Proof: Pentagon, State Said at Odds Over Iraq's Future
Tue April 1, 2003 08:19 PM ET
By Carol Giacomo and Steve Holland
<<Yes they are in disarray>>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the United States pressed on with its war on Iraq, plans for relief aid and reconstruction that are considered critical to long-term peace there are threatened by internal disputes within the Bush administration, officials and experts said on Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon, with 100,000 troops in Iraq, are trying to exert maximum control over rebuilding the country and selecting a post-war government in a power struggle with the State Department, they said.
"As long as we have significant military forces in Iraq -- and their numbers are increasing -- the Pentagon will run the show," said one specialist with ties to State Department.
"Once they decide to draw down the forces, it will become less and less of a Pentagon show," he told Reuters.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Rumsfeld had rejected a team of officials proposed by the State Department to help run Iraq once President Saddam Hussein is ousted.
Asked about the dispute on the leadership question, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters: "I think it's fair to say there are discussions about the exact nature of post-Saddam Iraq. And those continue to be discussed."
The State Department is said to be looking for a less visible U.S. military role and perhaps ultimately U.N. administration of Iraq as a way of boosting post-war international political and financial support.
Retired U.S. General Jay Garner has already been named to oversee the post-war Iraq administration through the Pentagon's new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
Garner is viewed with suspicion at the United Nations, which wants a role in post-war Iraq. "He has locked up the future government of Iraq," one diplomatic source said.
Still to be decided is who will fill key posts under him.
Walter Slocum, undersecretary of defense during the Clinton administration, has tentatively been picked to be the top adviser on restarting the Iraqi defense ministry.
Former CIA director James Woolsey was a candidate for the Iraqi information ministry but this idea was abandoned.
The U.S. military and its war allies envision operating the Iraqi government under what will be called the Iraqi Interim Authority for at least weeks and probably longer during the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war, U.S. officials said.
RESTART MINISTRIES
The hope is to quickly restart ministries like agriculture, water and culture and others that would not be stacked with Saddam loyalists.
Setting up the Defense ministry would likely take longer and those agencies seen as serving only to prop up the Saddam government, like security services, will be dismantled.
"The idea is to get as much into the hands of the Iraqis as soon as possible leading to the point where everything is in the hands of the Iraqis," a U.S. official said.
Aiming to be as "inclusive as possible," the Iraqi Interim Authority will seek to build a government with a broad mix of Iraqi groups, including exiles, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs, Chaldeans and Assyrians, an official said.
Another official said "to my knowledge nobody has settled on any composition of the IIA primarily because it will be comprised of Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq."
Any talented leaders who oppose the regime would have a hard time speaking up and staying alive until the regime falls, he said.
Eventually the Iraqi Interim Authority will draw up a constitution and set up a permanent government. "We'll be there to advise but it's something they have to do," he said.
The other major issue involves control of humanitarian aid. For months international relief groups have urged Washington to ensure distribution was under civilian not military control.
They fear close association with the U.S. military would jeopardize the safety of relief workers and limit their freedom to make decisions about which communities receive aid.
Secretary of State Colin Powell last week wrote to Rumsfeld making clear that civilian authorities, not the Pentagon, would be in charge of humanitarian assistance, an official said.
An AID spokeswoman insisted U.S AID disaster response teams coordinating the relief effort "report to (AID chief Andrew) Natsios and he reports to Secretary Powell." But asked if the dispute over military versus civilian control was resolved, she said: "I wouldn't go that far. There are ongoing discussions."
A relief agency spokesman said: "People are upset. They do not want to report to the military. They can't report to the military. If some of their staff gets hurt in the field they could never look themselves in the mirror again." |
