Watched the video, read the memorandum the discussion was based on. Both worth the time.
The report and video discussion were very strong on an objectives based program rather than imposing objectives within an arbitrary schedule. As long as it takes.
As far as I can search, the CFR memorandum has not been posted here. It's worth the time and space.
cfr.org
Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq
By: Frank G. Wisner, Jr., Edward P. Djerejian
Council on Foreign Relations
Report of an Independent Working Group
Cosponsored by the
Council on Foreign Relations
and the
James A. Baker III Institute
for Public Policy of Rice University
Edward P. Djerejian and Frank G. Wisner
Co-Chairs
Rachel Bronson and Andrew S. Weiss
Project Co-Directors
For a printer friendly version click here.
The Council on Foreign Relations is dedicated to increasing America's understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council accomplishes this mainly by promoting constructive debates and discussions, clarifying world issues, and publishing Foreign Affairs, the leading journal on global issues. The Council is host to the widest possible range of views, but an advocate of none, though its research fellows and Independent Task Forces do take policy positions. Please visit our website at www.cfr.org.
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For further information about the Council or this paper, please write the Council on Foreign Relations, 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10021, or call the Director of Communications at (212) 434-9400. Visit our website at www.cfr.org.
The mission of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy is to help bridge the gap between the theory and practice of public policy by drawing together experts from academia, government, the media, business, and nongovernmental organizations. By involving both policymakers and scholars, the institute seeks to improve the debate on selected public policy issues and to make a difference in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policy, both domestic and international. The Baker Institute is an integral part of Rice University, one of the nation's most distinguished institutions of higher learning, located in Houston, Texas. Rice's faculty and students play an important role in its research programs and public events. For further information about the institute or this paper, please visit the web site at www.bakerinstitute.org or call 713-348-4683. The research and views expressed in this paper are those of the Working Group, and do not necessarily represent the views of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
Copyright 2002 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This report may be quoted or reproduced, provided appropriate credit is given to the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Working Group Report
Addendum: Oil & Iraq: Opportunities & Challenges
Timeline: The Three Phased Approach
Members of the Working Group
FOREWORD
The United States and other nations are approaching a fateful decision on whether or not to go to war with Iraq. This report takes no position on that overarching question. However, it is difficult to imagine firing the first shots without the U.S. government having put two essential matters in order: preparing the nation for the increased likelihood of a terrorist response on American soil; and pulling together realistic plans for what America and others-above all, the Iraqis themselves-will do the day after the fighting ends. The Council has dealt with the issue of homeland security in its recently published Task Force report, "America-Still Unprepared, Still in Danger," chaired by Senators Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman. It is to meet the second concern, the day after the battle subsides, that the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University joined intellectual forces.
Ambassadors Frank G. Wisner and Edward P. Djerejian co-chaired this effort with their usual good sense, consummate skill, and high intelligence. They were complemented in their leadership and writing roles by Rachel Bronson, senior fellow and director of Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Andrew S. Weiss, a currency strategist at AIG Trading Group Inc. What these working group leaders, working group participants, and experts who addressed them have done is to create the first intellectual road map for thinking our way through a post-war Iraq. The document is comprehensive, most thoughtful, and, above all, practical and useful. It should be used to engage the administration, Congress, the media, and the wider public on this critical and pressing foreign policy issue, namely thinking about the dangers and opportunities that lie ahead in the gulf, and the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Both the Council and the Baker Institute intend to do more on this subject. More must be done urgently in Washington and around the country. With this study, we now have the basis to do just that.
--Leslie H. Gelb
President
Council on Foreign Relations
WORKING GROUP REPORT
OVERVIEW
We of today shall be judged in the future by the manner in which we meet the unprecedented responsibilities that rest upon us-not alone in winning the war but also in making certain that the opportunities for future peace and security shall not be lost.
--Secretary of State Cordell Hull [1]
Today's Iraq debate is understandably focused on the run-up to possible military action. However, the question of how the United States and the international community should manage post-conflict Iraq is even more consequential, as it will determine the long-term condition of Iraq and the entire Middle East. If Washington does not clearly define its goals for Iraq and build support for them domestically and with its allies and partners, future difficulties are bound to quickly overshadow any initial military success. Put simply, the United States may lose the peace, even if it wins the war.
Developing an integrated, coherent post-conflict strategy for Iraq is a daunting task that will test American political acumen. It is made more difficult by pre-conflict uncertainties and fast-moving events on the ground. Since the international community has only agreed to focus on the arms inspection question, serious engagement on post-conflict issues by the United Nations and governments outside the United States has been limited.
The Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University have prepared this memorandum. It identifies a series of guiding principles and priorities to help the Bush administration promote reconstruction and reconciliation in Iraq and build a more secure Middle East after military conflict.
The memorandum is based on the assumption that full-scale military operations will be necessary and of relatively short duration. It does not consider worst-case scenarios, such as the United States getting bogged down in Iraq and engaging in protracted urban warfare. If Saddam Hussein fully complies with UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1441 and disarms Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, military action would not be necessary. In addition, if an anti-Saddam coup occurs just before an invasion begins, it may be entirely justified to delay or cancel hostilities, especially if the new regime is amenable to accepting robust disarmament conditions. However, this memorandum is based on the contingency that Saddam will not comply with UNSCR 1441, triggering U.S.-led military action.
This memorandum recommends that the administration adopt a three-phased approach that distinguishes between short-term necessities and long-term goals and objectives. In the medium-term, the key challenge will be to devise a transitional strategy that takes Iraq from the current situation to a more secure and prosperous future. There should be no illusions that the reconstruction of Iraq will be anything but difficult, confusing, and dangerous for everyone involved. However, segmenting the strategy into distinct phases and ensuring that Iraqis play a major role in determining the fate of their country will reduce the chance that one brutal strongman will be substituted for another-reproducing historical patterns and necessitating future interventions-and will also help increase the likelihood that the United States is seen internationally, in the region, and in Iraq to be working to promote Iraqi interests as opposed to assumed U.S. ones. Finding the right Iraqi allies will be key to restoring Iraqi sovereignty and making possible an early American exit.
The memorandum also recommends that the White House establish a focal point inside the U.S government to oversee this strategy. A "Coordinator for Iraq" should have full White House backing, should be assigned a deputy to run the public diplomacy campaign, and have responsibility for a post-conflict Iraq task force that draws its membership from across the interagency process.
The three-phased approach should be accompanied by a vigorous public diplomacy campaign focused on the Middle East and the Muslim world. Serious attention must also be given to skeptical audiences at home, in Europe, and elsewhere. An effective campaign must prepare the Iraqi people and the citizens of the region for the potential violence and build support for the short- and long-term goals of intervention. Such an approach will help deflate, although by no means mute, local criticism in the region and help deny terrorists and extremists the ability to use the military action to their own political advantage. An effective campaign will be made more difficult by the fact that the explicit international consensus on Iraq is built around the need to destroy that country's WMD, rather than regime change, let alone regime change effected by war. We advocate that the planning process for this coordinated three-phased approach begin as soon as possible.
A successful post-Saddam strategy will take time and resources. America must stand ready to invest in the transition.
DEFINING A POST-CONFLICT VISION FOR IRAQ
President George W. Bush and his top advisers must be ready to elucidate a long-term vision for Iraq. This vision should include the following:
* uphold the territorial integrity of Iraq;
* underscore the importance of an Iraq free of WMD that does not threaten its neighbors;
* promote a post-Saddam Iraqi government that is based on democratic principles, representative of Iraq's diverse population, promotes true power- and revenue-sharing among these groups, and upholds fundamental human rights and free market economics. The Working Group endorses a federal Iraq, organized along territorial rather than ethnic or sectarian lines;
* emphasize the leading role that the Iraqi people must play in running Iraq and convey that the United States has no desire to become the de facto ruler of Iraq. To quote Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq's future government "is not for the United States, indeed not even for the United Nations to prescribe. It will be something that's distinctively Iraqi"; and
* welcome the fullest possible involvement in peacekeeping, reconciliation, and reconstruction efforts by multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations, neighboring states (especially from the Arab world), non-Arab Muslim countries, and other Western partners.
Vigorous diplomacy with Arab and regional states before, during, and after conflict is necessary in order to obtain even minimal support. The overall strategic approach toward the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq would benefit from a UN Security Council resolution that endorses this vision and the three-phased approach for realizing it. At the end of phase III, a final resolution should acknowledge that the key goals and objectives have been met and welcome back Iraq as a full member of the international community.
SHORT-TERM REALITIES
Immediately after the conclusion of hostilities, Iraqis will look to the United States and allied forces to ensure that anarchy, revenge, and score-settling do not overwhelm the opportunities for lasting political change.
The most urgent immediate tasks will be the following:
1. Establishment of a "U.S. Coordinator for Iraq." Ideally the person chosen to fill this role will have good standing on Capitol Hill, deep working knowledge of the U.S. political process, and a strong regional background. Because the coordinator will not have control over military planning, he or she should be well respected by the military as well. The coordinator should be assigned a deputy to oversee the public diplomacy campaign and oversee an Iraq task force that draws representation from key actors throughout the bureaucracy such as the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, etc. The position should last two years, or until key objectives outlined in the three-phased approach are realized.
2. Location and Destruction of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Delivery Systems. Tracking and gaining control over Iraq's highly dispersed WMD and related materiel and technology will be a tall order in the chaotic conditions likely to accompany the fall of Saddam's regime. Current U.S. efforts to solicit cooperation from knowledgeable Iraqis about the weapons programs provide a good foundation. Nonetheless, there is a significant danger that some in the weapons complex will simply "privatize" technology or systems under their control.
U.S. interest in Iraq's WMD will not stop with the physical destruction of these systems, but will continue into the future. Iraq's capabilities are in the minds of those who created them and in records that will be impossible to trace. UN resolutions authorizing longer-term monitoring of Iraq's capabilities should be part of the post-conflict package of UN mandates. Similarly, Iraq and the international community should enter into arrangements that provide for WMD monitoring and control and acknowledge existing borders. Creative incentives for cooperation must be devised for those Iraqi scientists not guilty of war crimes, in order to prevent rogue states and/or terrorist organization from benefiting from the remnants of Saddam's WMD programs.
3. Establishment of Law and Order. U.S./coalition military units will need to pivot quickly from combat to peacekeeping operations in order to prevent post-conflict Iraq from descending into anarchy. Strong U.S.-backing for an emergency government will be needed to fill the vacuum left by Saddam. Without an initial and broad-based commitment to law and order, the logic of score-settling and revenge-taking will reduce Iraq to chaos.
Initial efforts must also focus on eliminating the Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, intelligence services, and other key institutions of Saddam's regime, while preserving the Iraqi Army (minus the uppermost leadership and any others guilty of serious crimes). The army remains one of the country's more respected institutions. How it is treated during the military campaign and after, including the removal of its top leadership, is one of the key pieces of a U.S. strategy. The army could serve as a guarantor of peace and stability if it is retrained in part for constabulary duty and internal security missions. Iraqi leaders whose crimes are so egregious that they can be tried as crimes against humanity must be detained and prosecuted.
Before reorganization and retraining of the military begins, it must be clear that the army will undertake the following tasks:
* organize for the defense of Iraq and support the maintenance of law and order;
* serve, rather than become, the principal instrument of governance;
* be free of officers with high-level Ba'athist ties;
* remove those officers guilty of major crimes or crimes against humanity; and
* determine advancement based on merit, not ethnic or sectarian differences.
From the beginning, the United States and its allies should begin laying the groundwork for a short-term, international- and UN-supervised Iraqi administration, which includes strong international participation (perhaps along the lines of the relationship between Lakhdar Brahimi and the Afghan Interim Authority), with an eye toward the earliest possible reintroduction of full indigenous Iraqi rule. The optimal strategy is for the United States to play a superintending role, one that maintains low visibility but is clearly committed to protecting law and order and creating a breathing space for a nascent Iraqi government to take shape. The U.S. role will be best played in the background guiding progress and making sure that any peacekeeping force is effective and robust enough to do its job. The United States should also encourage Iraqi-led efforts toward a new constitution, census-taking, local elections, and convocation of a new parliament. While moving the process along as quickly as possible, the United States must not be limited by self-imposed timelines, but should rather adopt an objectives-based approach.
4. Eliminating the System of Repression. The United States and its partners should quickly put in place a mechanism to purge those responsible for the crimes and excesses of Saddam's regime. By moving immediately to address this issue and by ensuring a prominent role for Iraqi and international jurists in the screening process, the United States can help reassure Iraqi citizens that justice will be swift and fair while sending a clear signal that self-styled acts of vengeance and retribution will not be tolerated. It will also help guarantee that the people involved in a future Iraqi government are acceptable to Iraqi citizens. At a later stage, judicial arrangements must be established to deal with crimes against humanity.
5. Preserving Iraq's Territorial Integrity and Internal Cohesion. Fears of an Iraqi break-up are almost certainly overstated, but Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups are divided by mutual hostility and suspicion intensified by years of Saddam's repression. Deployment of U.S.-led forces in northern Iraq and other potential flashpoints such as Kirkuk, Mosul, and centers of Shi'a sensitivity like Karbala may be needed to increase the likelihood of a unified, federal Iraq. The United States also will want to take careful steps to head off any worst-case forays into Iraq, for example, into the northern Kurdish areas and southern Shi'a ones.
Consultative councils in Baghdad and Iraqi provinces should also be established as soon as possible. These councils would be comprised of Iraqi leaders at the national and regional levels and would include representatives from the external opposition. These councils would help military commanders understand conditions, settle disputes, and resolve problems at the local level.
6. Distributing Humanitarian Assistance, Reestablishing Vital Services. Post-conflict conditions inside Iraq will be desperate, and the management of humanitarian relief operations will be an urgent priority for the U.S. military, as will repairs to major transportation links and lines of communication. U.S. forces will need to move quickly to provide for basic necessities, such as food, potable water, and health facilities for the Iraqi people. As it stands now, 75 percent of the proceeds from oil-for-food sales are used to purchase humanitarian goods for Iraq. The Iraqi regime has manipulated the system to reward loyalists and punish opponents, particularly in the center and south of the country where the regime is in full control. One of the first tasks must be to quickly reconfigure the distribution system to assume a humanitarian, rather than political, function. American planners should begin preparatory discussions with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the UN on the fastest and most reliable way to fix and possibly expand this valuable mechanism in the immediate post-conflict period.
Refugee flows toward Turkey and especially Iran of up to 1.5 million people are likely. This places a premium on engaging early with both Turkey and Iran on cooperative strategies for mitigating the consequences of this difficult problem. Those fleeing the fighting will add to the better than one million Iraqis who have already sought asylum outside the country's borders. Managing the refugee issue there must address issues of immediate relief and longer-term resettlement.
Advanced planning, both with the UN and the humanitarian community, is necessary to ensure the earliest possible hand-off of the relief effort to UN agencies and other relief organizations. The administration should give serious consideration to issuing the necessary licenses for American NGOs to undertake assessment missions in northern Iraq. We commend recent planning discussions between the administration and the NGO community on short- and long-term humanitarian assistance.
A major outstanding issue is that U.S. forces are ill-prepared for the possibility that Saddam will employ chemical weapons against Iraqi civilian targets as a way of slowing the U.S. advance on Baghdad and other major objectives. Even though the administration is engaging NGOs on topics such as WMD training, the United States must still review and expand its plans and capabilities to assist civilians harmed by a WMD attack. In the absence of urgent and determined action on this issue, there is grave potential for disruption of the overall U.S. military effort.
7. Marshalling U.S. Public Diplomacy Tools. Prospects for overall U.S. success will depend on a sustained public information effort to familiarize the Iraqi people, as well as the citizens and governments of neighboring states, with U.S. short- and long-term objectives and intentions. The United States will want to set a political context that reassures Iraqis and the international community about the limited nature of its intentions and offers a viable and credible strategy for Persian Gulf security. One of the most important issues to address is the widely held view that the campaign against Iraq is driven by an American wish to "steal" or at least control Iraqi oil. U.S. statements and behavior must refute this. If war comes, the United Sates will want to be able to provide sources of accurate information that help explain to all concerned, both inside and outside Iraq, the process that is unfolding and what comes next.
The administration should assign the "U.S. Coordinator for Iraq" a deputy to oversee the broadest possible public diplomacy efforts, including through radio, satellite, and local television stations, as well as region-wide and local newspapers. American actions, those of the international community, and a new Iraqi interim government will have to be explained after the war and during the entire period leading up to full reestablishment of Iraqi sovereignty.
THE DANGER OF IMPOSED SOLUTIONS
The continued public discussion of a U.S. military government along the lines of post-war Japan or Germany is unhelpful. After conflict, Iraqis will be a liberated, not a defeated, people. While considerable U.S. involvement will be necessary in the post-conflict environment, such comparisons suggest a long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq that will neither advance U.S. interest nor garner outside support. Likewise, it will be important to resist the temptation, advanced in various quarters, to establish a provisional government in advance of hostilities or to impose a post-conflict government, especially one dominated by exiled Iraqi opposition leaders. Such a government would lack internal legitimacy and could further destabilize the situation inside the country. The external opposition has a significant role to play in determining Iraq's future, but it should be viewed as one important voice among many.
In approaching issues such as the status of the Kurds and Shi'a, it will be essential not to repeat Saddam's attempt to organize Iraq along ethnic or religious lines, but rather to encourage territorial/provincial lines within a unified, federal framework. The U.S. goal should be to urge cooperation downward to regional, secular provinces, rather than on to ethnic enclaves.
The United States and the international community can play a helpful role in supporting Iraqi efforts to hold key supporters of Saddam's regime responsible for their actions. Open legal proceedings, with international participation, will be necessary to deal with war crimes. Likewise, international advisers can help Iraqis develop criteria for the removal and/or prosecution of key members of Saddam's regime that will be key to the reestablishment of core government services and the retention of the competent technocratic layers of government ministries.
It is possible that Saddam will be overthrown prior to the end of hostilities, with a new Iraqi strongman or a national salvation committee taking power in Baghdad. Assuming that such a government makes a clean break with Saddam's reign of terror and pursuit of WMD, the United States should be prepared to work with it and to help it establish the broadest, most favorable terms for post-conflict international involvement on disarmament and reconstruction.
THE LURE OF IRAQI OIL: REALITIES AND CONSTRAINTS
There has been a great deal of wishful thinking about Iraqi oil, including a widespread belief that oil revenues will help defray war costs and the expense of rebuilding the Iraqi state and economy. Notwithstanding the value of Iraq's vast oil reserves, there are severe limits on them both as a source of funding for post-conflict reconstruction efforts and as the key driver of future economic development. Put simply, we do not anticipate a bonanza.
The U.S. approach should be guided by four principles:
* Iraqis maintain control of their own oil sector;
* a significant portion of early proceeds is spent on the rehabilitation of the oil industry;
* there should be a level playing field for all international players to participate in future repair, development, and exploration efforts; and
* any proceeds are fairly shared by all of Iraq's citizens. If de-politicized, the UN oil-for-food distribution mechanism is a useful starting point for distributing oil revenues throughout the country.
It is also important to note that Iraqis have the capability to manage the future direction of their oil industry. A heavy American hand will only convince them, and the rest of the world, that the operation against Iraq was undertaken for imperialist, rather than disarmament, reasons. It is in America's interest to discourage such misperceptions. While Iraqi technocrats are likely to be attracted to American technology and assistance, the United States should be prepared that negotiations with future Iraqi representatives on foreign participation will be prolonged and hard-fought. In addition, Iraq's highly experienced, nationalistic oil executives will be motivated by Iraqi national interests and are unlikely to agree to one-sided terms that transfer effective control of Iraq's oil reserves to foreigners.
How quickly Iraq's oil production capacity of 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) can be increased depends on several variables, such as the political environment that develops after the war and the price of oil. U.S. policy should be informed by a realistic assessment of how Iraq will attract the estimated $30 billion to $40 billion in new investment it needs to rehabilitate active wells and to develop new fields.
Iraq's oil industry is unlikely to be able to immediately deliver recovery in oil production and, depending on damage sustained during hostilities, may find its ability to export oil reduced. It is in dire straits with existing production levels declining at a rate of 100,000 bpd annually. Significant technical challenges exist to staunching the decline and eventually increasing production. Returning to Iraq's pre-1990 levels of 3.5 million bpd will require massive repairs and reconstruction of major export facilities, costing several billions of dollars and taking months, if not years. Service contractors are likely to secure most initial oil sector contracts. The best-case projections of 6 million bpd will take several years to achieve and depend on a multitude of factors including ongoing international oil market conditions.
Any damage done to the industry during conflict will have to be addressed immediately in order to ensure that oil revenues continue to flow back to the Iraqi people. American military planners must be well-briefed on Iraq's oil infrastructure, in order to avoid inadvertently harming Iraq's recovery.
Finally, the legality of post-sanctions contracts awarded in recent years will have to be evaluated. Prolonged legal conflicts over contracts could delay the development of important fields in Iraq and hamper a new government's ability to expand production. It may be advisable to pre-establish a legitimate (preferably UN-mandated) legal framework for vetting pre-hostility exploration agreements.
THE BURDEN OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Leaving aside immediate humanitarian needs, experts estimate that reconstruction will cost between $25 and $100 billion. Repairing existing oil export installations will require $5 billion, and rebuilding Iraq's electrical power infrastructure could cost $20 billion to restore its pre-1990 capacity. Given that Iraq's annual oil revenues are currently in the neighborhood of $10 billion, significant financial support will have to be generated by neighboring states, multilateral institutions, and other Western partners.
The scale of Iraq's problems makes it essential that the administration move to swiftly integrate development planning by the UN Development Programme and the World Bank with its plans for immediate humanitarian assistance. Mindful that the new Iraqi regime could be crippled by its foreign debt of upwards of $60 billion, the administration should seek to lighten that burden by convening the earliest possible meetings of Iraq's creditors in the London and Paris Clubs. Likewise, the United States should encourage delays in making reparations payments and repayment of other debts, including those owed to Russia and other major debt holders.
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