Iraq
and the United Nations,
Post-War and Pre-Peace:
The Dilemmas of the Future
By
Hans
von Sponeck, TFF
Associate*
January 27, 2005
A
human history not to be forgotten
On 2 August 1990 Iraqi troops
invaded and illegally occupied Kuwait. The United Nations
Security Council reacted quickly. Four days later the
most comprehensive economic and military sanctions ever
pronounced against a nation were imposed on Iraq (1) .
The 1991 Gulf War forced the Iraq Government to withdraw
its troops from Kuwait. This fulfilled the conditions of
resolution 661. Economic sanctions, however, were not
lifted. Instead, the Security Council changed its
conditions for the lifting of economic sanctions and
decided in April 1991 to pass resolution 687 which
demanded of Iraq the disarmament of all of its weapons of
mass destruction (2).
Throughout the years the Security
Council became increasingly disunited on the question
whether Iraq had fulfilled the disarmament requirements
of resolution 687 (3). The result was that economic
sanctions remained in place until the Anglo-American
invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Six weeks after the war, the UN
Security Council formally lifted economic sanctions
against Iraq on 23 May 2003 (4). The human conditions at
that time were appalling:
i) one out of five children in
central and southern Iraq was chronically malnourished;
ii) mortality among children under
five had plateaued after 1997 at the high level of
between 100 and 120 death/ 1000;
iii) calories per capita were at
65% of pre-sanctions levels;
iv) literacy had declined from 81%
to 74%;
v) water and sanitation systems
were in an extremely dilapidated state;
vi) unemployment was estimated to
be between 60 and 75% of the workforce;
In 1995 the United Nations and the
Government of Iraq had finally agreed on what became
known as the oil-for-food programme (5). This followed
years of confrontation over the introduction of a
humanitarian exemption to protect the civilian population
against the full impact of economic sanctions.
It has to be asked why despite such
a humanitarian programme socio-economic conditions in
Iraq at the time sanctions were lifted in 2003 were so
poor?
In 1999, the then Canadian Foreign
Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, participating in an Iraq debate
in the UN Security Council, made the important point that
the Security Council had to act for the benefit of the
international community and not in the interest of
individual member states. During the same year, the then
chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Jesse Helms, poignantly told the UN Security Council
during a visit that the US would be ready to strengthen
the UN, 'if this was in the interest of America' and not
hesitate to do the opposite if the UN acted otherwise.
An influential group often referred
to as neo-conservatives published in 2000 a US strategy
for the 21st century (6). Two years later US President
Bush formalized this position in a national security
strategy document (7).
The
WMD issue took priority over humanitarian
concerns
A review of the positions taken by
the United States in the Security Council during the 13
years of economic sanctions and military embargo against
Iraq reveal that US Government concerns rested first and
foremost with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
and US security interests rather than with the
humanitarian implications of UN Iraq policies (8).
US rhetoric during these years, in
and outside the UN Security Council, expressing
apprehension over the human conditions in Iraq can not
hide this fact. Every effort was made by Washington to
prevent Iraq from re-gaining authority over its finances,
to maintain a complicated and seriously impeding UN
bureaucracy for the import of supplies into Iraq under
the oil-for-food programme and to block, permanently or
temporarily, goods and services from reaching the
country, allegedly for their dual-use potential (9).
All of this had to do with US fears
that Iraq may use funds or humanitarian supplies to
develop its arsenal of biological, chemical and nuclear
weaponry. These fears were not unjustified given the
Iraqi history of WMD production. However, had the US
authorities and the UN Security Council as a whole
carried out their oversight mandate more consistently and
adjusted UN sanctions policies accordingly and in a
timely manner, socio-economic conditions in Iraq could
have developed differently and more humanely.
The
Security Council left politics to the United States, also
illegal arrangements
The UN Security Council, as an
institution, left political leadership largely in the
hands of its most powerful member. It also often failed
to act in a timely manner, e.g., in speedily raising the
revenue level for the humanitarian programme when in 1997
the severe inadequacy of an allocation of $ 113 per
person per year to cover all sectors of human needs
(food, health, water supply and sanitation, electricity,
agriculture and education) became apparent (10).
The Security Council recognized the
ensuing damage of policies it had introduced or
individual members had unilaterally decided to follow.
The Council, however, did not have the political will or
power to modify such policies. Examples include, the
Council's decision to deduct 30% of Iraq's oil revenue
for payment of compensation of foreign individuals, firms
and governments that had allegedly been victimized by
Iraq's invasion into Kuwait. The Security Council could
easily have lowered or frozen such deductions at the time
when death rates and malnutrition in Iraq were soaring
(11).
The Council was aware that the
bureaucratization of the oil-for-food programme had
introduced long delays in the arrival of humanitarian
supplies (12). Some steps to remove such impediments were
taken but only after inordinate delays.
The Security Council was well aware
that the introduction of two no-fly zones in Iraq by the
US, UK and French governments (13) was without
international mandate and therefore illegal.
Individual members of the Council
intermittently raised the subject of the no-fly-zones in
the Security Council. Yet, the Council failed to ever
carry out a debate on these zones, even when in 2002/03
the violations in Iraqi airspace by the US and UK air
forces had no longer even remotely to do with the
protection of religious and ethnic groups such as the
Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north but instead
involved deliberate destabilization and preparation for
war.
The
dictatorship created the misery too - three
conclusions
Deterioration of socio-economic
conditions in Iraq certainly can not be explained solely
in terms of the negligence of the UN Security Council to
carry out its oversight responsibilities or to act in
accordance with the knowledge it had of the deteriorating
conditions in Iraq. The dictatorship of the Government of
Saddam Hussein made its own and distinct contribution to
the misery of a people.
It may be politically convenient to
leave accountability for what happened in Iraq during the
period up to the March 2003 war in a nebulous state of
interpretation with all the advantages this has for the
stronger over the weaker party. Objective analysis,
however, has to disregard a one-sided approach through
which the human drama is explained by either the
brutality of a regime or the failures of the
international community. Much more work has to be carried
out in order to fully understand the specific and
separate roles the protagonists have played in bringing
about the desolate conditions in Iraq.
At this stage, one can conclude
that i) economic sanctions policy have played a
significant role in creating these conditions, ii) the
Security Council did cross the boundary between what were
unavoidable and negative side-effects of legally adopted
UN sanctions and the violation of international law
including international covenants and the convention of
the rights of the child, iii) the UN Security Council had
more humane options but chose not to introduce these in a
timely and decisive manner and thereby reducing the
severity of the impact of sanctions.
Future
UN reforms - the strong must stop ignoring the weaker
In the context of the re-emerging
demands for the reform of the United Nations, other
elements must be cited to explain Iraq sanctions
policies. Among these is that the five permanent members
of the Security Council had the advantage of 'permanent'
association with a political issue such as sanctions
against a country. China, France Russia, the United
Kingdom and the United States were involved in the Iraq
discussion from the very beginning in 1990 and throughout
the years shaped Iraq policies. Process and substance of
Iraq policy were in the hands of these five countries.
Elected members of the Council, for example Malaysia,
Bangladesh, Syria, Mexico and Canada, as involved as they
were during their two-year tenure in the Council, had
little chance to make a significant impact on Council
policies. For many low income members it was also an
issue of lacking human and financial resources that
prevented a more sustained involvement. More powerful and
better endowed members of the Council used this fully to
their political advantage. The United Nations became like
a tool box from which the powers chose what they needed
at any given time or disregarded this box when they could
not find or get the preferred implements.
The international debate leading up
to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq can serve as a
profound example of the disregard by powerful governments
represented in the Security Council for positions taken
by others when these questioned sanctions policies or the
justification to prepare for military confrontation. The
most extreme manifestation of this approach is the
unilateral decision by the Governments of the United
States and the United Kingdom to mount a military
offensive without a UN Security Council mandate (14).
It has been argued before that the
UN Security Council had options in the implementation of
economic sanctions. The UN Security Council ultimately,
however, had no options to prevent unilateral action by
individual members of the Council to go to war. The two
governments and their parliaments that had approved the
invasion of Iraq, on the other hand did have the options
to choose what kind of a war they wanted to fight and
what kind of a peace they wanted to support afterwards.
The issue which needed to be debated was not who would
win this asymmetrical war. The answer was
clear.
Early
pre-occupation with the war-only option - the winners are
losing
Public pronouncements showed that
there was a distinct pre-occupation as early as 2002 by
these two governments with the strategies and tactics of
warfare, the duration and cost of the war, Iraq's
military response including the possible use of weapons
of mass destruction and the likely number of casualties
within the invading armies (15).
Understanding Iraqi reaction to
defeat, defining civilian priorities for the immediate
period after the war, anticipating the response to the
invasion of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds were issues either
not discussed at all or considered of secondary
importance. "While there may have been plans none of
these 'plans' operationalised the problem beyond regime
collapse" (16). Iraqi pride of their ancient
civilization, the importance of dignity in Arab culture,
local values and mores only became issues after their
neglect had created an enormous backlash for the invading
armies and the civil administrations that followed. At
that point, the winning of the 'hearts and minds' of the
Iraqis had become another battle and as it turned out, a
loosing battle.
There was a high price, first and
foremost for the Iraqi people, but also for the invading
armies and foreign civilian personnel of this fundamental
shortsightedness. Instead of a welcome to liberators came
armed and increasingly organized resistance to
occupiers.
It
went wrong from the start
Iraqis during the years of
sanctions had been deprived of all the basics of life:
Lack of electricity, shortage of water, largely
non-existent sanitation, life-threatening lack of medical
services and poor housing facilities. Speedy and sizeable
reduction of these difficulties during the initial period
after the war combined with large scale employment
creation programmes could have convinced many Iraqis that
progress was in the making. None of this happened. As
conditions worsened instead of improving, the number of
angry and disillusioned citizens increased and with it
instability and insecurity.
The period of looting in Baghdad
and other cities across Iraq, especially the thefts of
ancient artifacts from the museum of antiquities and the
burning of the national library in the capital evoked a
strong reaction from the population. They felt that their
identity and the core of their ethos had been attacked.
As pictures of US soldiers watching these thefts without
intervening emerged and it became known that the invading
armies had protected selected ministries such as the
ministries of oil and interior but destroyed or severely
damaged others such as the ministries of health, social
welfare and education anger and consternation
increasingly became hatred and willingness to resist
'invaders'.
Public sentiment worsened rapidly
in the second half of 2003 as a result of the
heavyhandedness of the US civil administrator and his
staff and the fundamental errors of judgment committed by
them: the entire Iraqi army was demobilized and converted
into an army of unemployed able bodied men,
de-ba'athification (17) resulted in many civil servants
and others working in the public sector loosing their
jobs, lucrative contracts were awarded to foreign, and
primarily US companies, without possible Iraqi
association, oil-for-food programme funds handed over by
the United Nations to the US interim administration were
not accounted for in a transparent and for the public
understandable manner and their impact not felt, 'Iraqi'
delegations to international meetings were often headed
by non-Iraqis (18), privatization and foreign investment
regulations were unilaterally introduced to the perceived
disadvantage of Iraqis, profits by non-Iraqi enterprises
could be transferred abroad without any local
reinvestment or taxation.
Iraqi
pride and humiliation, hopes and disillusion - and ever
more fear
The humiliating behaviour of
members of the US military in their house searches
(breaking doors, entering houses with dogs, hooding male
members of households, frisking females ), the revelation
of torture and extreme humiliation of male and female
prisoners not just in Abu Ghraib but also other detention
centres in Iraq was to Iraqis further evidence that the
occupiers of their country were first and foremost
concerned with their own political, economic, military
and security interests and did not care much for Iraqi
welfare and post-war reconstruction.
All of this created an environment
of disillusionment and rejection by extreme elements of
the positive efforts on the part of the interim
government and US authorities to improve socio-economic
conditions. The March 2003 war and the poor handling of
the period after the war resulted in a life of
deprivation for the average Iraqi that to-date has not
been materially different from life under economic
sanctions. Fear had been a latent feature of life during
the years of dictatorship, the war and post-war period
have created conditions under which fear has become an
overt aspect of daily living.
The fertile ground for insurgency
will remain as long as these conditions exist and as long
as Iraqis believe that they are remote controlled and not
free to decide how to conduct their lives in the
post-Saddam Hussein era. The manner in which the current
interim Government of Prime Minister Ilhad Allawi has
been chosen, its obvious lack of independent decision
making powers in the conduct of national affairs, the
Prime Minister's false and repeated portrayal of progress
in Iraq have intensified the suspicion among Iraqis that
their sovereignty is being squandered.
A
truth and reconciliation commission ought to be
established
It is tempting to argue the case
for the establishment of a national truth and
reconciliation commission. Such a commission could come a
long way to start a national healing process. Part of
such a process would have to be responsible use of
justice for all those in prominent positions of the
Government of Saddam Hussein and the exoneration of the
others. It would also have to include the immensely
difficult reconciliation between the northern areas of
Iraqi Kurdistan and the Arab center and south as well as
between the Shi'ite clerics and secular groupings. This
calls for a national leader of extraordinary qualities
and competence who has yet to emerge.
As long as there is direct and
indirect outside interference as distinct from
international cooperation and the basic conditions of
security do not prevail, there will be no chance for such
an approach. The current power vacuum in which a national
administration exists but is perceived as a front for
foreign interests, security will not improve and
therefore national reconstruction will not be possible
beyond at best little clusters of physical improvements.
These will not have the political ripple effect to make a
fundamental difference in the psychology of the national
situation.
Elections
could be healing but only if credible
The elections on January 30 could
set in motion a national healing process. At this point
it is more than doubtful that they will be country-wide
rather than only partial elections in those areas of Iraq
where enough security exists. An essential ingredient of
reconciliation would be that Iraqis are left alone in the
preparations for elections and the subsequent formation
of government. This, too, is doubtful.
Time
for governments to put pressure on the US and UK: No more
"divide et impera" - leave
Continental Europe, countries in
the Middle East, Turkey and Russia will have to get much
more and visibly involved in impressing on the
governments of the United States and the UK to change
their approach for Iraq. This should include the
withdrawal of their troops. The claim that such
withdrawal would lead to civil war and the disintegration
of Iraq is part of a powerful misinformation campaign.
Kurds, Sunnis and Shias have co-existed for centuries.
Close to a million Kurds have been living in Baghdad
making it the largest 'Kurdish' city anywhere. Shias,
Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities have intermarried,
lived together in mixed neighbourhoods, shared
workplaces, served in the Iraqi foreign service and the
military and participated in politics. This does not mean
that Iraq has been a country with total ethnic and
religious harmony. There were and are ethnic and
religious differences and political confrontations have
been fueled by these differences.
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The years of dictatorship witnessed
the misuse of power and the victimization of Kurdish and
Shia communities. Being Kurd or Shia in itself, however,
was not the cause for political persecution, opposition
to Saddam Hussein and his government was. Sunnis who were
working against the regime were therefore equally
subjected to punishment. Occupation and external meddling
harbour the distinct danger that relations between these
groups will be re-defined and become more and more
determined by ethnic and religious identities.
'Divide et
impera' is nothing new in political history. This lends
urgency to the call for the withdrawal of foreign troops
and an end to the massive political involvement of
foreign powers in Iraq's internal affairs.
To identify such demands is not
difficult, to translate these into a new agenda of
relationships between Iraq and the international
community is. The US and UK authorities would see this as
a major political defeat, and those presently in power in
Iraq as the end to their ascribed leadership. For these
reasons alone there will be powerful and sustained
opposition to anything that changes the present political
paradigm. National and international political leaders
must nevertheless have the courage and the sense of
urgency to work in this direction as otherwise the Iraqi
cataclysm will continue.
At the same time, the existing
incapacity of the international machinery to handle
complex issues such as the Iraq crisis must be addressed
to avert a recurrence of similar crises elsewhere and to
allow a comprehensive handling of terrorism. The
pre-occupation with terrorists rather than with terrorism
and its causes will ultimately do little to improve
global security.
Towards
basic reforms of international conflict management
structures
Large scale reforms of
international structures and global application of norms
relating to justice, tolerance and equal opportunity must
become part of the international agenda. This points to
the urgency of broad-based reforms of the United Nations.
The reform debate will have to include clarification of
many fundamental issues which have plagued the
international community for a long time. Among them:
i) a functional division of labour
between the International Court of Justice and the UN
Security Council. A Security Council holding legislative,
judicial and executive responsibilities, as is presently
the case, produces counterproductive conflicts of
interest;
ii) the enlargement of the UN
Security Council.
The Commission appointed by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan has recently come up with
various proposals to add permanent and non-permanent
members to the existing Council of fifteen members. The
proposed enlargement reminds of a refined caste-structure
with various layers of permanent members, some with veto
rights others without and non-permanent members elected
to the Council for varying periods of time.
Time
to change perspective and be more creative
This will not be acceptable to the
community of nations as it perpetuates inequality of
membership. Enlargement needs to be looked at from
another angle than merely more government membership.
Global human security and global environment and
development issues have become the top international
concerns. Why could non-governmental organizations with
extensive experience in these areas not become part of a
reformed Security Council? The immediate and forceful
rejection, especially by unilateralists of such a
proposal as utopian and therefore unworthy of
consideration should not be allowed to prevent a debate.
In the context of the reform
debate, the question that needs an immediate answer is:
what steps for reforms have to be taken, by whom and
when? Before this question can be answered, the
international community will have to first clarify the
roles international organizations such as the United
Nations should be expected to play to stay relevant, what
structures are needed to play these new roles and what
networks have to be created to foster peace and security.
The challenge to any reform of
international structures will be the willingness of
superpowers to operate within a multilateral framework
and to accept international law. In the case of Iraq, it
must be remembered, the United States as the dominant
global power in this era decided to step outside this
multilateral framework and determine its approaches on a
unilateral basis. The establishment of the no-fly-zones,
the December 1998 Operation Desert Fox and the March 2003
war are straightforward examples of such unilateralism.
There are less well known examples of multilateral
decision making prompted by unilateral determination. The
designs of the compensation machinery to handle claims
from parties victimized by Iraq's invasion into Kuwait
(19) and the sanctions bureaucracy (20) to manage the
oil-for-food programme must be identified in this
respect. Even more difficult to gauge is the unilateral
forcefulness of resolution making in the UN Security
Council.
Key Iraq resolutions (21) were
seemingly 'negotiated' in the Council but in fact driven
by individual governments and ultimately accepted on a
consensus basis by the Security Council. There have been
Iraq resolutions with abstentions by permanent members or
dissenting votes by elected members but there has not
been a single resolution which was defeated by the veto
of a permanent member. This is not an example of
successful diplomacy but rather an example of successful
power politics. It furthermore demonstrates the weakness
of the current multilateral machinery.
Human
security: There is a lot to learn - and change - after
Iraq
The international community has an
opportunity to learn much from the case of Iraq. It can
be said unequivocally that comprehensive economic
sanctions are not just blunt instruments as they have
often been called. They are tools which have inflicted
significant damage to innocent civilians and therefore
should not be used anymore (22).
Linking economic sanctions with a
military embargo is holding a population responsible for
the acts of their government. Such linkage, if there is
genuine concern for the welfare of people who have
nothing to do with a conflict, should not be introduced
in the future. Instead rigorous oversight on the part of
the UN Security Council of imports into Iraq could have
allowed a much more liberal inflow of goods and services
needed by the population. This oversight was lacking.
The normative and structural
unpreparedness of the international machinery, especially
of the United Nations, to handle conflicts such as the
one in Iraq, both before and after the wars of 1991 and
2003, must be fully comprehended as a first step towards
remedial reforms.
Global security, a major concern
for all countries, must not be seen as an issue one can
handle with military might. The priority is human not
military security. Of course, those who endanger
international security, terrorists, have to be caught and
brought to justice. However, in order to improve global
and regional security, it is much more important to
understand the causes of terrorism and act accordingly.
The agenda for reform of the
international machinery for peace, conflict resolution
and international development remains formidable but is
achievable if all nations, including the most powerful,
accept multilateralism as the starting
point.
*
Served in the United
Nations for 32 years holding senior posts as UN Resident
Coordinator in Botswana, Pakistan and India, Director of
the UNDP European Office in Geneva and UN Humanitarian
Coordinator in Iraq.
Notes
1. See UN Security
Council Resolution 661 of 6 August 1990.
2. See UN Security
Council Resolution 687 of 15 April 1991.
3. Ibid, para
22.
4. See UN Security
Council Resolution 1483 of 22 May 2003
5. A memorandum of
understanding to this effect was signed on 20 May 1986 in
New York between the United Nations and the Government of
Iraq
6. Rebuilding America's
Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century, A Report of the Project for the New American
Century, September 2000
7. The National Security
Strategy of the United States of America, September
2002
8. As an example, the
then US Ambassador to the United Nations in New York,
John D. Negroponte told the US Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on 7 April 2004 that the humanitarian programme
for Iraq was important but US pre-occupation concerned
Iraq's disarmament;
9. In 2002, the US and
the UK governments had put a record $5.5 billion worth of
humanitarian supplies on hold;
10. For the initial three
phases of the oil-for-food programme in 1996/98, the
total allocation per phase of six months for a population
of 22.5 million was $ 1.3 billion;
11. For most phases of
the oil-for food programme, the value of humanitarian
supplies arriving in Iraq was little more than the amount
of compensation payments Iraq had to make to the UN
Compensation Commission in Geneva
12. Procurement of
humanitarian supplies involved a minimum of 23 seperate
steps by Iraq, the UN and the exporter
13. Initially, France had
joined the US and the UK in establishing these zones in
1991 covering Iraqi airspace north of the 36th parallel
and south of the 32nd parallel, yet left this alliance in
1996 when the US and UK decided to extend the south-ern
zone to the 33rd parallel.
14. The UN Security
Council refused to legitimize the US/UK decision to go to
war against Iraq on the basis of UN Security Council
resolution 1441 of November 2002. The majority of
governments represented in the Security Council in March
2003 did not accept that Iraq was in material breach of
this resolution
15. On 31st July and 1
August 2002 the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee
called over 30 witnesses to Washington. This briefing
dealt overwhelmingly with issues of war and its costs,
military occupation and weapons of mass destruction and
hardly at all with post-war issues
16. This is the
conclusion of Major Isaiah Wilson, official historian of
the US Army, as reported by the Washington Post, 25
December 2004
17. The Iraqi Ba'ath
party consisted of a five tier structure. While it was
not mandatory to belong, there was pressure to join the
party, particularly civil servants. After the 2003 war,
the US civil administration dismissed not just the entire
Iraqi army but anyone who had been a member of the Ba'ath
party at whatever level. This approach was later given up
as unrealistic.
18. As examples, an Iraqi
delegation negotiating possible WTO membership in Geneva
was headed by a US official, at the Amman Economic Forum,
Iraq was represented by US Administrator Paul
Bremer
19. It was US government
pressure which created the UN Compensation Commission in
Geneva. While the UN Security Council on previous
occasions had recommended that countries pay compensation
for damages they had caused to other countries. Iraq was
the first case of a country for which the UN Security
Council worked out the details of compensation, decided
that Iraq provide 30% of its oil revenue for compensation
and enforced this policy.
20. The Un Security
Council Sanctions Committee instead of overseeing policy
implementation micro-managed, under US/UK pressure, the
procurement of humanitarian supplies;
21. These includes UN
Security Council resolutions 687 (1991), 1284 (1999) and
1483 (2003);
22. The UK House of
Commons in a report on sanctions published on 27 January
2000 referring to the human conditions in Iraq concludes
that it is hoped that there will never be another case of
comprehensive sanctions
©
TFF & the author 2005
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