Who Will Call the Shots in Iraq?
The prospects for Bush's plan may depend on how much control an Iraqi government has over U.S. troops there
By TONY KARON
Tuesday, May. 25, 2004
The Bush administration's battle to win international backing for its Iraq plan will hinge on how it resolves the tension between Iraqi sovereignty and U.S. security control. In his speech Monday aimed at reassuring a domestic audience increasingly skeptical over his handling of Iraq, President Bush vowed both to transfer "full sovereignty" to an Iraqi provisional government on June 30, and to maintain 138,000 U.S. troops (or, possibly, more) in Iraq "under American command." U.S. officials have also insisted, up to now, that American officers will have command responsibility for the Iraqi security forces. But sovereignty is like pregnancy — you either are or you aren't, because sovereignty means nothing less than final decision-making authority over all matters of state and the maintenance of security within the borders of a given nation state. If sovereignty is indeed to be transferred on June 30, then any U.S. or other foreign military formations in the country will have to submit to the political will of the sovereign Iraqi government.
The major question being asked by both Iraqis and much of the international community now is whether the provisional government that takes over on June 30 will have veto power over U.S. military actions in their country. Would the Iraqi provisional government, for example, be able to stop U.S. operations of the type mounted recently at Fallujah and Najaf, both of which were strongly condemned even by members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council? Yes it would, according to Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said today that the Iraqi authority would exercise political control over major operations of Coalition forces, and added that his answer also described the position of the U.S. But within hours, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to dismiss Blair’s answer, stressing that U.S. forces would answer to U.S. commanders, and that although they would consult with the Iraqi government, any time the two sides were in conflict the U.S. forces would do whatever they deemed necessary to protect themselves. The appearance of discord between London and Washington on this question certainly won’t help them persuade more skeptical members of the Security Council such as France and Russia.
Iraqis have a substantially different view of the nature of the security problem in their country from the one President Bush outlined. "Coalition forces and the Iraqi people have the same enemies," said President Bush, "the terrorists, illegal militia and Saddam loyalists, who stand between the Iraqi people and their future as a free nation." He suggested that after June 30, "when (Iraqis) patrol the streets of Baghdad or engage radical militias they will be fighting for their own country." But engaging "radical militias" has been very much an American idea, rather than an Iraqi one. So strong was Iraqi opposition to the U.S. offensive at Fallujah that up to half of the Iraqi troops sent there disobeyed deployment orders, and at least one politician resigned from the Governing Council. Later, a broad cross-section of Iraqi politicians warned that the U.S. military campaign against Moqtada Sadr and his supporters was creating more of a problem than Sadr himself represented.
Even the most moderate Iraqi politicians have tended to see U.S. military action as part of the problem. President Bush doesn't tell his audience the whole story when he notes, in reference to Sadr's militia, that "ordinary Iraqis have marched in protest against the militants." It is certainly true that the confrontations in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala prompted thousands of Shiites to march demanding that Sadr's Mehdi army withdraw from those cities — but in most cases, those protesters were equally, if not more, insistent that the U.S. troops withdraw, too.
~snip~
more:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,642021,00.html
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