U.S. URGED TO MODIFY APPROACH TO POSTWAR IRAQ

Experts Favor Stripping Pentagon of Control

  Artículo de Peter Slevin, Washington Post Staff Writer en “The Washington Post” del 24.09.2003

The Bush administration should end Defense Department control over Iraq's civilian reconstruction effort and rethink other aspects of the U.S. occupation, a panel of specialists told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday.

"Proceeding on the current path will mean throwing good money after bad," testified J. Brian Atwood, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Clinton administration. "We already have wasted precious moments. The only way to overcome the very poor beginning we have made in Iraq is to fundamentally change our approach."

Atwood favors giving the United Nations responsibility for key civilian operations and transferring control over reconstruction from the Pentagon to the State Department and USAID. Reconstruction and political and economic development, he said, "are not part of the Pentagon's playbook."

John J. Hamre, a deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration, agreed that the Pentagon is managing tasks "for which it has no background or competence." He said "cooperation inside the government broke down," and the Defense Department has not effectively invited support from agencies that have the necessary skills.

Citing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's argument for Pentagon authority over reconstruction, Hamre said, "In theory, I agree with this point. But in practice, it has not worked. . . . Either DOD needs a new approach for collaboration with others, or the president needs to change the assignment of responsibilities."

President Bush in January gave the Defense Department control over the military and civilian aspects of war and reconstruction. The State Department has complained for months about being given too small a role in the civilian reconstruction effort and too little access to critical administration decision-making.

By many accounts, including some of its own senior officials, the civilian leadership of the Defense Department made a series of poor assumptions about conditions in postwar Iraq and what would be needed to secure and rebuild the country.

James Dobbins, a former U.S. emissary to Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan, called the Defense Department's responsibility for civilian efforts an "obstacle" to the international contributions the administration wants.

"On the civil side," Dobbins told the committee, "this is preeminently a job for the State Department, assisted by Treasury, AID, Justice and others."

The witnesses also echoed the views of a number of foreign leaders in New York yesterday who said international support for the postwar mission would grow if the Bush administration shifted more influence to the United Nations and Iraqis.

The U.S. effort is plagued, Atwood said, by a lack of clarity. He accused the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority of "constant shifts in position" that are confusing to Iraqis.

"No one knows whether we are building the nation from the top down or the bottom up," said Atwood, a dean at the University of Minnesota. "Is the United States really interested in creating an Iraqi democracy, or are we fearful that giving power to the Iraqi people will produce policies counter to our interests?"