Artículo de SUZANNE NOSSEL en “The New York Times” del 14.05.2003
The American-led effort to restore stability in Iraq is off to a rocky start, in part because of the United States' reluctance to acknowledge its occupation for what it is. By equivocating on how fast it would relinquish the reins to a locally chosen government, the Bush administration sowed confusion for its own appointed officials, and for the Iraqi people.
More than a month into the de facto occupation of Iraq, the United States decided last Friday, in the draft resolution it proposed to the United Nations Security Council, to embrace its role as an occupying power. Its decision should be welcomed. Though the connotations of occupation are mostly negative, making America's status official will benefit both Iraqis and the international system. By citing the 1907 Hague and 1949 Geneva conventions, the United States and Britain propose to serve as formal trustees — roles governed by international laws that the Iraqi people, and the world, can monitor and try to enforce.
The law of occupation is rooted in the notion that sovereignty cannot be taken away through force. The Hague Convention obliges occupiers to put the interests of the occupied first: they must respect, as much as possible, laws already in force in the territory and restore order. In 1949, the law was expanded to ensure humane treatment, food and medicine.
The law of occupation is useful for Iraq mainly because it establishes clear lines of accountability for putting the country back on its feet. The first duty of an occupier is to establish a system of "direct administration" over the occupied population. In doing so, the United States will put itself on the line for success or failure in a way that retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner's ill-defined mandate scrupulously avoided. If Baghdad's citizenry still suffers from spotty electricity, rotten garbage on street corners and poorly equipped hospitals, there will be no doubt where fault lies.
Rather than a muddy division of responsibilities among the United Nations, local authorities and coalition forces, an official occupation makes clear that the buck stops with the United States and Britain. The proposed division of labor, wherein the United Nations' special representative will fulfill specific roles under a British-American umbrella, protects against what happened in Somalia, where the United Nations was blamed for American misjudgments.
Putting management of Iraq squarely in American hands will also help ensure that the United States won't finance its foreign policy goals inadequately, as it has in the past. The former United Nations administrator for Kosovo, for example, had to beg the Security Council for money to pay for the police and electricity.
Official occupation may also prove useful for those who question America's role in Iraq because of lucrative reconstruction contracts granted to United States companies. International law judges the validity of an occupier's acts based on whether they smack of self-service. During World War I, Germany seized Belgian coal reserves to feed its war machine, the action was judged as self-interested and invalid. The same was true when Israel siphoned oil from the Sinai in the early 1970's to meet its population's needs. In contrast, when the United States and Britain occupied the Rhineland after World War II, they avoided economic spoils and thus gained legitimacy. Today, with the help of the internationally supervised oil disbursement audits called for in the American draft, the world can again hold the occupiers to this high standard.
Countries avoid the law of occupation and its constraints to evade accountability. In Iraq, America's acceptance of these duties is a sign not of imperialism but of responsibility.
Suzanne Nossel is a former senior adviser to the United States mission to the United Nations.