Rebuilding Iraq: a soldier’s job
Securing the peace
is too important for
U.N. or State
A U.S. Marine arrests a
suspected looter in Baghdad on
Sunday.
ANALYSIS
By Dan Goure
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
NEW YORK, April 14 — The looting and scattered violence that
accompanied to fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime should not
be surprising and will not last much longer. A far more
important issue for Americans to ponder is this: Having sent
the world’s most professional military to win the war, would it
really be wise to turn the responsibility for securing the peace
over to the United Nations, or even the U.S. State Department?
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MANY OF THE scenes playing out on the streets of Baghdad,
Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul are a confirmation of almost everything
the Bush administration claimed about how the Iraqi people would
respond to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Joyous mobs, giddy with the
intoxicating effects of their new found freedom celebrating and
blessing George Bush.
At the same time, there is widespread looting — I prefer to refer
to this as “redistributive justice” — taking place as each city is
liberated. Two Shiite clerics were killed by a mob in Najaf in what
was reported to be a case of rivalry between pro-U.S. and
pro-Saddam factions. There have been several suicide bombings.
Some of the same commentators who just a few days ago were
wailing that coalition forces were bogged down and losing the war
are now making dire pronouncements regarding the chaos and loss
of control in Iraq’s cities. Without even a second’s reflection on the
irony, they warn that bringing order to Iraq will be a much more
difficult task than the campaign to liberate it. If winning the peace is
even three times harder than fighting the war, it will be only a tenth
of the challenge the United States and its allies faced at the end of
World War II or are currently confronting in Afghanistan.
NOT SO HARD?
Broadband
•
How allied troops
took the Iraqi capital
In reality, bringing order to Iraq, now that Saddam Hussein’s
regime has been defeated, will not pose much of a problem for the
coalition. Already the stories of an impending humanitarian crisis
must compete for attention with reports of large shipments of food,
water and medicines moving into Iraq by sea and truck.
Basra, fully occupied by British forces only a few days ago, is
swiftly returning to a semblance of normalcy. A Central Command
briefer, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, making reference to an incident
in Basra in which a British patrol engaged a gang of armed bank
robbers, declared: “They were shot. Looting went down in Basra.”
A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed on Baghdad.
Additional ground forces are flowing into the theater to relieve the
well-worn 3rd Infantry and 1st U.S. Marine divisions and provide
more “boots on the ground.”
The new rules of engagement issued by Gen. Tommy Franks,
commander of the war,
reflects the new reality on the ground. Troops are forbidden to
use deadly force to prevent looting. They should allow government
workers to go to their jobs. Hospitals, businesses and mosques
should remain open. Schools should reopen and record attendance.
Police, fire and emergency workers should continue to report to
their jobs unless told otherwise.
FALSE ALARM
Many commentators have expressed concerns that U.S. troops
will be forced into the unfamiliar role of policemen and that this
would be a dangerous and inappropriate use of combat forces. In
fact, this role is neither unfamiliar nor particularly challenging to
U.S. forces. Combat units have been operating as peacekeepers in
the Balkans for almost eight years now. It turns out that Abrams
tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Apache helicopter gunships
are extremely useful for maintaining order, particularly when the
lawless elements are armed with automatic rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades.
The United States has established special peacekeeping-urban
warfare training centers in both Louisiana and Germany for units
assigned to those missions. The U.S. military has a long and
illustrious tradition of performing police duties around the world.
British forces will ably assist them. The British almost never miss an
opportunity to remind Americans of their extensive experience in
urban counter-insurgency in Northern Ireland.
DOWN THE ROAD
The longer-term outlook for Iraq is more problematic.
Unfortunately, the analogies to the occupation of Germany and
Japan are incorrect. The coalition faces a different problem than that
which confronted the victorious Allies after World War II. In both
those cases, there was a strong national identity, an single,
unifying ethnicity, some halting exposure to democratic institutions
and, despite the efforts of totalitarian regimes to stamp it out, a civic
culture. The purpose of occupation after World War II was not
liberation but control. While “de-Saddamization” of the
government, police and military must be on the coalition’s agenda,
this activity is less important than the creation of new institutions.
Once order is restored
and basic services
re-established the coalition
must pursue three
complementary goals
simultaneously. First, the
oil must flow in order to
obtain the resources with
which to rebuild the
country. Second, an interim
government must be
created that is fully
representative. It must
reflect not only the ethnic
divisions in Iraq but, more
important, that nation’s
various social and
economic interests. One of
the tasks for this interim
government is to call a
constitutional convention
that will create the basis for
a representative government.
Finally, a new Iraqi military must be created, one of sufficient
size and capability to protect the nation but not so large as to be a
threat to the new government. A critical aspect of this step will be
the establishment of strong civilian control of the military. This is
one of the most important lessons that the coalition can teach
Iraqis.
The rebuilding of Iraq is too important a task to be turned over
to the United Nations and too complex to be given to the U.S. State
Department. As a result, it will inevitably become a responsibility of
the coalition in general, and the U.S. Department of Defense in
particular. The critics of this approach need to answer one
question: Who else has the capabilities to rebuild a nation?
Dan Goure is an NBC military analyst who served in the
Pentagon during the first Gulf War. He is now senior military
analyst of the Washington-based Lexington Institute.
msnbc.com |
