion and that they will therefore oppose such a move. So the Americans may not in the end get the kind of diluted UN participation they evidently have in mind.
They may also have problems with the Iraqi opposition, which has plans of its own. According to a statement issued by the Council of the Leadership of the Iraqi Opposition – grouping the KDP and PUK, the two main Kurdish parties, the leading Shi’a opposition group SCIRI and the Iraqi National Congress – in Salahuddin on 27 March, “upon the liberation of Iraq, the Leadership Council will declare the formation of an independent provisional government that will be a coalition to run the affairs of the country…This government will include political personalities with experience who have a history of patriotic struggle and competence and with loyalty to Iraq, including those inside Saddam occupied areas now. Among the duties of this government will be negotiation and dialogue with the coalition and the UN to uncover all weapons of mass destruction, destroy and eliminate them and to put in place a time line for the withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq.” However, if the Leadership Council expected the Americans to welcome the idea of a self-appointed provisional government setting a timetable for their withdrawal, they were swiftly disillusioned, since State Department spokesman Richard Boucher replied on the same day that “the views of the leadership committee established at the Salahuddin meeting represent the segment of Iraqis who attended the meeting. Obviously the vast majority of Iraqis living inside Iraq under the tyranny of the current regime could not participate in these discussions or make their views known.” Mr Boucher added that “the Iraqi interim authority must come from all Iraq’s ethnic groups, including Iraqis inside, Kurds and external opposition” and that “the exact mechanism for choosing the interim authority will be determined later after the conflict is over in consultation with the Iraqis.” Translated into plain English, this appears to mean that the Americans’ plans for post-war Iraq are approximately as well thought out as their military strategy.
Charles Snow