ALREADY, POSTWAR IRAQ IS A DIVISIVE SUBJECT

France, Russia and Germany still disagree with the U.S. on the role of the United Nations.

By Robin Wright and David Holley, Times Staff Writers en “Los Angeles Times” del 09.04.2003

WASHINGTON -- With the war's end in sight, the United States and key allies appear just as divided over how to patch up Iraq as they were over going to war in the first place — perhaps even more so.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, emerging from a summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland, issued a joint statement Tuesday that the United Nations would play a "vital role" in postwar Iraq. But even before the ink dried on the Anglo-American communique, the Kremlin announced that the antiwar triad of France, Russia and Germany will hold its own summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday and Saturday.

Although no agenda was announced, it was widely assumed the meeting is meant to formulate a joint position on reconstruction efforts in Iraq after the war.

News of the get-together dismayed the Bush administration. "Everyone is extremely annoyed that this group is getting together again," said a State Department official.

The Europeans, for their part, were surprised that the United States didn't see it coming. "What did they expect?" said a diplomat from one of the three countries.

The rival summits underscore one of the central questions looming about Iraq: Can the world come together to politically and physically reconstruct the shattered nation — and in the process heal its own fractured alliances? Or will the rift at the U.N. in the run-up to war fester into a diplomatic schism because of new differences in its aftermath?

Speaking to reporters en route to the Belfast summit Monday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought to downplay frictions over postwar Iraq.

"The tension of the last few months ... that's all behind us now," Powell said. "Operation Iraqi Freedom is going to be successful. The people of Iraq are going to be liberated. So let's not fight that fight again ... let's step forward."

But government officials and analysts on both sides of the divide predict that painful arguments lie ahead for the U.N. Security Council about just who does what in transforming Iraq politically, organizing reconstruction and funding humanitarian relief.

"The period ahead will be as fractious as the period before the war because the United States is convinced that it did the right thing and therefore deserves to manage the postwar period according to its preferences," said Foreign Policy magazine editor Moises Naim. "But Europe believes that to win the peace and regain the legitimacy lost during the war, the United States has to engage in a multilateral effort."

At their Belfast summit, Bush and Blair agreed that they would seek U.N. resolutions on an "appropriate post-conflict administration for Iraq." But the two leaders offered few details about what role the international body or other countries would have in postwar Iraq.

French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have softened their language somewhat since the tough denunciations of the U.S. and British plans to go to war and topple Saddam Hussein.

But they also have made clear their strong belief that the U.S.-led coalition should not have a monopoly in determining the economic and political future of Iraq.

Chirac conceded Tuesday that Iraq faced a "necessary phase of establishing security," implying that the United States may play the leading role during this period.

But the United Nations should then be the primary body to oversee the transformation of Iraq, he said.

"We are no longer in an era where one or two countries can take on the destiny of another country," he told a Paris news conference Tuesday. "Therefore, the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq is a matter for the United Nations and for it alone."

Washington has said it will welcome help on humanitarian issues and in seeking financial contributions to physically rebuild Iraq, a country the size of California that has endured 12 years of the most punitive economic sanctions ever imposed by the United Nations.

Key donor nations such as Japan have already said that they will need a U.N. imprimatur in order to ante up for the postwar kitty.

But Bush administration officials said Tuesday that the world body's involvement will be limited, particularly in the most sensitive political phase of forming a government to succeed Saddam Hussein.

That's where the gap between the United States and its traditional allies could widen. Schroeder, the German chancellor, said last week that the U.N. should play the "central" role in creating a "new political order."

Without U.N. supervision, the three European powers are concerned that the interim authority envisioned by the U.S. and an eventual new Iraqi government could end up reflecting American interests rather than the will of the Iraqi people, according to European and U.S. analysts.

That could trigger a backlash in Iraq, other Arab nations or the wider Islamic world, leading to an increase in terrorism and anti-Western sentiment, the Europeans have warned.

Washington, in turn, doesn't trust the three European countries or the U.N., said Philip Gordon, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. "The United States would like U.N. legitimacy and European Union political support, but they're not desperate for it. This administration won't go crawling to the French and say, 'Please accept a compromise.' "

But the Europeans, Gordon added, "will play hardball too. It'll be very similar to the debate over a second resolution, and I fear it will turn out the same way as well."

The U.S. and Britain withdrew that resolution — seeking authorization for military action — when it became clear they were far short of winning a majority on the 15-member Security Council.

U.S. strategy to win support for a postwar resolution may mirror the effort it made for the use-of-force resolution when the U.S. tried to break up the triad by winning over the Russians. On Monday, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice held talks in Moscow with senior Russian officials.

Russia may be the most open to compromise. Although Putin has continued to criticize the war, he has also said a coalition defeat would not be in Russia's interests — unlike Chirac, who refused to take a stand, infuriating Washington.

What's more, Putin has signaled that he would like to restore relations between Moscow and Washington and his own personal relationship with Bush, according to Liliya Shevtsova, senior analyst with the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Still, even analysts in Moscow are pessimistic.

"No matter what Putin, Schroeder and Chirac agree on in St. Petersburg, it will not appeal to the U.S. side," said Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Russian branch of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.

"The agreements will be preliminary and hence an unrealistic bid on the part of Russia, Germany and France," he said. "And there is no doubt that the U.S. will not like this bid."

The antiwar alliance has the support of the U.N. hierarchy for the postwar strategy.

If the U.N.'s role is limited to the humanitarian field, "we won't be disappointed," said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan. "But we think it would be unwise."

Eckhard said the U.N. is needed if the new Iraqi regime is to be credible.

"We feel that for the legitimacy of any new governmental authority established in Iraq, and therefore for the stability of the region as a whole, it would be to everyone's best interest if the international community were brought to play in the establishment of such a government or authority," Eckhard said. "We know how to do that, how to assist in that process. We've done it most recently in Afghanistan."

Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.