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Friday, Apr 23, 2004

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The U.N. and the Iraqis

By Jonathan Steele

The U.N. could follow the East Timor model in Iraq for transfer of power.

WEDNESDAY'S CARNAGE in Basra is another twist in the downward spiral of violence endangering Iraq. It puts security back at the top of the agenda in the run-up to the long-heralded transfer of sovereignty at the end of June. What use are the trappings of power if there is no guarantee of safety on the streets? The Basra car-bombings were well coordinated and perhaps foreign-inspired.

First reports suggested that they followed the pattern of Al-Qaeda-style suicide attacks in other parts of the world. They will widely be condemned in Iraq since far fewer Iraqis support attacks on their police than they do on occupation troops.

But let us not forget the other source of insecurity in Iraq. The United States has not yet lifted its threat to use force in Najaf to arrest the radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, a decision that could provoke heavy bloodshed. Nor has it drawn back from Falluja, even after the slaughter of several hundred people. Caught between the hammer of poorly targeted suicide bombs and the anvil of unguided American commanders, Iraqis are approaching formal sovereignty in a mood of understandable doubt.

There has been one small piece of good news. Washington has allowed the United Nations a key role in selecting the interim government, which will take over on July 1. The plan, outlined in Baghdad by the U.N. special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, is for the country's governing council to be dissolved. In its place would be a prime minister at the head of an interim government of technocrats rather than politicians.

The scheme is not a U.N. invention. It bears a strong similarity to what the Americans and the British were considering back in March, as leaked to and reported in the London-based Guardian newspaper at the time. But the fact that Mr. Brahimi took it up, bounced it off various groups of Iraq's civil society, and heard approving responses, gives it a much greater chance of being accepted. The U.N.'s respect among Iraqis is not as low as that of the occupation forces, as several polls have shown.

The U.S. has conceded that the U.N. will be the final arbiter in any dispute over whom to pick for the interim government. Mr. Brahimi will shortly be returning to Baghdad with a similar mission to the one he had in 2001, when he held long consultations with Afghans and selected Afghanistan's post-Taliban Cabinet.

He will need all the skill he can command to come up with a credible team. He must not be a front-man for the U.S., or give the prime ministership to an American client. Thereafter, the U.S. expects that the U.N.'s job will be mainly technical, as it prepares the mechanism for elections and helps to monitor their conduct.

Can the U.N. do more on the political side after July? Much will depend on the U.N.'s masters in the Security Council. It is clear that the U.S. and Britain want a new resolution to bless the transfer of legal sovereignty to Iraqis, while also keeping U.S. control over all security issues. The result will be a sovereignty that is severely impaired, a bizarre situation in which an allegedly independent country's army is under foreign command on its own territory. It is not too late to change this, since the Bush administration is running scared, electorally, on Iraq.

The U.S. is in a weak position and if key members of the Security Council such as France, Russia and China stand firm, as they did before the invasion last year, there is still a slim chance.

The model is East Timor, where the Security Council initially mandated a "multinational force under unified command," the exact phrase which was reproduced in resolution 1511 on Iraq last October. Later, the Council put the Timor force under U.N. supervision.

This did not mean they became blue-helmeted peace-keepers with a U.N. general in charge, but it entitled the U.N. administrator (who happened to be Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in the bombing of the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters last year) to give the foreign soldiers their political direction.

East Timor was not yet an independent country, but something similar could be done in Iraq. The Security Council could mandate a senior U.N. official to work with the Iraqi government in supervising the multinational force.Even if it were still led by an American general, Iraqis and the U.N. would have the authority to tell the commander that siege of cities and one-tonne bombs dropped on gunmen in populated areas are not politically wise — quite apart from their morality.Now is the time for the majority of U.N. members to strengthen their control. If Iraq's interim government is to acquire more respect than the outgoing governing council had, it too should stand up to the Americans and lay down the rules. The Americans have killed more civilians in one month in Falluja than all the terrorist bombings of the past year, yesterday's included. That surely is a signal that things must change. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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