Artículo de DOUGLAS JEHL en “The New York Times” del 28.08.2003
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — The Bush administration has signaled for the first time that it may be willing to allow a multinational force in Iraq to operate under the sponsorship of the United Nations as long as it is commanded by an American.
The idea was described by Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, as just "one idea being explored" in discussions at the United Nations. It was first hinted at publicly last week by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general.
Mr. Armitage's remarks, made on Tuesday to regional reporters and released by the State Department today, represent a potential shift in course for the administration, which has until now insisted that all military, economic and political matters in Iraq remain under total American control. Allowing the United Nations a leadership role would be intended to win the support of the Security Council for a new mandate authorizing the American-led occupation of the country.
In his remarks, Mr. Armitage declined to discuss the plans in any detail, saying, "I don't think it helps to throw them out publicly right now." But he described the arrangement under consideration as "a multinational force under U.N. leadership" in which "the American would be the U.N. commander."
On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked whether he could envision American troops fighting under United Nations command. His answer: "I think that's not going to happen." But he went on to rule out only "a blue-hatted leadership" — meaning by the United Nations, whose troops wear blue helmets — over a peacekeeping force in Iraq.
The Pentagon has historically opposed any arrangement in which American troops are not under American command, and Mr. Rumsfeld has expressed opposition to putting the current American force in Iraq under United Nations oversight.
But administration officials said the Somalian force in place in the early 1990's, however flawed from a political standpoint, might at least provide an administrative model. In that case, the United Nations force was put under the command of an American general, who maintained direct control of American troops.
A State Department official said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had discussed the possibility of United Nations sponsorship with Mr. Annan at a meeting in New York last week. The official said the discussions had the full support of the White House, but said no decisions were expected until late September when foreign ministers gather in New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.
A Western diplomat at the United Nations said today that there had been "contacts between London and Washington on how to move ahead in a way that is both achievable and useful and can make a practical difference." But, the diplomat said, the discussions are still too preliminary to make any accurate prediction if any draft text of a new resolution might circulate.
Whether any arrangement for United Nations sponsorship of military operations would be more than a fig leaf was unclear today. Pentagon officials would almost certainly resist any relinquishment of military command and control to United Nations authorities, but Russia, France and other permanent members of the Security Council might well seek some kind of a voice in decision making as a price for a new mandate.
The apparent flexibility on Iraq policy appears to reflect deepening concern within the administration about the unwillingness of many other countries, including France and Russia, to contribute troops and money to the American-led effort in Iraq.
The United States still has about 138,000 troops in Iraq, and Britain and Poland also have significant forces there. But the mounting toll of guerrilla operations against the American forces has added to the pressures against them. Since the White House declared an end to major combat operations in early May, at least 64 American troops have been killed in direct attacks by Iraqi forces opposed to the American occupation.
So far, the White House and the Pentagon have resisted calls from lawmakers and others to bolster the American force in an effort to suppress the resistance. The administration is trying hard to persuade other countries, including France and Russia, to contribute troops to the operation, but many have said they will not do so unless it is given a fresh mandate by the United Nations. To help win more financial backing, the United States is planning to convene a conference of donor countries in Madrid in late October, with a preliminary meeting planned for next Wednesday in Brussels.
But administration officials said today that in the meantime they expected the White House to ask Congress to allocate as much as $3 billion, on top of the $2.5 billion it had already appropriated, to help the American-led occupation authority cover its nonmilitary costs through the current fiscal year.
The total amount set aside to cover reconstruction and occupation efforts this year is about $7 billion, including the Congressional appropriation. But administration officials said that L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official in Iraq, had told Mr. Powell and other Bush administration officials at meetings in Washington this week that that fund was running perilously low.
In particular, administration officials said, the $1.7 billion in seized Iraqi assets set aside in a New York bank to cover emergency payments to Iraqi workers will be nearly exhausted by next week. They said they now recognized that, with Iraqi oil exports still running well below their prewar levels, oil revenues will not come anywhere close to covering the tens of billions that rebuilding and running the country will cost in the years ahead.
The cost to the United States of military operations in Iraq is currently about $4 billion a month, administration officials have said.
In an interview published today in The
The White House declined today to say whether it intended to seek more money from Congress for Iraq operations this year. "We'll listen to Ambassador Bremer to determine what his needs are," a spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, said in Crawford, Tex.
But a top Republican lawmaker, Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who heads the House foreign operations subcommittee, said in a telephone interview today that the administration "needs to be frank with us and say what we need in going forward."
"What I think we're finding out is that the costs of repairing the infrastructure and replacing it is going to be higher than anticipated before the war, and we need to get on with it," Mr. Kolbe said. He said that his own visit last week had persuaded him that "we have a narrow window in Iraq, and it is important that we make substantial progress toward restoring the services there, or we're going to lose whatever credibility we have."