U.S. Seeks U.N. Nod for Handpicked Iraqi Council

U.S. Seeks U.N. Nod for Handpicked Iraqi Council
Thalif Deen - IPS - 8/13/03

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 (IPS) - The United States is trying to bestow U.N. legitimacy on a hand-picked, 25-member political body whose mandate to govern war-devastated Iraq is strictly under American tutelage.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte introduced a draft resolution Wednesday that calls on the 15-member U.N. Security Council to formally ''welcome'' the month-old Iraqi Governing Council and also to create a new U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

Washington is confident that the resolution, which is expected to be put to a vote before the end of the week, will pass.

But the move to seek U.N. recognition for the Council has been criticised by human rights groups, academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and even by Arab states.

''The Iraqi Governing Council -- hand-selected by the invading forces -- makes a mockery of the concept of self rule,'' says Medea Benjamin of Iraq Occupation Watch, an anti-war group that scrupulously monitors the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.

''Many Iraqis are rejecting the Council as a puppet of the occupation, and the United Nations should also reject this,'' Benjamin told IPS.

She pointed out that the Council was chosen in secrecy, with no clear criteria for membership. ''A true process of self-governance would allow Iraqis a much greater say in the composition and criteria for the selection of their transition team. We urge the United Nations not to sanction a process and a Council that emerged from an illegal invasion,'' she added.

Consisting of 13 Shiites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Christian and one Turkmen, the Council has authority to nominate ministers, review laws, sign contracts and approve the national budget.

But the chief U.S. civil administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, and his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) have the power to overrule the Council's decisions, making it a tool in the hands of the United States, critics say.

Bremer, who has ruled out any popular election in Iraq in the foreseeable future because of security concerns, has promised that Iraqis will play a more central role in running the country through the Governing Council.

But the 22-member League of Arab States, which represents the political will of all Arab countries in the region, has refused to recognise the U.S. creation.

''If this Council was elected, it would have gained much power and credibility,'' Secretary-General Amr Moussa said last week.

Addressing a press conference in Baghdad on Wednesday, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Annan's special representative in Iraq, said although the Arab League refused to recognise the body, it had ''welcomed'' the establishment of the Council as ''an important first step towards the full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty''.

The Arab League had also indicated it will receive members of the Council at the League's headquarters in Cairo starting next week in order to begin a dialogue, added Vieria de Mello.

''I can see a gradual process of rapprochement between the Arab League and the Governing Council in the months ahead,'' he predicted.

Negroponte told reporters Wednesday that the draft resolution focuses on just two issues: ''firstly, we are proposing that the Security Council welcome the Governing Council as a step towards representative government, and secondly, we are calling for the establishment of a U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq in order to support a recommendation by the secretary-general.''

''The resolution does not have any broader implications,'' he said. ''And it establishes the fact that the United Nations has an important role to play in Iraq.''

But John Quigley, professor of international law at Ohio State University, is not convinced Washington is sincere about the U.N.'s role.

''Now that it is bogged down in a bad situation in Iraq, the United States is seeking to remove some of the pressure it faces by giving the appearance that the operation is a U.N. activity,'' Quigley told IPS.

''The Security Council must be careful not to legitimise the military action whereby the United States took control of Iraq,'' he said.

Quigley said the Security Council should be pressing the United States to act in conformity with Geneva Conventions (governing the treatment of civilians during wartime) as long as its forces remain in Iraq, and to depart at the earliest possible date.

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, also criticised the U.S. political tactic in the Security Council.

''After violating the U.N. charter by invading Iraq, the U.S. government wants the Security Council to bless the occupation and the 'governing council' the occupiers handpicked,'' Solomon told IPS.

The ''arrogance of the current U.S. proposals is laughable, except that the results would facilitate the continuation of a situation that is deadly and extremely damaging to any legitimate concept of international order'', said Solomon, whose group promotes a diversity of voices in the mass media.

The White House, he said, has proceeded as though military might can solve just about anything -- ''and now that it's clear this hubris is not working out to its liking, the manipulators based in Washington are trying a new tactic''.

In effect, he said, they want, retroactively, to get a ''good war-making seal of approval'' from the Security Council.

This would be impossible from the 191-member General Assembly, he said, but with ''carrots and sticks'', the United States might succeed in pressuring enough of the 14 other members of the Security Council to get the resolution passed.

Washington is already reportedly offering inducements, including weapons and increased military aid, to at least three countries -- India, Pakistan and Turkey -- whose troops Washington desperately needs to bolster the fledgling multinational force for Iraq and relieve the pressure on U.S. soldiers in the war-ravaged country.

The force now includes troops mostly from former Soviet republics and Latin American nations.

France, Germany, India, Pakistan and several other nations have declined to provide troops unless there is a new U.N. resolution authorising the proposed multinational peacekeeping force in Iraq.

''Sooner or later, all (military) occupiers need a puppet regime staffed by locals.'' The Iraqi Governing Council is one such creation, Solomon said.