THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

One of Britain's most senior churchmen today accuses Tony Blair and George Bush of acting like "white vigilantes going into Brixton to stop drug dealing" in an outspoken attack on the war on Iraq.

In an interview with The Independent, the Right Rev Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, accuses the religious conservatives who back President Bush of espousing "a very strange distortion of Christianity", and calls for the creation of a UN army to settle international disputes.

Dr Wright says: "For Bush and Blair to go into Iraq together was like a bunch of white vigilantes going into Brixton to stop drug dealing. This is not to deny that there's a problem to be sorted, just that they are not credible people to do it."

There was further embarrassment for Mr Blair yesterday when Paul Bremer, the head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, dismissed as a "red herring" the Prime Minister's claims that "massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories" had already been uncovered in Iraq.

Mr Bremer told ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme: "I don't know where those words come from, but that is not what David Kay [head of the Iraq Survey Group] has said. I have read his reports, so I don't know who said that.

"It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me. It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down."

Mr Bremer was forced to backtrack after being told that Mr Blair had made the claim, in a Christmas broadcast to British troops in Iraq.

Press Conference by Secretary General Kofi Annan





United Nations (New York)

PRESS CONFERENCE
December 18, 2003
Posted to the web December 29, 2003

New York

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warns that the need for additional troops to assist the U.S. led coalition forces occupying Iraq could hurt efforts to obtain additional peacekeeping forces for Africa.

"We are all competing for troops in the sense that the Coalition needs troops for Iraq, and in fact the search for troops will continue, particularly after the occupation ends and it becomes an international effort," says Annan in his final press conference of the year. "They will be going to the same countries I am going to to seek peacekeeping operations for Liberia, for Côte d'Ivoire, for Congo -- perhaps even for Sudan and Burundi. And so it is going to be difficult, but I hope those governments with capacity and means will be forthcoming and will help us deal with these crisis spots, and not hold back and then accuse the United Nations of failure."

The Secretary General also discusses setbacks in the peacekeeping operation in Liberia and reviews the activities of the last year. The following transcript was provided by the United Nations.

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am glad to see you all before the holidays. It has been a rather hard year.

I have no doubt that you will have lots of questions about Iraq. But before you get on to that, there are a few things I would want to say.

All of us -- leaders, politicians, diplomats and journalists -- have been very focused on Iraq this year.

We simply haven't paid enough attention to the many other pressing challenges facing us.

Yes, Iraq is critical to the future of the region and the world.

Yes, we have to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction and fight terrorism.

Yes, we face new threats and new challenges, and we have to change to meet them.

That's why I've appointed a High-Level Panel, and why I am calling on Member States to take up the task of renewing the United Nations.

But there are plenty of other important issues too.

Poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy continue to afflict the daily lives of billions.

In 2004, the world needs to focus on these challenges with renewed determination.

Above all, we have to rebuild momentum towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

If we don't, the Millennium Development Goals will not be met in dozens of countries -- particularly in the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the Andes and Central Asia.

And if the Goals are not met, we will all be poorer, and less secure.

We need more donors to increase official development assistance to 0.7 per cent of their gross national product.

We must give poor nations free and fair access to global markets.

We must reduce the crippling debt burden of many countries.

We must get 3 million people with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral treatment by 2005.

We must get the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria fully funded.

We must increase investments in education, health, and water and sanitation.

We must do more to empower women and to fight corruption.

We've made promises in all these areas, and in many others too.

In 2004, I'll be doing all that I can to get world leaders to work harder to meet the promises that have been made.

And I beseech all of you, who cover the work of the United Nations, to give the development agenda in 2004 the prominence it deserves.

Even in the realm of peace and security, there is plenty beyond Iraq that needs urgent attention.

We simply must make progress in bringing peace to the Middle East.

The job in Afghanistan is only half done and will be no easier in the year ahead.

Latin America needs more attention and more support.

And in Africa, 2003 was an important year, but 2004 will be even more crucial.

The United Nations will need massive support for forgotten humanitarian emergencies, and for our peacekeeping operations.

We will need troops as well as money.

And the efforts of African leaders themselves will need the support of all.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let's get our priorities right in 2004.

Let's make 2004 the year of kept promises.

I think I'll stop here and take your questions.

Question: Welcome, Mr. Secretary-General, on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association. I will abuse this privilege and go right to Iraq. You seem to indicate in comments that you have been making during the week that the handover process may not be completed, because it is complicated, by June -- by 1 July. In that connection, you appear to be telling Ayatollah al-Sistani, who had requested some kind of United Nations intervention, that you would go along with the caucuses and not a full election providing they are open and complete. How would they be open? How would they be complete? Who would that include? And are you talking about caucuses rather than elections in the comments you made to the Council? [...]

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003. Page 9

U.S. Methods Paying Off

By Pavel Felgenhauer

2003 will primarily be remembered for the war in Iraq, the fall of Baghdad and the capture of Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led invasion was strongly opposed by millions of Europeans and by former great powers France, Germany and Russia. But they protested in vain.

The U.S. march on Baghdad was a unique event in the history of modern warfare. The swiftness and zeal of the advancing armored columns, supported by relentless air power, is comparable to the best campaigns of the Israeli defense force. But the Israelis never achieved full victory; they did not manage or were not allowed by outside powers to occupy the entire territory of the opposing Arab nation.

Armed conflicts during the Cold War, when Russia and the West balanced each other globally, tended to be very bloody but strategically limited engagements: They were pitched battles on patches of disputed territory where the best possible outcome was to push the enemy back several kilometers and then fortify, awaiting a counteroffensive.

It was a time of frustrating tug-of-war conflicts in which clear and decisive victories were unachievable despite all the carnage. The 2003 campaign in Iraq, on the contrary, was a breath of fresh air for military history buffs -- almost like a return to Napoleonic times with the addition of modern military gear. This was a war that indeed achieved its goal of total enemy defeat and conquest.

Just before Christmas, a high-ranking French delegation of generals, admirals, defense industry officials and analysts came to Moscow. The French amazed their Russian counterparts by breaking to them something that is still news in Moscow today: The United States achieved a major victory in Afghanistan in 2001 and an even greater one in Iraq this year. Russian and French predictions of possible U.S. failure were totally off the mark, and today it would be wrong to expect a U.S. fiasco in suppressing the residual resistance in Iraq.

French and German leaders congratulated President George W. Bush with the capture of Hussein, while President Vladimir Putin remained silent. Die-hard antiwar Democrats like presidential hopeful Howard Dean, together with most Russians, still hope Bush will get a bloody nose in Iraq, but the reality of the situation on the ground does not lend support to this fantasy.

The vast majority of the Iraqi population does not support the resistance. On the contrary, as the guerrilla campaign has developed, the discretion in using force displayed by the Americans and the indiscretion in slaughtering innocent civilians of the jihadist resistance is effectively helping to win over hearts and minds. Today the United States is in a good position to achieve its ultimate goal: the installation of a pro-U.S. Iraqi authority equipped with a military, a police force and a cadre of informers that will keep the opposition down, while the United States will retain strategically important military bases in Iraq.

The Arab and Muslim world, despite many prophesies to the contrary and lots of agitation, did not rise as one to oppose the United States in Iraq. The majority of Iraqis and Arabs are waiting to see whether the United States will manage to make Iraq a better place to live than it was under Hussein. Everyone wants the Americans to hand over control to the locals eventually, but not immediately.

Extreme Islamists from abroad are helping pro-Hussein leftovers to resist in Iraq, but the resources of the jihadists are limited and stretched thin across many fronts: Fighting Israel, different Arab regimes, the Indian forces in Kashmir, the Russians in Chechnya, plotting terrorist attacks worldwide and so on. The jihadists surely cannot carry on a sustained Vietnam-like guerrilla war to chew up the U.S. military in Iraq.

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has weighed up the odds and decided to make a deal with Washington to surrender his weapons of mass destruction, rather than providing support to the Iraqi resistance. This year has been remarkable with two former rogue nations, Iraq and Libya, cleared of WMD and a third, Iran, signing a protocol that may prevent it going nuclear.

It has been proven that U.S. military force or the threat of force is an effective method of reversing the proliferation of WMD worldwide. Modern precision warfare also seems to be a more humane method of dealing with rogues than traditional decade-long suffocating sanctions. While the U.S. military continues to be effective, it will surely be much in use in the future.


Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.

The Birth Pangs of Iraqi Sovereignty
By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*

This is a study about the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, which is a work in progress. There are many imponderables that could enter the final calculus, and it would be premature to suggest that the process under way will lead to the final edifice visualized by its architects, who seek to complete it in a timely and orderly fashion.

The recent capture of Saddam Hussein introduces even more imponderables, whose ultimate impact remains uncertain. The following is a review and analysis of the main components in the process of restoring Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqis:

I. The 'November 15 Agreement

Bush policies threaten foundation of economic system

By Jim Lobe


WASHINGTON: If anti-globalization radicals really want to tear down the world capitalist system they might want to go door-to-door next year on behalf of incumbent US president, George W. Bush.

While Bush brags about his business experience and identifies with the interests of wealthy US capitalists, a continuation of the policies he has pursued since Sept 11, 2001, threatens not only the US economy, whose ballooning defence-driven federal deficit risks a potentially disastrous collapse of the dollar; but his insistence on effectively exempting the United States from the rule of international law - commercial as well as human rights law - also threatens the very foundation of the multilateral economic system under which global corporate capitalism has prospered for more than 50 years, according to a growing number of economic analysts.

For multinational corporations, which act as both the chief engines and beneficiaries of the global system, the rule of law provides the predictability they need to make investment decisions. Without it, countries find it much more difficult to attract capital and benefit from global trade and investment regimes.

Concern about Bush's unilateralist policies and their relationship to the global economic order was first voiced late in 2002 as it became clear that he was determined to go to war on the basis of a new national-security doctrine that featured pre- emptive military action.

Among those who expressed alarm at the time were a number of former high-ranking policy makers, most notably Jeffrey Garten, currently dean of the Yale School of Management.

"The big issue is disregard for international law," he warned in an article in 'Business Week' magazine in an appeal to corporate executives to weigh in against the administration's course. "The UN Charter places stringent limits on the right of self- defence, saying that the unilateral use of force can be used only against imminent threat of attack."

"The danger is that once the US brazenly departs from international treaties, it invites widespread cynicism about all global agreements and opens the door to other nations' flaunting them too," Garten argued at the time. Unconstrained either by Congress, the UN Security Council or the captains of finance and industry, Bush went to war, fuelling a new round of warnings.

"Uncertainty is anathema to investment and growth," wrote 'Business Week' editorial page editor Bruce Nussbaum as US troops crossed into Iraq from Kuwait, noting that the war's possible consequences, as well as the flaunting of international law, posed serious threats to global confidence. "Chief executives are beginning to worry that globalization may not be compatible with a foreign policy of unilateral pre-emption," he went on.

"US corporations may soon find it more difficult to function in a multilateral economic arena when their overseas business partners and governments perceive America to be acting outside the bounds of international law and institutions."

Nor was Bush's self-exemption from international law seen as the only blow against global corporate interests. The administration's plans to privatize the Iraqi economy while awarding lucrative rebuilding contracts to US companies also flew in the face of the interests of a global capitalist system supposedly based on transparency and openness.

"American imperialism is, by definition, a retreat away from global capitalism, a retreat from the invisible hand of markets in favour of a more dominant role for the visible fist of governments," argued Paul McCulley, a managing director of PIMCO, the world's largest bond investment fund.

Indeed, the unabashed commitment to reward US companies (preferably political contributors) in Iraq gave rise to fears about a new mercantilism based ultimately on military (and hence government) power of the kind that characterised European imperialism, as opposed to the creation of an open global market in the war's immediate aftermath - fears that were fanned with the September collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round in Cancun.

Those fears reached their height earlier this month when Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced that companies from countries that did not support the war in Iraq - including some of Washington's closest allies - would be barred from bidding on some 18.6 billion dollars in contracts for Iraq's reconstruction, a decision that, according to many trade experts, violates a WTO agreement on government procurement. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.