NEW YORK
- The United States has unveiled to the United Nations
Security Council the much-awaited draft resolution on
Iraq, which calls for the transfer of political and
administrative power to Iraq through the formation of a
"sovereign interim government", but according to
critics, still holds back certain powers.
The
five-page draft resolution, co-sponsored by the US and
Britain, calls for the transfer of sovereignty to
Iraqis, provides the interim government with control
over the country's oil resources and outlines the
creation of a US-led multinational force to provide
security for UN personnel administering proposed
elections in the occupied country.
Washington
released the draft hours before President George W Bush,
who faces falling approval ratings in an election year,
appeared on television to convince the world that his
administration has an exit strategy.
Overall,
the draft received a cautiously positive response from
Security Council members, including France and Germany,
who blocked US efforts to receive the council's approval
for military action against Iraq. But critics of the
move say the resolution skirts the crucial issue of how
much real sovereignty will be passed to the Iraqi
people, whose country will continue to be militarily
occupied by US, British and other coalition forces until
2005, or longer.
"There is no such thing as
'sovereignty lite'," said Kenneth Roth, executive
director of Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Being sovereign
is like being pregnant: you either are or you aren't,"
Roth added. "If the new Iraqi government [as envisaged
by the US-UK resolution] doesn't have ultimate authority
and responsibility for the security of the Iraqi people,
then it is not truly sovereign."
But British UN
ambassador Sir Emyr Jones Parry said the interim
government, which takes over on June 30, would assume
total responsibility for its own sovereignty.
The resolution, which gives a major role to the
UN in civilian affairs, asks the world body to organize
a national conference for the selection of an advisory
council, which would help the interim government run the
country and hold elections. The draft provides for
elections by January 31 for a provisional government,
which would draw up a permanent constitution that will
lead to election for a government by the end of the next
year.
Roth, however, said the draft resolution
is flawed for two reasons: not only will Washington
continue to have final say on matters of Iraqi security,
but the interim government will not be able to enact new
legislation or overturn laws imposed during the US-led
occupation, which began after coalition forces attacked
the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in
March 2003.
"The whole thing is a sham," said
Joan Russow of the Canada-based Global Compliance
Research Project. "It would appear that the Security
Council will cave in to US and UK pressure to
essentially absolve the two countries for their
pre-emptive, preventive aggression against Iraq - an
undeniable violation of the rule of international law.
"If the current resolution is adopted," Russow
told Inter Press Service, "a dangerous precedent will be
set - that the Security Council will overlook distortion
of facts to justify intervention."
Jim Paul of
the Global Policy Forum said the draft resolution only
offers an excuse to provide, "a certain legitimacy to
the odious occupation of Iraq". "The Security Council
should really be calling into account the occupation of
Iraq, not condoning it," Paul said. While the
international community has overwhelmingly condemned the
occupation of Iraq as illegal, he said, "the United
Nations is institutionally somehow agreeing to the
legality of this occupation".
Paul, whose group
monitors UN policymaking, also argues that there are two
significant shortcomings in the draft resolution. First,
it "welcomes" the establishment of a "partnership"
between the proposed multinational force and the
sovereign interim government of Iraq. But the concept of
"partnership", he said, clearly indicates a division of
sovereignty between the multinational force and the
Iraqi people. This, according to Paul, is unacceptable -
particularly if real sovereignty is to be restored to
the people.
Secondly, Paul added, the resolution
seeks the support of the international community to
"condemn all acts of terrorism in Iraq".
"This
identifies Iraqi resistance to military occupation as
terrorism," he said. "Clearly there are various acts of
resistance by Iraqis which may seem acceptable by some,
but the resolution tries to frame the entire resistance
movement as a terrorist movement," he said. "This is
intolerable."
Equally unacceptable, according to
Paul, is the fact that the resolution does not provide a
time frame for the multinational force to end its
mission in Iraq. "So if the Security Council in its
wisdom proposes an end to the mission, the United States
and Britain will have veto powers over any such
proposal."
The US officials have said that the
force, which has an initial period of one year after
which its working mandate would be reviewed, would be in
the country with the consent of the government and it
would be withdrawn if the government demands that. But
they do not expect a request for withdrawal in view of
the bad security situation in the country.
France wants a timetable for handing over
control of police and security forces to the interim
government, arguing that Iraqis could not enjoy full
sovereignty until they had control over the forces.
Germany also says the new Iraqi government should be
able to take decisions over the security issues.
Otherwise, it would not be truly independent.
Aside from the United States and Britain, the
three other veto-wielding permanent members of the
Security Council are China, Russia and France. According
to observers, they are unlikely to use their vetoes
against the draft resolution primarily to avoid a fight
with the United States.
Russow argued that
adopting the resolution also would condone the violation
of international law, including the Geneva Conventions
governing the treatment of prisoners and civilians
during war.
Both the United States and Britain
are under a storm of controversy for abusing prisoners
under their care in Iraq (and also Afghanistan in
Washington's case). Those incidents, many of which were
captured on film and seen around the world in recent
weeks, would violate the Conventions.
Russow
argued that the decision on the US-UK proposal should
not be left to the Security Council.
The
Millennium Declaration adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 2000 contains a commitment to strengthen the
role of the Assembly. "The time is now: only the General
Assembly can prevent the United Nations from being
discredited for establishing a dangerous international
precedent," Russow said.
It is imperative that
the assembly hold a special session as soon as possible
on the situation in Iraq and the future of the country,
she added.
According to Paul, there are few
prospects for countries to contribute to the
multinational force proposed in the draft resolution.
"This is a time when countries are pulling out their
troops and heading for the exit," he said. Spain, which
withdrew its troops last week, has made it clear that it
will not go back under any circumstances, he added.
Germany, France, Canada and Russia have already
announced they will not provide any troops - "no matter
what kind of resolution is adopted by the Security
Council", Paul said.
The draft resolution also
says that on the dissolution of the US-administered
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) June 30, the new
interim government will have control over oil resources
that are now being run by the US-led coalition. The
international board advisory would continue to audit the
accounts but would have no say in how it is spent by the
Iraqis.
It would also lift arms embargo against
Iraq and calls on UN to advise the new government on
reconstruction, development, humanitarian aid,
establishment of civil and social services and judicial
reforms.
Since last year's invasion, the country
has been run by the CPA headed by US ambassador L Paul
Bremer.
The UN envoy to Iraq, Lakdhar Brahimi,
is currently in Iraq negotiating with leaders of several
ethnic and religious groups to form an interim
government with a prime minister, a president and two
vice presidents.
The UN has been entrusted in
the resolution with the task of conducting nation-wide
elections by December of this year "if possible, and in
no case later than January 31, 2005".
Despite
the planned handover of power to Iraqis, the US has said
that its troops, which number more than 130,000, will
remain in Iraq through 2005.
