Daily Update
A weblog of the post 9/11 world
updated 12:00 p.m. ET November 10, 2003
Iraq Governing Council may be on last legs
The Washington Post reports that Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, feels confident that his troops are winning the war against Baathist fighters and religious extremists. But he is also concerned that recent attacks by these groups have allowed them to create the perception that "
they are stronger than they are."
"I am not concerned about it from the point of view militarily that they can defeat us. However, this is a battle of perceptions. We need to understand that they are adapting their tactics . . . and also developing stronger organizational structures, and we've got to break into these structures and destroy them." But
The Boston Globe reports that Baghdad residents have a much more severe report about US operations in Iraq. For many Iraqis the US failures are so dramatic, that they find it
hard to believe that they are accidental. "The Americans want to keep the country in chaos, with no government, so that they can do what they want," said one Shiite man to the
Globe.
As Iraqis see it, the US failures are the cause of the most difficult problems that the occupation authorities face: widespread lawlessness, badly damaged public utilities, thousands of would-be holy warriors from surrounding areas, hundreds of thousands of angry former soldiers and security men, and the low credibility of Iraqi officials on the US-appointed provisional Governing Council (IGC). And it's not just Iraqis who are getting fed up with the IGC.
The Post reports that the Bush administration is "
increasingly frustrated" with the group, and is contemplating alternatives. The main reason: council members have spent more time "worrying about their own political and economic interests that they have in planning Iraq's future," especially writing a new constitution. "We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting as a legislative or governing body, and we need to get moving," said a well-placed US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They just don't make decisions when they need to." This level of frustration can be seen in the fact that the administration is
considering a French idea (mon Dieu!) to create an interim Iraqi leadership that would emulate the Afghanistan model.
Not everyone in Washington thinks the IGC should go.
The Scotsman reports that prominent neoconservative Richard Perle says replacing the council
would be a mistake.
"The Iraqi Governing Council consists of people who represent large elements of the Iraqi society," he said. "If we're impatient, we shouldn't be because they have the potential to govern the country and govern it effectively." Yet even the one big decision made by the council that did win it public support (
saying no to troops from Turkey) did not win it any friends in Washington, where the Bush administration wants to find some way to provide relief to US soldiers stationed in Iraq.
The issue of
cronyism in Iraq has become a hot topic.
Time magazine reports that the recent awarding of telecommunications contracts has created a stir because a major contracts has been awarded to a group headed by an individual with strong ties to Ahmed Chalabi, the man handpicked by
neoconservatives in the Pentagon to be the next leader of Iraq. "The mobile contracts were all politically divided," says an Iraqi emigre who returned as a consultant for a telecom firm. "It's the same as Saddam's time. It's about who you know."
Newsday reports other businessmen with Chalabi connections have also
won large contracts for the country's reconstruction, leading to charges by some council members and other Iraqis that the actions are fueling a cronyism that threatens to sabotage the nation-building effort.
"We have to show people that we are fair and aboveboard," said Sam Kubba, an Iraqi American architect who is also president of the American Iraqi Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Perceptions of insider influence, Kubba cautioned, "are hurting us.... They're driving people away."
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also took aim at the IGC, and Chalabi, this week, saying that Iraqi desperately needs effective leadership, but that
it's not getting it.
The reason this happened is that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, which is supposed to come up with a plan for forming the constitution-writing committee, is becoming dysfunctional. Several key GC members, particularly the Pentagon's favorite son, Ahmad Chalabi, have been absent from Iraq for weeks. Only seven or eight of the 24 GC members show up at meetings anymore. Mr. Friedman is a proponent of turning over the reins of power to Iraqis right away. But Fareed Zakaria, editor of
Newsweek International and author of "
The Future of Freedom," writes in the
Guardian that the idea of "turning the keys" over to Iraqis has less to do with Iraqi democracy and
more to do with American democracy, and next year's presidential elections. And trying to install the Chalabi-led exiles ("a pet obsession" for the neoconservatives in the Pentagon) won't work either because they do not enjoy popular support. No, Mr. Zakari says, there are no short cuts.
Forward magazine says that conservative Mideast scholar Bernard Lewis and former CIA James Woolsley (who also sits on a board that advises the Pentagon) recently offered
another possible solution – the temporary re-adoption of the 1925 Iraqi constitution until a permanent constitution can be written. Their article, in the
Wall Street Journal, proposed the reinstatement, with some amendments and on an interim basis, of a constitutional monarchy in which there would be an elected parliament and a king would appoint the prime minister. The
Forward quotes a person close to the debates over the shape of Iraq's future government said the Woolsey-Lewis proposal is possibly a way for Chalabi to gain more power in Iraq.
Meanwhile the
Washington Post reports the violence in Iraq means the IGC will probably
not be able to meet time tables set for writing a new constitution and holding elections. And
The Boston Globe reports that the council is struggling with
severe religious and political splits as it tries to write a new constitution.
Many of those in the Pentagon and the Bush administration who helped handpick the IGC are also coming under fire.
Newsweek features an article about Vice-President Dick Cheney in which it alleges that he and his associates "
created a secretive network inside the government which produced alarming and pessimistic assessments that catered to the vice president's dark world view," which ultimately led to war in Iraq. Jim Lobe of the
Inter Press Service opines that if the Bush administration does start to look for a "scapegoat" for the problems in Iraq, Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy and the man who organized the secretive Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon (which produced the "alarming and pessimistic assessments"}, is "
the most likely candidate." And
The Los Angeles Times reports that former intelligence officials and independent specialists have accused undersecretary of state John Bolton of
exaggerating the threat posed by Syria, Libya, and Cuba in an effort to build the case that strong action is needed to prevent them from developing weapons of mass destruction.
Also...
•
Calling the plays in Iraq (
IndyStar.com)
•
One last chance to get help (
Washington Post)
•
Iran will sign key UN nuclear protocol (
Voice of America)
•
Pentagon man says Iran up to its eyeballs in terror (
Reuters)
•
Pentagon says a covert force hunts Hussein (
New York Times)
•
American-appointed Iraqi council leader killed by US soliders (
Washington Post)
•
US retaliates after Black Hawk crash (
Fox News)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Tom Regan
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