US FACES UPHILL STRUGGLE AT UN FOR MORE TROOP SUPPORT
Informe de en “The Christian Science Monitor” del 23.08.2003
Reuters reports that despite worldwide anguish over the bombing of the UN compound in Baghdad, the United States faces considerable resistance in its quest to recruit more troops, police and money to help rebuild Iraq. As Radio Netherlands reports, the US had hoped the bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq on Tuesday would rally its critics on the Security Council to support the deployment of more troops. But France, Germany, India, Russia and several other key countries made it very clear on Thursday that they will not change their positions on sending troops to Iraq until the US agrees to give the UN a wider role in shaping Iraq's future.
Michel Duclos, the deputy French ambassador, took the lead in criticizing the Bush administration, saying it had not even fulfilled its promise for an international board of advisers for a fund that would decide how to spend Iraqi oil monies. "To share the burden and the responsibilities in a world of equal and sovereign nations, also means sharing information and authority," Duclos said.
On Wednesday, some experts were saying that Washington would have to alter its military strategy in order to deal with the escalating violence. Some commentators were asking "What's the plan?" for Iraq now. Robert Fisk, writing in Counterpunch, argued that Tuesday's bombing will make it unlikely that any nation will now come to help the US fight in Iraq.
But many key players in the Bush administration, who despise the UN, will most likely have nothing to do with any kind of power-sharing arrangement. Secretary of State Colin Powell, and his spokesman Richard Boucher, said Thursday the US proposal for a fresh United Nations resolution that would pave the way for more countries contributing troops to Iraq does not envisage turning over military command to the UN.
In another sign that an agreement is unlikely, Middle East Online reports that in a radio interview Friday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Iraq is "decomposing." And he said the new resolution that the US is seeking to bolster its "occupying force" would only "worsen the cycle of violence."
Criticism of the US is also starting to come from some quarters that have until now supported its position in Iraq. An editorial in one of Japan's leading papers, the Asahi Shimbum, recalls words from the man who oversaw that nation's occupation by US forces after WWII, Douglas MacArthur, and why they have meaning today. (Japan had planned to send troops to Iraq, but after Tuesday's bombing, said officials said they were reconsidering their position.)
In "Reminiscences," MacArthur also notes that when a military occupation continues longer than necessary, or fails to take appropriate precautions from the start, one side becomes the slave while the other assumes dominance. No one wants to submit themselves for long to an arbitrary authority providing little security. ... The "world," as embodied by the United Nations, appears to be at the mercy of a superpower that behaves as if that world isn't necessary. It is time we took a hard look at the way recent developments have distorted this globe of ours.
Meanwhile, UN officials took time over the past few days to pay tribute to their fallen colleagues who, like the UN itself, came from around the globe. The LA Times profiles several workers, including two Canadians and two Filipinos who died in Tuesday's blast. There was a happy ending for one UN worker's family in New York – Marilyn Manuel, who had been listed among those killed in Tuesday's blast, called her family Thursday morning to say she was OK.
UN special envoy to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was also killed, was praised in several special ceremonies around the world, a sign of his numerous accomplishments in the 30 years he worked for the UN. Aside from his final assignment in Iraq, de Mello also helped East Timor and Indonesia overcome decades of hatred, and worked in Cambodia to restore democratic government after years of brutal repression by the Khmer Rouge. The Economist also praised de Mello for his contributions to world peace.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, said the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke, is for good men to do nothing. Sérgio Vieira de Mello lived as if he had taken this dictum to heart. Few other people have devoted such boundless energy to so many good causes.
Writing in the Guardian, Jonathan Steele, who talked to de Mello a few days before his death, said the Brazilian diplomat knew that sovereignty, not security, is the real issue in Iraq.
In Iraq, the point that dominated his thinking was that Iraqis had to recover their independence. The primary issue was not security, but sovereignty. Only if Iraqis began to feel the occupation of their country was coming to an speedy end would there be a reduction in the sense of humiliation which helped to sustain the resistance.
Meanwhile, the violence continued Friday in Iraq. The US military announced that two more US soldiers were killed. The deaths brought the number of US combat deaths in Iraq to 179, 32 more than in the first Gulf War. The Sydney Morning Herald tracked the armed resistance in Iraq, and found a movement which has already left Saddam Hussein behind and is as much driven "by nationalism as [by] the mosque." Former CIA analyst Robert Baer writes that Iraq is beginning to look more and more like the Lebanon of the early 80s. And The Age reports that there is increasing evidence that Washington is misreading the nature of Iraqi resistance.
The Age is one of only a few news organizations to have interviewed members of the resistance. They made no pretense about the thousands of foreigners, all of them Arab, who have joined the fight. But they denied any active participation by Al Qaeda, Ansar Al Islam, or Saddam Hussein. They were Sunnis and they argued they had thousands of their own people fighting and willing to fight for a nationally controlled resistance that had banned former Baathists from any leadership position.
The New York Times reports that sharp differences are beginning to emerge between US administrator Paul Bremer and the Iraqi Governing Council over how much authority the Council should assert. And the Washington Post reports that the situation in Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to rethink its focus for the coming 2004 presidential campaign – that Bush's handling of national security in general, and the war in Iraq in particular, could become a vulnerability rather than an asset in his reelection race.