Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. XLVII
No 41
11
The Political Scene (11 October 2004)
Coalition and Iraqi forces have taken the city of Samarra back from insurgents, which may be why radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is offering a deal to the interim government. The reasons for, and conduct of, the invasion and occupation of Iraq have been questioned by three of President Bush’s own appointees. A senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has cast doubt on the sincerity of Mr Sharon’s commitment to the international road map.
Sadr Suggests A Deal
On 3 October an American military spokesman announced that coalition and Iraqi forces had stormed the town of Samarra, the first target in the campaign to retake the areas held by insurgents in the Sunni triangle north of Baghdad ahead of the elections scheduled for January. Reports indicate that Falluja and Sadr City in Baghdad –the stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia – are likely to be next on the menu, which may be why a spokesman for Mr Sadr on 7 October offered to hand over the militia’s weapons in return for the release of prisoners and a role in Iraq’s political process. The spokesman said that “we are ready to lay down our heavy and medium-sized weapons in return for the release of all those imprisoned from our movement and the restoration of basic services to areas like Sadr City,” adding that Mr Sadr was willing to take part in national elections providing they were “free of US influence and overseen by international monitors.” In reply, a spokesman for the interim government of Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad ΄Allawi said that “the government welcomes the announcement by Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr that his militia will disband, hand in their weapons, respect the authority and unity of the state and abide by the rule of law. The government therefore looks forward to this undertaking being respected and implemented.”
Rumsfeld, Bremer, Duelfer
Whether or not anything comes of the latest proposal to bring Mr Sadr and his movement into the political mainstream, the fact that he is thinking in terms of a deal – and the recapture of Samarra – was virtually the first good news out of Iraq for the Americans since the capture of Saddam Husain 10 months ago. Unfortunately for the Bush administration, however, it came during a week in which the news on the domestic front was all bad. First, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted on 4 October that there was no plausible evidence linking Saddam and al-Qa΄ida (“I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two”). Next, on the same day, the former US viceroy in Iraq, Paul Bremer, admitted that the security situation in Iraq had been allowed to deteriorate because the administration had failed to commit enough troops (“we never had enough troops on the ground”). And on 6 October the head of the Iraq Survey Group, the body tasked with searching for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Charles Duelfer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq had no biological or chemical weapons, let alone a nuclear program (“I…do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are cached in Iraq”). In other words neither of the two reasons advanced before the war for invading Iraq was true and the occupation itself has been bungled by the administration’s attempts to minimize its economic and political costs. The best that President George W Bush could do in the face of this damning indictment by his own appointees was to issue a statement on 7 October admitting that “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there” but arguing that “based on all the information we have today, I believe we were right to take action, and America is safer today with Saddam Husain in prison. He retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce WMD, and he could have passed that knowledge to our terrorist enemies.”
Sharon And The Road Map
It cannot be said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, let the cat out of the bag on 6 October about Mr Sharon’s distaste for the international quartet’s “road map” to peace with the Palestinians, since Mr Sharon himself has on several occasions made it clear that he does not think much of it. But Mr Weinglass did describe the cat in greater detail and blunter terms than ever before, making it absolutely clear that Israel’s plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza is intended to preempt, replace and destroy the road map, whose goal of a Palestinian state has never been shared by Mr Sharon’s right-wing constituency. “The significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process,” he told the Israeli daily Haaretz. “The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with the Palestinians. When you freeze the process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”
That the Israelis should be so sure that the US will do nothing that they can dismiss stated American policy openly and contemptuously should come as a surprise to no-one (and Mr Weisglass added, in an aside that will surely interest the Palestinians, that “what I effectively agreed with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns.”) What is marginally harder to believe is the alacrity with which the Americans fell over themselves to express belief in Mr Sharon’s veracity and sincerity when he issued a statement on 6 October claiming that he “supports the road map, the only plan liable to help progress toward a durable political settlement” with the Palestinians. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on the same day “there was never any doubt in our mind that that represents the prime minister’s position and the position of the government of Israel.” And State Department spokesman Adam Ereli declared on the same day that “our understanding is that Israel is committed to the road map and to the president’s two-state vision. Based on that statement and based on Israel’s declared policy, we see no cause to doubt it.” He added that “both we and Israel continue to look at the Gaza disengagement plan as a real opportunity to make progress in the quest for Middle East peace and an opportunity to return to a political process.” However, somebody in the State Department evidently had second thoughts about accepting Mr Sharon’s statement at face value, since on 7 October a “senior State Department official” told reporters that “they’ve got to explain Weisglass. We think it still bears some explanation…That’s a job they need to do.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was less anonymous but more diplomatic on the same day when he said that “it’s for the Israeli government to clarify the implications of any comments made by Israeli government people or officials or people associated with the prime minister. We have, ourselves, questioned the Israelis about these statements.” As for Mr Weisglass’s claim that Mr Sharon’s plans to sabotage the road map enjoyed the tacit approval of the president and Congress, “that is decidedly not the policy of the US,” Mr Boucher said.
Charles Snow