The costs of occupation

As Iraqi disenchantment with the U.S. occupation becomes increasingly evident, the weight of the two Gulf wars and the punitive peace in between has begun to tell on the Bush administration.

MEETING with a group of mediapersons in Washington on his recent visit, Paul Bremer, the chief administrator of the United States' occupation of Iraq, was asked about the state of basic services in the country. He chose the path of dogged evasion, repeatedly inviting attention to 35 years of comprehensive economic mismanagement by the deposed Ba'ath regime.

Like with much else coming out from the current U.S. administration, Bremer's remarks showed a remarkable economy with the truth. The rising embitterment within Iraq and the increasing evidence of disenchantment within the U.S., constitute powerful evidence that the legacy of two devastating wars and the punitive peace that intervened is proving onerous for the U.S.

On July 29, two senior officials of the U.S. government appeared before a committee of the Senate to face sustained interrogation about the costs of the war in Iraq and the long-term reconstruction commitments it entailed. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defence, was closely questioned about the shifting rationale for the war. From explicit and irrefutable evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the argument had subtly turned towards the character of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Wolfowitz brought all his seasoned rhetorical skills into play to avoid serious damage at the hands of the irate Senators. But Joshua Bolten, the White House budget director, was less fortunate. His bland disavowal of all knowledge of the costs of the occupation and reconstruction in Iraq brought some of the Senators to a fulminating rage. The Senate, Bolten was reminded, would be expected to vote on the President's budget proposals for fiscal year 2004, beginning October 1, 2003, in a matter of weeks. What level of appropriations would the administration demand for its operations in Iraq? Bolten's stunning response was that the administration had no figure to offer. Incompetence may have been an adequate summation of the situation, but the mere fact that many of the Senators chose the charge of a lack of candour and transparency, points to a fraying of the political mood in Washington.

Not the most effective of communicators, President George Bush held a rare press conference late-July. Expectedly, the mounting evidence of intelligence manipulation in the run-up to the war in Iraq was the main media focus. Rather incredulously, the U.S. public had seen a succession of senior intelligence and security officials stepping up to take the blame for the falsehoods that had been given wide currency in the prelude to the war. Of all the falsehoods that had been knitted together into the case for war, the one uttered by Bush in his State of the Union address to the U.S. Congress last January demanded explanation. And in a comical procession, the blame for allowing the definitive reference in Bush's speech to Iraq's alleged purchase of uranium from Africa, was placed on George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and then Stephen Hadley, senior deputy in the National Security Council. The presidential alibi soon developed irreparable leaks, compelling a third fall guy to step forward. Robert Joseph, non-proliferation expert in the National Security Council was the chosen one for the role. But with his story too failing to convince, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice herself had to take blame for the oversight.

At his press conference, Bush signalled that passing the buck was no longer a feasible strategy of damage control: "I take responsibility for everything that I say, of course. And I analysed a thorough body of intelligence... that led me to the conclusion that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power." He followed this up with a ringing endorsement of the "fabulous" job that Condoleezza Rice was performing.

Taking responsibility is a strategy that involves cascading risks. Bush will soon have to grapple with the issue of accountability for the escalating turmoil in Iraq. Editor and Publisher, a journal of the U.S. print media, recently turned the focus of public inquiry on the systemic tendency of the media to understate U.S. casualties in Iraq. The figure most often mentioned is that 52 U.S. servicemen have been killed in hostile actions since May 1, when Bush declared the end of major combat operations. But if accidents, suicides and all other causes were to be factored in, the number would rise to 112. Another stark statistic that has been attracting attention in recent days is 166 - the number of combat dead on the U.S. side since the war began, which is considerably higher than the toll from the 1991 Gulf War. The injured and the maimed, who number 827, is another statistic demanding accountability from the men who planned the war.

These are sensitive figures for the U.S. public, though they are nothing in comparison to the casualties being inflicted on Iraq. Media reports at the end of July suggested that in the preceding six weeks, U.S. armed forces in Iraq had been conducting intensive combat operations in the most sensitive areas of the country, taking "thousands" into preventive detention and killing an estimated 300. The methods used ranged from random search and cordon operations to the explicitly forbidden expedient of taking hostages. Like with much else in Iraq, the situation lends itself to sharply polarised interpretations. The positive spin put out by the U.S. army is that aggressive patrolling and armed engagement are breaking down resistance, with more Iraqis realising that they have little to gain from prolonging the agony and actively volunteering valuable information. Most observers on the ground though, are inclined to look at the other side, warning that the U.S. army's roughshod methods are only deepening the embitterment.

After two weeks of intense haggling, the Governing Council for Iraq that was brought into existence by the U.S., elected a nine-member presidency on July 28. Each of the nine members will chair the council in rotation for a period of a month or two, until a more durable dispensation is worked out. What has struck most observers is the tight grip that the U.S. Defence Department has maintained over the whole process. Six members of the presidency are exiles who courted the patronage of the U.S. over the last decade, as a succession of efforts at effecting regime change short of war came a cropper. And the presence of Ahmad Chalabi, the shady financier and fugitive from the law, is definitive sign that the U.S. is yet to identify a credible figure from within Iraq to execute its fiat.

Bush may have received a minor salve for his bruised spirits from the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but only at the cost of undermining any residual credibility he may have had in the Arab world. On July 25, he welcomed Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to the White House. Responding to his concerns about the "security fence" that the Israelis are currently in an advanced state of building across Palestinian territories, Bush offered anodyne reassurances. "I think the wall is a problem, and I have discussed this with Ariel Sharon," he said. "It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

Four days later, he was mute witness to Sharon's brutal assertion at the same venue, that the "security fence" would "continue to be built". The subsequent qualifier, that "every effort" would be made to "minimise the infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian population" was of course, one in a sequence of insincere commitments that have been made by Israel over the last decade of the failed peace. But Bush had perhaps been beguiled by the effusive praise of the Israeli Premier. "I congratulate you," said Sharon, "on the impressive victory in the Iraqi campaign and for removing Saddam Hussein from power.... Only you, Mr President, have shown the courage, determination and leadership needed to spearhead the successful campaign to oust this ruthless, merciless despot, his dynasty and evil regime."

That the Israeli Premier should be a more effusive cheerleader for the U.S. President than even his domestic constituents, is hardly surprising. Credible media reports now indicate that Sharon's office was directly involved in preparing the justification for war in Iraq. Beyond a point, established intelligence services, like the CIA in the U.S. and the Mossad in Israel, proved reluctant to concoct evidence. That mission then fell on the Office of Special Plans - a newly formed ginger group within the U.S. Defence Department - and to Sharon's closest political aides.

The outcome has been an intelligence fiasco, which has already led to the resignation of the top British intelligence operative, MI6 Director Richard Dearlove. Tenet's job is also clearly at risk, though his damage potential outside government could yet give pause to those who would like him to take the rap and quit. It was no coincidence that the "road map" for peace in Palestine was unveiled by the U.S. shortly after combat operations in Iraq were declared closed. The U.S. and Israel needed to buy peace with the restive Palestinian people to concentrate their efforts on remaking Iraq. Palestinian militant groups responded by declaring a truce to give the road map a fair chance of success. But within a week of his visit to Washington, the Palestinian Prime Minister was signalling that his patience was at an end. Israel had refused to heed his request that political prisoners be released, failed to halt the expansion of illegal settlements on the West Bank and Gaza strip, and followed up its derisory gesture of dismantling a few settlement outposts by constructing still more at other locations. In perhaps its most arrant rejection of any possibility of a just peace, it had hastened the construction of its "apartheid wall", imprisoning thousands of Palestinians and threatening to create a refugee situation within a refugee situation.

In 1996, a group of right-wing ideologues in the U.S. had authored a policy advisory for the incoming Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu. Titled "A Clean Break", the study had spoken of the desirability of removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq as an "important strategic objective in its own right". Its principal strategic benefit, however, was of an indirect nature. It would foil Syria's regional ambitions, cut it off from the Arabian peninsula and compel it to withdraw all sustenance to Palestinian militant groups. With all the claims on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction proving hollow, the basic strategic calculations behind the war are emerging to the clear light of day. Inexorably, Israel's unyielding security concerns could soon transform the illusion of triumph in Iraq into precipitous rout.