AN UNCONFIRMED ROLE

  Artículo en “The Economist” del 31.03.2003

At his summit with George Bush, Tony Blair urged a greater role for the United Nations in Iraq once the war is over. But even the multilateralist Colin Powell has insisted America will remain in control of Iraq’s post-war political structures

EVER the optimist, Tony Blair declared last week that he wanted the United Nations to be closely involved in post-war Iraq. He also declared that “it is common ground between us [Britain and America] that the UN has got to be involved”. But such confidence now appears to be as misplaced as his belief, just a few weeks ago, that he could secure a second resolution at the UN Security Council backing war in Iraq. Even before Mr Blair had had his cosy chat with George Bush at Camp David, Colin Powell, America’s secretary of state, widely seen as the most doveish member of the Bush administration, threw cold water on the plan. He told Congress that America would not hand over the running of Iraq to the UN. Instead, the plan is for a retired American general to run the country as a military governor, working alongside civilian administrators. So Mr Blair will have to use all of his legendary charm if he is to have any hope of securing the role for the UN he believes is so necessary.

All parties agree that the UN should have a role in delivering humanitarian aid to Iraq, though there is, as yet, no agreement on exactly how that should happen. Once the discussion gets beyond aid, the divisions become even starker. Many in the American administration have all but given up on the UN, and believe that once they have won the war, they will have the right to run Iraq according to their political ideals. For his part, Mr Blair is convinced that putting the UN at the centre of reconstruction efforts would help heal some of the rifts among western countries.

Until the war is won, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is the most pressing issue. The first trucks of humanitarian aid have begun to arrive in southern Iraq, and a British cargo vessel loaded with medical supplies and food managed to dock at Umm Qasr late last week. However, Basra is said to be largely without clean water. Moreover, American supply lines are said to be so stretched that the army does not have the capacity to help guard relief convoys.

Until the war began, 60% of Iraqis relied on food distributed under the UN oil-for-food programme, which was suspended a couple of days before the first missiles fell on Baghdad. In the build-up to the war, rations were increased, though estimates of how much food families have stockpiled vary widely. Some aid agencies reckon it amounts to just three to six weeks’ supplies, while the Iraqi government claims its citizens have enough to last six months.

The programme had been administered chiefly by the Iraqi government, which delivered food through 44,000 outlets, mainly small shops, across the country. But once the war is over, the World Food Programme, a Rome-based UN agency, will take over. It will be the agency’s biggest-ever assignment. Last Friday, the Security Council voted unanimously to restart the oil-for-food programme under the control of the UN's secretary-general, Kofi Annan, for 45 days. This led to threats by Iraq to suspend co-operation with the programme, which is currently being administered by the regime in Baghdad. “No one other than the Iraqi government can run this programme,” said Mohamed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq's information minister. The UN said that it planned to restart the oil-for-food mechanism, with or without Iraqi authorisation.

Although Mr Bush has been supportive of Mr Annan on the humanitarian front, he will not yet be drawn on any broader post-war role for the UN. After meeting Condoleezza Rice, America’s national security adviser, last week, Mr Annan admitted that the issue had not even been discussed. He has pointed out that the UN can do little beyond emergency relief work without a further UN resolution. And there are several big questions which the UN would like to be involved in answering— such as who should run Iraq, how should they run it, and who should pay for it?

Here, again, Mr Blair finds himself piggy-in-the-middle. Both the Americans and the countries opposing the war, especially the French, have reservations about UN involvement, if for very different reasons. The American administration considers the UN past its sell-by date; the French are worried that the organisation may be tricked into making the war look justified. Jacques Chirac, the French president, has said that his country would veto any UN resolution that would “legitimise the military interevention” and “give the belligerents the power to administer Iraq”. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has said that Germany will join reconstruction efforts only if they are co-ordinated by the UN. But one of his ministers later declared that the war coalition should bear the cost of rebuilding.

Will America decide eventually that it is in its interests to go the UN route? If so, there is no sign of it yet. “We didn’t take on this huge burden with our coalition partners, not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future,” said Mr Powell on March 26th. American officials worry that the UN would be too slow-moving to meet Iraq’s rebuilding needs, many of which will be pressing. One American company is ready to start running the port of Umm Qasr as early as next week. In Kuwait, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has assembled its largest-ever disaster response team. Other countries have complained about American plans to limit contracts in Iraq to American companies. The administration has pointed out that foreign firms will be allowed to act as subcontractors, and that, after in the future, bidding will be open to all.

While American companies bag lucrative contracts, American taxpayers apparently need not worry that they will end up footing the bill for the new Iraq. Mr Bush requested only $1.7 billion for reconstruction in his budget submission last week, although the total American budget for Iraqi rebuilding and aid is around $3.5 billion.

The rest of the money for reconstruction, it seems, will come from Iraq’s own vast oil wealth and international donations. Mr Powell has admitted that it may be easier to get other countries to contribute to the reconstruction effort “if it has an international standing”. Iraq’s oil revenues are governed by past UN resolutions. As such, it is far from clear that America would get backing to use Iraq’s oil revenues for reconstruction as it sees fit—especially since both France and Russia will fight to protect the interests of their own oil companies, which have contracts to develop Iraqi oilfields once sanctions are lifted. Such battles remain in the future while the war is being waged on the ground. But it is already clear that winning the peace will be as hard as winning the war.