-Caveat Lector- U.S. Plan For Iraq's Future Is Challenged Pentagon Control, Secrecy Questioned
By Karen DeYoung and Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, April 6, 2003; Page A21 As it anticipates imminent victory in Iraq, the Bush administration is facing questions, criticism and the threatened rejection of significant parts of its plan for rebuilding the country and establishing a new, representative Iraqi government. The concerns begin with the secrecy that has surrounded the planning process and the lack of publicly released details. What is known is that President Bush, for reasons he has not made clear, has given the Department of Defense primary control over all postwar aid and reconstruction, a role that has sparked discomfort across a broad, bipartisan spectrum in Congress and among other governments. While it has announced plans to quickly establish an "interim authority" of Iraqis on the ground, the administration has not said what that authority's responsibilities will be or how its members will be chosen. Many say it should not be created before all Iraqis untainted with association with President Saddam Hussein are free to participate, and some question whether any U.S.-created authority will be considered legitimate in the eyes of Iraqis or the rest of the world. So far, the administration has responded largely with pledges to include others in the reconstruction effort and to ensure the eventual establishment of a truly representative government. But with U.S. troops entering Baghdad, there have been moves at home and abroad to push postwar plans in directions that the administration has indicated it will strongly resist. Congress has already rewritten the emergency request for $2.5 billion in reconstruction assistance that Bush submitted last month, with the Senate barring the money from use by the Pentagon. The House has insisted that it go through the traditional State Department aid agencies. "The secretary of state is the appropriate manager of foreign assistance, and is so designated by law," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), a House Appropriations Committee member, expressing a view widely held across party lines. Prominent lawmakers said they expect the changes to survive a House-Senate conference this week. But the White House has mounted a strong effort to reverse them, including calls by Vice President Cheney late last week to the top GOP leadership. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has not commented on the financial arrangements, but there has been a series of disputes with the Defense Department over the makeup of the postwar team. Officials at the State Department are also concerned that the early establishment of an Iraqi authority will give too much initial power to Pentagon-preferred exile leaders at the expense of potential leaders within the country. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's chief ally in invading Iraq without the U.N. Security Council's approval, has pushed for a much stronger U.N. role in the postwar process than the president envisions. British and U.S. officials said that when the two leaders meet tomorrow in Belfast, Blair plans to remind the president of their joint pledge to seek U.N. endorsement of postwar reconstruction and political plans. At the United Nations, senior officials said there is virtually no chance that the Security Council will endorse a Pentagon-run reconstruction effort or a U.S.-installed Iraqi authority. Without new council resolutions, the European Union said last week that it will not participate in the postwar effort. The administration responded on Friday with reassurances that its goal is a free, disarmed and democratic Iraq. "To achieve these goals," White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "we will work with Iraqis, our coalition partners and international organizations to rebuild Iraq. We will leave Iraq completely in the hands of Iraqis as quickly as possible." Reconstruction The foundation of the administration's postwar plan for Iraq is the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid, a Pentagon-based agency established by National Security Directive 24, a document Bush signed several months ago. Its head, chosen by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner. He plans to install American "civilian advisers" at the top of Iraqi government ministries and agencies. Garner reports to Rumsfeld through Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command. Although the State Department's Agency for International Development and disaster relief organizations will handle much of the actual humanitarian and reconstruction work, the plan calls for them to answer to Garner, who will control their funding. Despite repeated requests for more information and for a meeting with Garner, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he and his staff have received only "inconclusive and not very comprehensive views" on Garner's plans. The Pentagon has refused requests from Lugar and other committees to meet with Garner. With Garner's team awaiting entry into Iraq, the Defense Department "has refused requests by the staff of the Appropriations Committee to brief us, and has its people sitting around a swimming pool in Kuwait drawing up plans," said a senior congressional aide. Top Republicans as well as Democrats have been smarting for months over what they view as highhanded treatment by the White House and the Defense Department on a range of fiscal issues. While there is overwhelming support on Capitol Hill for the way Bush and Rumsfeld have conducted the war, the peacetime arrangements for Iraq outlined in Bush's emergency spending package met with near universal rejection. In what members said was an unprecedented move, Bush asked for the $2.5 billion reconstruction fund to be appropriated to the White House itself, presumably to be distributed through the Pentagon. A memo prepared by senior GOP staff for the House Appropriations Committee noted that the arrangement would erect a "wall of executive privilege [that] would deny Congress and the Committee access to the management of the Fund. Decision-makers determining the allocation . . . could not be called as witnesses before hearings, and most fiscal data would be beyond the Committee's reach." In addition, the memo said, "further drawing our Armed Forces into long-term nation-building . . . would degrade their capacities to fight wars." Versions of the bill passed last week in both the House and the Senate would prevent the money from going to the Defense Department. "We had to do that," said a senior House Democrat who is generally very supportive of the Pentagon. "It sends a message." "We all admire the Department of Defense when they're doing the things they're best trained for," said Senate Appropriations Committee member Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). But there is "no consensus" for allowing the Pentagon to handle the reconstruction effort, "and we're the ones who have to come up with the money." Rice said the White House will continue to press against the changes. "The president asked for the appropriations to be made available . . . to the president for distribution," she said, and Bush has designated the Defense Department as "the lead agency" for postwar operations. Pentagon control has also concerned Blair and the United Nations. The White House has said it is prepared to work with U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations on the reconstruction of Iraq, but its failure so far to define their roles has increased suspicion that it expects them to take a secondary position. Powell has been in close touch with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and he said last week that he anticipates Annan will appoint a special envoy to coordinate with the U.S. operation. But it is a "misapprehension," said one informed source, to believe that Annan "is going to appoint a special coordinator who in reality, if not in letter, will be subordinate to an occupying power." France, Germany, Russia and China, Security Council members who opposed the U.S.-British war decision, all issued statements on Friday saying that the United Nations is the only legitimate authority for supervising the rebuilding of Iraq. Iraq's Political Future Questions about the creation and composition of an Iraqi interim authority rose to the surface last week after reports that Rumsfeld had proposed it be established immediately and installed in southern Iraq before the end of the war. Rumsfeld argued that appointing the body now would "put an Iraqi face" on the country's immediate future, U.S. officials said, and would deflect criticism that the United States plans to exert sole control. The State Department has agreed on the importance of establishing some sort of organized Iraqi entity on the ground, but officials there have argued that it is much too early to constitute a recognized "authority." Since there has been little chance yet for legitimate, anti-Hussein leaders to emerge from within, they say, it would inevitably be dominated by exile figures whose following in Iraq is unclear. Underlying this disagreement is a long-standing dispute between the two departments over specific exile leaders who are favored by the Pentagon and mistrusted by officials at State and the CIA. In particular, some Defense officials, along with senior Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle and former CIA director R. James Woolsey, have a longstanding relationship with Ahmed Chalabi, head of the exile Iraqi National Congress (INC). They have argued that his democratic experience outside Iraq and his longtime commitment to the overthrow of Hussein and to other administration goals in the Middle East make him well-suited to play a leading role. The INC is one of six anti-Hussein organizations -- including groups representing northern Iraq Kurds and southern Shiites -- that have formed an uneasy coalition under U.S. auspices. Among several alternatives, the State Department has suggested that the six be designated as part of a "conference" of Iraqi leaders, with other leaders to be added as more of the country is brought under U.S. control. When the balance is right, the conference could name an interim authority to function alongside the U.S. administration, and eventually work toward a new Iraqi government. Rice said, in response to questions on Friday, that it is "possible" the authority would be established soon. While assuring that it would be "broad-based," she did not specify how its members would be selected. "We went through a similar phase in Afghanistan," she said, when a transitional authority was named to assume early governing responsibilities and to prepare for elections. But in Afghanistan, the entire process was supervised by the United Nations, and Rice made clear that is not the current U.S. plan. "I would just caution that Iraq is not East Timor, or Kosovo, or Afghanistan," she said, all of which established new administrations under U.N. auspices. "Iraq is unique." That appears to contradict the procedure advocated by Blair's government, and seems certain not to be recognized by the United Nations. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a speech on Tuesday that his government will not only "ensure that the United Nations oversees the medium- and long-term international aid program to Iraq," but will seek new Security Council resolutions "to endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration." © 2003 The Washington Post Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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