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06.25.04
MARTIAL LAW FOR IRAQ?:
Over 100 Iraqis were murdered by yesterday's concerted attacks. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the escalating insurgency and deteriorating security situation is pushing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi closer to fulfilling his promise, made at his recent press conference, of declaring martial law:
Mr. Allawi also plans to bring back the death penalty for both criminals and insurgents, and is considering a wider array of measures, including a potential clampdown on Arabic media that the government considers overly sympathetic to the insurgents, aides said. Among previously denied freedoms that Iraqis generally have enjoyed since the war are freedom to assemble and demonstrate, freedom of the press and freedom of speech. ...
Mr. Allawi's recent talk of tougher security, especially his use of the phrase "martial law" at his first press conference, has touched off sometimes tense exchanges between Iraqi and U.S. officials. After his remarks last weekend drew criticism from several U.S. lawmakers, he has toned down his rhetoric. But aides said the recent surge in violence even before yesterday, including the beheading of a South Korean and a car bombing that killed 35 at an army recruitment center, has left him almost certain to press ahead with new laws -- which aides now call "national safety measures."
Georgis Sada, Mr. Allawi's spokesman, said the new prime minister would use all the powers at his disposal to pacify the country. "Whether this stops the fighting or not, we need to take the initiative away from our enemy so we're not always reacting to what they do against us," he said.
Mr. Allawi also is considering such measures as pressuring popular Arabic satellite television stations like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya to change the content and tone of their programming, which he said often seemed "designed to incite more fighting and more terrorism," he said.
The article quotes Iraqis so terrified after a year's worth of instability that they're eager to trade away the freedoms they've gotten from the U.S. overthrow of Saddam:
"The most important things in the country are security and stability, and if achieving them means martial law, or curfews, or more searches, so be it," said Ali Jassim Hassan, who owns an electrical shop in Baghdad. "We need a strongman to control the country."
Even some disenchanted Iraqi liberals support efforts to take away freedoms, and blame the U.S. for giving Iraqis too many after the war.
"There is no question that the U.S. gave Iraqis too many freedoms, and that the country is far more dangerous today as a result," said Younadem Kana, a former member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. "For the future good of Iraq, you have to take some of those freedoms away until the country is ready for them."
First of all, for Iyad Allawi to be appointed temporary PM--by connivance of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council and L. Paul Bremer, with the acquiescence of U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi--and immediately declare for himself all power in Iraq is to announce, in so many words, so much for an Iraq that remotely approaches democracy. So much for pluralism, here's Saddam Lite. Think Allawi, an ex-Baathist, can be trusted to simply decide for himself when security "permits" a return to an inclusive, pluralistic future? Think anyone can? The Syrian "state of emergency" has lasted 40 years. Egypt has been ruled by one since the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat. Does President Bush believe a word he says about tyranny contributing to the incubation of Islamist terrorism?
Second of all, the effort would be doomed to failure. The Kurds fear above all else the consolidation of power in Baghdad--exactly what Allawi is proposing, even if he isn't planning to put the Kurdish north under martial law. Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani has said he doesn't want the interim government making laws, as it's an illegitimate appointed body. How will he react to a declaration by the interim government that it is the law? Sistani wants elections above all else. Would Allawi really allow the January 2005 elections to go forward, once he declares martial law? How could candidates campaign? How could shuttered newspapers cover them? And once he's antagonized Sistani by measures that, at the very least, would probably mean delaying elections somewhat, how could Allawi take his foot off the martial-law break?
Furthermore, there's the issue of how martial law will be enforced once it's declared. As the Journal reports,
Mr. Allawi, a Shiite and former member of the Baath Party with ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, already has plans to order the country's nascent police force to focus on battling the insurgents and terrorists behind the violence. Aides said he will use Iraqi army and paramilitary units to hunt for militants if police prove unable to combat them.
But in a televised address on June 4, Allawi said that the Iraqi security forces aren't yet up to the job. "The targeting of the multinational forces under the leadership of the United States to force them to leave Iraq would inflict a major disaster on Iraq, especially before the completion of the building of security and military institutions," he said. (Emphasis added.) That means, when it comes to martial law, the question for Allawi is, "You and whose Army?" And then the answer is clear: Ours. Our forces, already hated by the Iraqis, would feel, as the Journal reports, "pressure to provide muscle for a crackdown at a time when the military wants to lower its profile."
Now, if we have any purpose in Iraq, it's got to mean conducting military operations to provide security in advance of the 2005 elections--and that surely entails angering the population. But now we would become the striking arm of a new autocrat, propping him up as we attempt to put down the insurgents. Surely this would only increase hatred for Allawi as the tool of a foreign presence. And that hatred would surely lead Allawi to be extremely skittish about when he felt safe enough to call off martial law, since the only way in the final analysis to triumph over the insurgency is politically--and Allawi will have closed off the country's political avenues. We'd be, in effect, the most important thing stopping him from an assassin's bullet and renewed chaos in Iraq. Is this a position we want to be in?
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06.24.04
SOVEREIGNTY, HUH?:
Several weeks ago, the United States Institute of Peace held a briefing with Ambassador Frank Ricciardone and General Mick Kicklighter, the State and Defense Department officials in charge of coordinating the transition from Coalition Provisional Authority to a U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. It had recently come out that the U.S. was not going to rely a Status of Forces Agreement--the usual bilateral mechanism for garrisoning our troops in a foreign country--for Iraq after June 30. Eli Lake of the New York Sun pressed them--would the U.S. negotiate a SOFA before the 2005 elections at all? "I expect that as soon as there is an interim government that wishes to negotiate this with us we will wish to negotiate it with them," Ricciardone said. Pressed further, he conceded, "This will not be a legally tidy situation." Asked if that would be good enough for the Iraqis, the veteran diplomat answered, "If it doesn't work, we will do what works."
If we can figure that out. As The Washington Post reports today, the administration has decided to unilaterally grant our troops blanket immunity from prosecution in the (inevitable) event that we cause civilian casualties or property damage -- precisely the legal safeguard contained in a SOFA. This is done as much to protect the interim government as to protect our soldiers and Marines: Grand Ayatollah Sistani has decreed that no unelected government has the power to negotiate treaties with foreign powers. There is a very recent and terrifying precedent for believing that the interim government will be violently overthrown if it attempts to work out a basing agreement with the U.S.:
A similar grant of immunity to U.S. troops in Iran during the Johnson administration in the 1960s led to the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who used the issue to charge that the shah had sold out the Iranian people.
"Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed," Khomeini said in a famous 1964 speech that led to his detention and then expulsion from Iran. The measure "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."
Ironically, Khomeini went into exile in Iraq, where he spent 12 years in Najaf -- the Shiite holy city that is now home to Sistani and his followers and where Iraqis still remember the flap that led the shah to deport a cleric who later led Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
That's the frying pan. Here's the fire. The mechanism to grant immunity is going to be an extension of CPA Order 17, which exempts coalition officials, civilian or military, from "local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states." This means that in a very combustible area--how Iraqis see justice done in the event of accidental death caused by a hated foreign military--Iraq will continue to be under occupation law. Already many Iraqis, for very good reason, do not feel that the U.S. will allow them to be sovereign after June 30. Extending CPA Order 17, I'm sorry to say, proves it.
It's hard to see what alternative the administration has. But the effect should be pretty clear. Out of the justified desire not to inflame the situation any further, the U.S. will try to do the only thing it can to avoid causing the civilian casualties that would bring it to a boil: pull back from conducting military operations. Already the military has been leaning in this direction. Now the political imperative of trying to convince Iraqis they're not under occupation will probably incline our commanders further this way. Each engagement will surely have to be weighed against its possible political impact. Against this balance is the rising tide of violence, which just this morning left 70 Iraqis and three U.S. soldiers dead. With our military likely to come under strong political pressure--not just from U.S. officials, but from the interim Iraqi government--to choose their battles very carefully, the prospect of any kind of security, and hence democracy, will be a remote one. Iraq's future stands a strong chance of looking like its bloody present.
Again, it's difficult to see how we can avoid the choice the administration is making. Allowing our troops to come under local Iraqi "justice"--in an environment functionally missing the rule of law but possessing an abundance of hatred for our troops--is something no responsible U.S. official can consider. But it's a grim irony that in his February interview with Tim Russert, Bush reflected on a lesson from Vietnam:
The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War.
And yet, here's where he's taken us.
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06.23.04
ALL WE ARE SAY-ING ... IS "PAUL WOLFOWITZ, COME CLEAN" ... ALL WE ARE SAY-ING...:
In an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, Paul Wolfowitz fielded questions about Ahmed Chalabi's ties to Iran. As the AP reports:
"Nothing in Iraq is black and white. I don't think I know of any figure we're dealing with who hasn't had in one way or another to compromise with the incredibly difficult circumstances of the last 35 years of that country's history," Wolfowitz said. "It's not surprising that many of them--and Chalabi's not the only one--made contacts with countries like Iran or Syria or others."
I wasn't at the hearing. I don't have the full transcript. But I sincerely hope the questioner, Ike Skelton, followed up with something like, "Well, maybe others we're dealing with have had 'contacts' with those countries. But have those others compromised U.S. intelligence assets by telling members of the Axis of Evil that the U.S. can listen in on their secure communications? And have those others received $340,000 every month from the U.S. taxpayer for their intelligence--even after the intelligence they provided to the U.S. before the war was exposed as dubious, or even fraudulent? If not, would that be surprising to you?"
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"OPEN TO FRAUDULENT ACTS":
From yesterday's Financial Times:
United Nations-mandated auditors have sharply criticised the US occupation authority for the way it spends Iraqi oil revenues and say they have faced "resistance" to performing their job by coalition officials.
In an interim report obtained by the Financial Times, KPMG said the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which is managed by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and channels oil revenue into reconstruction projects, is "prone to error" and at risk of fraud. ...
According to the CPA, the DFI has taken in $20.2bn ... since last May and has already disbursed $11.3bn, with $4.6bn left in outstanding commitments.
The auditors criticised the CPA's bookkeeping methods, saying they were "open to fraudulent acts" and prone to error because they used spreadsheets and tables maintained by a single accountant, rather than a double-entry system.
"The CPA does not have effective controls over the ministries spending of their individually allocated budgets, whether the funds are direct from the CPA or via the ministry of finance," said the report.
Some of their strongest criticisms were of the State Organisation for Marketing Oil (SOMO), the body responsible for the sale of Iraq's most crucial asset. Oil sales, which have flowed into the US-controlled fund, have topped $10bn since Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
"Tendering and contracting decisions are not documented to ensure transparency of [oil] sales decisions," the report said. "Additionally, where the highest bidder is not awarded the contract, no note is prepared justifying the award of the contract to another bidder."
SOMO's only record of barter transactions was "an independent database, derived from verbal confirmations gained by SOMO staff", the report found.
KPMG auditors also said they faced problems gaining information from the ministry of oil - specifically over "global reconciliation" of figures for oil extractions and exports - and from the US Navy over the movements of vessels carrying oil.
The CPA declined to address the substance of the KPMG report, saying merely that it "has been and will continue to discharge its responsibilities under the Iraqi Development Fund". [Emphasis added]
So the U.N.'s auditors are saying that they can't reconcile Oil Ministry reports about how much oil has been exported with the Navy's account of oil-bearing ships leaving the country. The CPA's books are "open to fraudulent acts." SOMO sees no reason to document why low-ballers end up with oil contracts. Remind me again: Are we occupying Iraq, or is Venezuela?
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06.21.04
WAR FOR OIL:
Just not the one you'd expect. The New York Times reports that the CPA has started spending about $2.5 billion in Iraqi oil revenue in order to compensate for bottlenecks--both bureaucratic and security-based--in spending the congressionally appropriated $18 billion, of which only $3.2 has actually been spent. According to the paper, "The $2.5 billion to be spent from Iraqi oil funds has several components, the biggest of which is $1 billion to be spent on 15 to 21 military or security projects around the country. The rest of the money is to be used for vocational training, infrastructure repair, principally in the oil and electricity sectors, and increased supplies of food." Explains an occupation official:
The security needs were just overwhelming. Would we rather have been able to save the money and have a nice kitty? Sure. There's always a tension between putting money to work right away and having it available for a tough year next year. This is the way we resolved it.
Next year, however, may be really tough. Over the past couple of weeks, Iraq has endured a massive and well-coordinated spate of attacks on its oil sector infrastructure, disrupting critical pipelines. According to the Middle East Economic Survey, Iraq was unable to export any oil at all last week. "The fact that one of the southern pipelines was hit twice indicates the boldness and effective planning of the attackers and the ineffective security system that is currently in place." And that's not the worst of it:
A more threatening aspect is the rising number of attacks on southern oil production and export facilities. Approximately 85% of Iraq's current oil exports are from the south. Most of the attacks until a few weeks ago were in the north, around Kirkuk and Baiji, while very little activity took place in the south, allowing exports of around 1.6mn [barrels per day]. The situation has changed now. There was first the attempted attack against the offshore export facilities at the Basrah Oil Terminal and Khor al-'Amaya, as well as another attempt against one of the main pumping stations in the region. While these attempts failed, the sabotage of the pipeline system last week succeeded and stopped the flow of oil. The threat to the southern oil industry could cripple the country's oil production and exports if not checked and stopped in time.
All indications are that the interim government of Ayad 'Allawi will take tough measures to deal with the deteriorating security conditions in the country. Whether it will succeed or not is less certain. The loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue at this juncture will further add to the country's woes.
Allawi's "tough measures" apparently include martial law. His government is insisting that any declared state of emergency would be limited to a few cities and strictly temporary. States of emergency tend not to work that way: Syria has been under one for over 40 years. The prospect of losing your main source of revenue to sabotage also has a way of focusing the mind on using all measures available to prevent such a dire situation. And the saboteurs are notably sophisticated. According to yesterday's Times:
[S]uspicions grew here that the attack on this pipeline last Tuesday, and on another large pipeline the day before, were in effect inside jobs, explosions so carefully placed in the barely comprehensible web of Iraqi pipelines that only someone with expert knowledge could have directed the work. The attacks shut down exports from Iraq's southern oil fields, which are by far its most productive.
"They must have had help from someone who knew very well where the pipelines were, said a civil engineer with the Southern Oil Company who would not give his name. Asked whether the help would have had to come from someone now active in the company, the engineer said, "Perhaps."
For the long-term economic health of Iraq, the oil infrastructure unquestionably needs to be secured. And as the Middle East Economic Review notes, "security in the oil sector can only be assured once there is political stability throughout Iraq." The sabotage could have the very alarming effect of elongating whatever state of emergency Allawi declares, if he in fact declares one, in the name of such political stability. This must be what political scientists mean when they talk about the resource curse.
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THE OCCUPATION'S "MESSAGE: I CARE" MOMENT:
From today's Washington Post:
The commanders also provided accounts of insurgent cells being uncovered and broken up, of public works projects being advanced and of Iraqis coming forward with crucial tips about the location of roadside bombs.
"This is the theme of this briefing: Glass is half full, things are headed in the right direction," one senior commander told Wolfowitz.
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