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The US left picking up the
pieces
By David Isenberg
Just in case anyone
was still unclear about it, the bombing of the UN
headquarters in Baghdad conclusively demonstrates that
the war in Iraq is still very much an ongoing affair.
While coalition forces no longer face Republican Guard
divisions, the enemy is still active and a significant
threat.
Who that enemy is, at least the one the
carried out the bombing, remains unclear. A previously
unknown group, calling itself the "Armed Vanguards of a
Second Mohammed Army", claimed responsibility and
pledged "to continue fighting every foreigner [in Iraq]
and to carry out similar operations" in a statement sent
to the Dubai-based al-Arabiyya satellite channel.
Another possibility is the group known as Ansar
al-Islam, which is a leading suspect in the recent
car-bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.
Regardless, the bombing is significant on a
number of levels.
Operationally, it indicated
that US forces and UN operations are not well
coordinated. The blame game about who was responsible
for the UN compound at the Canal Hotel is telling.
On August 19, Fred Eckhard, a UN spokesman,
said, "We are entirely in their hands. The security of
everyone in Iraq - Iraqis, the non-governmental
humanitarian workers, the UN relief workers - everyone
is dependent on the coalition for their security in
Iraq."
That same day, Richard Boucher, US State
Department spokesman, said, "Security in Baghdad has a
lot of elements. It has the US military element, the
coalition forces elements, it has an Iraqi police
element, because Iraqi police are back and working in
Baghdad, and individual organizations like the United
Nations also provide for some of their own security."
Of course, the UN bears some responsibility in
that its security procedures were apparently very lax.
The UN's own security advisers in Iraq recommended
asking the American military for security help weeks
ago. UN officials refused, believing that US troops
could make them more of a target. An op-ed in the August
20 New York Times noted that the heavy steel door that
opened onto the street had finally fallen off its
hinges, and the entrance to the compound had become an
open thoroughfare. And apparently the UN was using the
same guards who were selected by Saddam Hussein's regime
before the war and reported on the movements of UN staff
at the Canal Hotel compound.
Incredibly,
according to Ramiro Lopes da Silva, Iraq coordinator for
UN humanitarian programs, the UN, despite the bombing,
will not increase the number of US soldiers standing
guard outside its facilities from the dozen or so it had
before the attack.
Tactically, the bombing
indicates that at least one faction in the resistance,
whether indigenous or foreign, has access to some very
lethal munitions. The bomb that was used was not the
ordinary improvised explosive device, where the raw
material required for explosives is stolen or
misappropriated from military or commercial blasting
supplies, or made from fertilizer and other readily
available household ingredients
According to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation the explosive device was
huge, as big as 1,500 pounds, and intricate, consisting
of high-grade explosives surrounded by Soviet-made
mortar shells, grenades and a 500-pound bomb.
In
regard to planning for a post-war occupation, the
bombing confirms that those Bush administration
officials who dismissed warnings that many more troops
were necessary to provide security, were wrong. For
example, General Eric K Shinseki, the army's chief of
staff before the war, told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in early March that "something on the order of
several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to
occupy a postwar Iraq.
Two days later, Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz described Shinseki's
estimate as "way off the mark". Cheney was also
dismissive. In his "Meet the Press" appearance, he
insisted that "to suggest that we need several hundred
thousand troops there after military operations cease,
after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I
think that's an overstatement."
Ironically, the
Iraqi resistance is doing exactly what President George
W Bush called for on July 2, when, in response to a
question about attackers targeting US troops, he said
"bring 'em on".
In another irony, the attack is
proof of a menace that prior to the war was largely
rhetoric; namely, terrorism. Back before the war the
Bush administration argued that Osama bin Laden and
Saddam were linked, despite the fact that there was no
evidence to confirm that. But now the US has forced
al-Qaeda and the remnants of the Ba'ath Party or of
Saddam's regime together. And, similar to the jihad
against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s,
foreign fighters are now coming into Iraq and attacking
American "infidel" forces because it's a target-rich
environment. General John Abizaid, the head of US
Central Command, warned that terrorism "is emerging as
the number one security threat" in Iraq. Speaking on L
Paul Bremer, the top US administrator for Iraq, he said,
"We have a security problem here. The security problem
now has got a terrorist dimension, which is new."
The bombing also signifies that the attackers
are targeting the entire reconstruction effort, and by
extension, the entire Iraqi population, by trying to
create an atmosphere of fear where UN agencies and NGOs
won't want to go in. In this regard, they are enjoying
success. The UN announced that it would reduce the size
of its Baghdad staff. Its 350 foreign staff members in
Iraq will be reduced to a level not yet specified. The
UN had about 300 international staff in Baghdad and just
over 600 international staff country-wide, plus about
four times that number of Iraqis working for it.
The fate of the UN operations is likely to
influence other humanitarian organizations in Baghdad.
Already, two international finance agencies - the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund - have pulled
their staff out of Baghdad, though the departures are
most likely temporary.
The bombing also deepens
the split between the US and the UN about the overall
occupation effort. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said,
"I don't want to get into finger pointing, but I think
we are all aware that along the way mistakes have been
made by all concerned." In Sweden he said, "Better
planning would have made a lot of difference." He has
also said that the US is unlikely to get the additional
peacekeeping troops it is requesting, above the 30,000
now sought, unless the US gives a greater share of
reconstruction activities to other countries; controls
to get more foreign participation - something that is
extremely objectionable to the US.
Regardless of
UN participation, the bombing quickly influenced other
countries The Independent reported that Poland has
scaled back its military commitment in Iraq. Under a
hastily agreed new formula for the occupation, Polish
troops will withdraw from a "high-risk area" near
Baghdad, leaving the territory to come under the command
of US forces, Polish Foreign Ministry officials
revealed. Poland is due to take formal charge of the
central third of occupied Iraq, sandwiched between the
American and the British zones in the north and south,
on September 1.
On August 20, in a letter to
Bush, Senator Joseph R Biden Jr and Senator Chuck Hagel,
two of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's most
senior members, called on the president to grant a
broader role to the UN and recruit more police and
military units from other countries, especially from
allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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