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09.07.03, 17:13
Does Washington Intend to Establish a US Colony in Iraq? (Updated 7/8/03)
According to a hitherto uncorroborated article on the Israeli source
debka.com,"The Americans are secretly building two giant intelligence
facilities in Iraq at a cost of some half a billion dollars" --, one on a
site north of the oil city of Mosul in Kurdistan and a second facility in
Baghdad's Saadun district on the east bank of the Tigris. Debka
concludes "from the vast dimensions of the two projects and their colossal
expense that it is Washington's intention to retain a large US military
presence in Iraq in the long term, for a decade at least."
Other critics suggest that US civil administrator Paul Bremer's disinterest
in a speedy installation of an Iraqi government reflects a US Government
intention to occupy and control Iraq for a long time. One reason would be to
control from Washington the allocation of billion-dollar reconstruction
contracts to American firms like KBR (a subsidiary of Vice-President Cheney's
firm Halliburton). Another reason may be to present an eventual Iraqi regime
with US-implemented plans for privatizing the economy and above all Iraq's
oil reserves.
It is clear that as a first step the US, by abolishing all import and export
controls, has de facto opened up the Iraqi market to a flood of foreign
imports, with mixed effects on the domestic economy. On the one hand, the
much warned-against humanitarian crisis has been largely averted, though not
completely. On the other, Iraq's mostly socialized pre-war economic structure
is being dismantled along with the Baathist political system.
One consequence of abandoning border controls, as the San Francisco Chronicle
reported on July 2, is that traditional Kurdish smugglers are transporting to
Iran massive amounts of looted Iraqi goods needed to rebuild the country.
This includes new generators, water filters, and other heavy machines
weighing tons that have been stolen from the power plants and water stations
being rebuilt by Bechtel and Halliburton.
No one in authority has done anything so far to stop this smuggling. In fact
it is facilitated by the US decision to leave Kurdish areas for now in the
hands of Kurdish peshmerga, who for years have supported themselves by this
kind of smuggling activity. But the outflow is bad news for Iraqi citizens
and American tax-payers, even while not so bad for big business and the
prospects of a long-time US occupation.
Does Washington in fact intend to become a successor colonial power to Great
Britain in the Middle East? Refining the question, do some people in the
Pentagon wish to restore the regional military base it enjoyed in pre-
revolutionary Iran under the US-installed Shah? We will know better in the
next few weeks by watching America's speed in establishing order and an
interim government in Iraq. Paul Bremer, who answers to the Pentagon, has for
the moment put off earlier plans for an elected civilian government. His
current priority is to restore order by hunting out Baathist remnants and
jump-starting the wrecked Iraqi economy.
But there is a risk that the combination of delay and aggressive military
searches will only make a peaceful US exit less likely. Speaking for many of
America's friends, the respected Iraqi elder statesman Adnan Pachachi,
ambassador to the UN the 1960s, recently urged Bremer to suspend all
offensive military sweeps until an Iraqi interim government has been put in
place.
Bremer's predecessor, General Garner, had originally promised an Afghan-style
conference in late May to create such a government. But such plans were
postponed with Garner's departure in May - possibly because of the failure to
find Iraqi leaders that are generally acceptable. An announced political
conference to select a government, rescheduled for July, was recently
canceled by Bremer altogether, with no new date in sight. Instead Bremer
intends to appoint an advisory council of 25 to 30 Iraqis, selected by
himself after extensive consultations. The Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali al-
Sistani, who until recently was considered friendly to America, has issued a
fatwa denouncing this plan for a council, and demanding elections instead.
(According to Forbes Business Newswire (7/8/03) Bremer also said in early
July that "Iraq, sitting on the world's second largest oil reserves, should
change laws passed during the Saddam years barring all but Arab investors
entry to Iraq. With Washington and London restricted in their role as foreign
occupiers from changing laws, Bremer said such legal changes would have to be
discussed by an advisory Iraqi political council set to start work this
month.")
Meanwhile U.S. military commanders have canceled plans for local elections in
provincial Iraqi cities. Bremer explained to the Washington Post that "In a
postwar situation like this, if you start holding elections, the people who
are rejectionists tend to win." But many young Iraqis warn that, by dimming
the hopes for democracy and self-rule, the US will increase the numbers in
opposition.
Indeed the month of June has seen a large increase in attacks against both
occupying forces and oil pipelines. The worst such attack was on June 24,
when six British troops were killed in Majar Al-Kabir, a once-friendly Shiite
town in southern Iraq. This was the first such post-war attack in a Shiite
area, and the bloodiest since seven US troops were killed at Nassiriya on
March 23.
Echoing the British Ministry of Defence, the New York Times (6/24/03) at
first called this an "ambush ... on military police officers on a mission to
train Iraqi officers." It has since emerged that the killings were in revenge
for the killing of four Iraqis in the town (a fifth has since also died) in
an incident arising out of yet another provocative military sweep.
Why the sudden upsurge? Undoubtedly one reason, as explained by Bremer, is
the regrouping of Baathist remnants. But it is foolish to suggest, as the US
Government radio RFE/RL did on June 25, that the killings in Majar Al-Kabir,
a resolutely anti-Saddam region, could have been "organized by remnants of
Hussein's regime."
A better explanation is that, with the hopes vanishing for an Iraqi
administration and US troop withdrawal, tolerance for the occupation is
running out everywhere. Even the pro-US Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani warned
at the time of Gen. Garner's departure that "speed is of the essence
