The very difficult question of how to keep Iraq stable after overthrowing Saddam Hussein is still unanswered. Most agree that the eventual goal is a federal democracy, and everyone agrees that a foreign army will have to occupy Iraq for many years before the country can become stable again.
The LA Times reports that the US is considering a council, consisting of the main opposition groups, that would eventually lead the country into a federal democracy. The premise is that a federal democracy would allow each ethnic or religious group a degree of autonomy, and still provide a central government to keep Iraq together. The LAT article also mentions that the US is opposed to using overseas dissidents, and would rather use a “natural leader” that would emerge during the war. The LAT gave no play to the fractious infighting among the Iraqi opposition.
Reuters reported that the best-known Iraqi opposition party, the Iraqi National Congress, promised to increase oil production once it regained control of the country. This comes on the heels of comments from a US State Department official, who said that the world economy could improve after a war in Iraq, once the victors “open up the spigot on Iraqi oil.” The piece mentions that the US Administration does not completely trust the INC with the reconstruction effort, with some factions claiming that the INC is ineffective and unpopular in Iraq itself.
Washington Post has Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the INC, criticizing the US for bungling its effort to create a new government. Dissidents and defecting soldiers need a “home to go to.” The piece describes many in the opposition skeptical of the Administration’s commitment to a new government, especially in light of the congressional resolution which make only passing mention of a new government: “‘The signals right now are utterly inauspicious,’ said Rend Rahim Francke, executive director of the Iraq Foundation.” The US reluctance could be explained by two Shiite opposition groups, the Iraqi National Accord and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who want to hold off on declaring a new government.
The WaPo piece was actually a followup to a New York Times article from two days before. The NYT piece describes the INC as an “umbrella” organization for the Iraq opposition. The NYT piece does provide an excellent history of the INC, which provides some explaination for the US reluctance. The INC was created by Ahmad Chalabi, a wealthy and well-born Shiite muslim, and the CIA to support the overthrow of Iraq in 1992. Since then, the group seems to have gone astray — the NYT says both the State Department and the CIA want nothing to do with Chalabi now. The piece does not explain the reasons for the split. The piece has stories about a number of Iraqi defectors who were brought to American intelligence agencies by the INC, and were completely ignored — some have not even been interviewed. This may change soon, as the Pentagon (which is sympathetic to the INC) is taking over a $600,000/month program from the State Department to fund intelligence gathering in Iraq.
ABC News provides another explaination for the US chilling to the INC: the Russians are attempting to hitch their wagon to the INC, hoping to tap some of Iraq’s oil. It also mentions that any dreams of oil are offset by the cost of repairing the infrastructure, which could run into the billions. A witty quote from Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize, a history of the oil industry: “‘People are not going to just whip out their checkbooks and start writing checks with nine zeros,’ says Yergin. ‘What a company needs to know is, is there going to be some political stability? How vulnerable are they going to be? They’re also going to want to know, are their terms going to be stable? Are the rules of the game going to change?'”
Another Washington Post piece uses the recently re-invigorated Kurdish parliament to describe the immensely complicated politics of the Kurds in northern Iraq. They have until recently been divided by infighting, to the point where Washington had to broker a cease-fire in 1998. Turkey, who adamantly refuses to support a Kurdish state for fear it would stir up its own Kurdish population, plays a huge role here — the US needs Turkish support for the war in Iraq. WaPo describes the failed Kurdish overthrow of Iraq during the Gulf War. That coup attempt, says WaPo, was plagued by infighting amongst the Kurds. That is true, but the piece shamefully failed to mention that the failure was due in large part to a lack of US support.
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