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Pentagon squares off against Powell,
Europe
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON
- Even as United States troops grind their way toward
Baghdad, the administration of President George W Bush
remains at odds over its post-war plans to occupy Iraq.
The main issue - who will be in charge of the occupation
- pits the Pentagon against the State Department and its
allies in Europe, notably British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
The Pentagon appears determined to
maintain as much power for itself and its favorites in
the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC) as
possible, while the State Department, backed by the
intelligence community and Blair, is arguing for major
roles for other US allies, the United Nations and other
opposition figures.
The Pentagon recently vetoed
as many as eight current and former State Department
officials for key posts in the occupation
administration, according to the Washington Post.
Excluded were a number of former ambassadors and
high-level foreign service officers with expertise in
the Arab world.
Some sources said that they were
vetoed because they were "run-of-the-mill" and not
"doers", while others revealed that they were opposed by
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith,
who has supported Israel's Likud Party in the past and
is said to consider some candidates to be too pro-Arab,
a bias that neo-conservatives believe is endemic to the
State Department's Near East bureau. Pentagon chief
Donald Rumsfeld has also reportedly insisted that all
relief and aid work come under the jurisdiction of
retired army general Jay Garner, the coordinator of the
Pentagon's office of reconstruction and humanitarian
assistance, who will report directly to the chief of the
US Central Command, General Tommy Franks.
Secretary of State Colin Powell argued in a
letter to Rumsfeld last week that US government relief
work should be headed by the US Agency for International
Development, which reports to the State Department. He
reportedly said that international agencies and
voluntary relief groups were unlikely to accept an
arrangement in which they reported to the military. The
aid groups themselves have called for the United Nations
to assume control of relief operations.
But the
Pentagon rejects that scheme. In testimony late last
week, Feith insisted that as long as the situation on
the ground is insecure, the military has to remain in
control. "If things go well, we will be able to hand
things over to the Iraqis so there would be no need for
UN participation," he said.
In addition to being
opposed by Powell and the relief groups, the Pentagon's
anti-UN position has come under fire from Blair and the
European Union, which has long called for a major role
for the world body in any relief and reconstruction
effort, similar to that it assumed in Afghanistan after
the ouster of the Taliban. "We believe that the UN must
continue to play a central role during and after the
crisis," EU leaders said last week. France, in
particular, has threatened to veto any Security Council
resolution that subordinates the UN to a US occupation
authority.
The breach between the Pentagon on
the one hand and Powell, the aid groups and the
Europeans on the other, has become so serious that 29
prominent Democrats, neo-conservatives and right-wing
Republicans published a joint letter this week that they
proposed as the basis for an acceptable compromise.
Signed by analysts and former policy makers from
the mainstream Brookings Institution and the Council on
Foreign Relations and from right-wing think tanks such
as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover
Institution, the letter called for Washington to "seek
passage of a Security Council resolution that endorses
the establishment of a civilian administration in Iraq,
authorizes the participation of UN relief and
reconstruction agencies, [and] welcomes the deployment
of a security stabilization force by NATO allies".
"While some seem determined to create an ever
deeper divide between the United States and Europe, and
others seem indifferent to the long term survival of the
trans-Atlantic partnership," the letter stated in what
some sources called an implicit rebuke to both Rumsfeld
and French President Jacques Chirac, "we believe it is
essential, even in the midst of war, to begin building a
new era of trans-Atlantic cooperation".
"To my
mind, it's a statement of opposition to the 'scorched
earth' sense we have crossed the Rubicon and we can do
everything by ourselves," said one right-wing signer,
Tod Lindberg of the Hoover Institution.
"The
message is: 1) The US doesn't need to go it alone; and
2) That it can't," said Lee Feinstein, another signer
and former Bill Clinton official currently with the
Council on Foreign Relations.
While the
administration may indeed opt for such a solution, it
appears clear for now that the Pentagon is still
insisting on complete control of the occupation.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that the
Defense Department was insisting on a prominent role for
former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director R
James Woolsey, a protege of the controversial former
chairman of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB),
Richard Perle, who has also been one of the most
outspoken champions of radical change throughout the
Arab Middle East.
Woolsey, who also helped lead
the media campaign to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and who has
blamed Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi establishment for anti-US
sentiment in the region, was reportedly being promoted
by Feith as the occupation's minister of information,
but other officials thought that his previous link to
the CIA might reduce his credibility in that post.
Woolsey has also been one of the strongest Washington
supporters of the INC, and its controversial leader
Ahmed Chalabi.
Both Woolsey and Garner have been
associated with the Jewish Institute of National
Security Affairs (JINSA), which promotes military and
strategic ties between the US and Israel. Woolsey serves
on the board of advisers of JINSA, as well as the
Pentagon's DPB, and several other neo-conservative
groups, including Americans for Victory Over Terrorism.
Garner, who was also promoted by Feith and Perle
as the best candidate for administering the occupation,
helped the humanitarian effort to save hundreds of
thousands of Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq in 1991.
He visited Israel as a guest of JINSA in 1998 and in
October 2000 was one of 26 US military leaders to sign a
staunchly pro-Israel statement released by JINSA that
condemned the escalating Palestinian intifada.
(Inter Press Service)
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