[Reader-list] Opposition from Pentagon for UN role in reconstructing post-war Iraq

[Harsh Kapoor]

The Guardian  22 March 2003

Blow for Short in battle with Pentagon

By Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent

Clare Short returned empty handed from Washington yesterday as Britain's
efforts to put the UN in charge of reconstructing post-war Iraq ran into
opposition from the Pentagon.

Amid signs of widening divisions off the battlefield between the US and its
closest ally, Whitehall officials expressed concern that America's military
planners appear to be cutting the UN out of any political role in favour of
its own plan to put a retired general, Jay Garner, in the driving seat.

Ms Short had hoped to secure agreement on a security council resolution
which would have given the UN the leading role in rebuilding the shattered
country. But after two days of meeting with Kofi Annan and leading UN
officials in New York, and state department officials in Washington, the
international development secretary returned home with the issue unresolved.

"They see a new resolution as cover for their activities rather than a
route to enabling the UN to co-ordinate reconstruction," said one Whitehall
official.

President George Bush promised Tony Blair at the Azores summit that the UN
would have a key role after the war ends. But the Pentagon believes this
should be confined to humanitarian assistance and is pressing ahead with
its own plans, which would put US companies in charge of the country's
schools and hospitals.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the US agency for
international development has called for American companies to bid for more
than $1bn (£640m) worth of reconstruction contracts, including running
health and education services.

Without a UN resolution, Whitehall lawyers say that the US and UK occupying
forces would have no legal right to run the country's institutions. "There
is no legal mandate for that sort of activity," said one Whitehall
official. "It's all quite bizarre."

While state department officials are believed to be sympathetic to the
British vision, the Pentagon is determined to win over the hearts and minds
of the Iraqi people by branding the postwar reconstruction effort with an
American flag. America has set up its own office for reconstruction and
humanitarian assistance as part of the department of defence.

UN officials have warned that they have no intention of acting as a fig
leaf for a US occupying authority. "We can't have a scenario where the US
says this is what is needed, now you guys get on and do it," said one UN
official.

Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the UN development agency, said this week
that UN agencies could not act as "sub-contractors" to the US government.
The Pentagon's plans have alarmed aid agencies, which are concerned about
the precedent it would set and the likely political fallout throughout the
Middle East.

"We are worried that the US believes and acts like it can replace the UN in
delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction," said Justin Forsyth, head
of policy at Oxfam. "We don't believe they have the skills or the
legitimacy."

The disagreements between Britain and the US extend even to who should be
in charge of the immediate humanitarian work as the battle rages.
Washington is boasting that its soldiers will double as mobile aid workers,
bringing rations to the vulnerable population, 60% of whom depend on food
handed out by the UN's oil for food programme.

"We don't want our aid equipment to be offloaded off the back of a US
military lorry, because if we were to do that we would be seen as part of a
belligerent force," said Mr Forsyth.