[news] U.S. Plans To Make Iraq Their Corporate Colony

[Gordon Flett]

The Guardian  22 March 2003 

Blow for Short in battle with Pentagon 

By Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent 

Clare Short returned empty handed from Washington yesterday as Britain's
efforts to put the UN in charge of reconstructing post-war Iraq ran into
opposition from the Pentagon. 

Amid signs of widening divisions off the battlefield between the US and
its closest ally, Whitehall officials expressed concern that America's
military planners appear to be cutting the UN out of any political role
in favour of its own plan to put a retired general, Jay Garner, in the
driving seat. 

Ms Short had hoped to secure agreement on a security council resolution
which would have given the UN the leading role in rebuilding the
shattered country. But after two days of meeting with Kofi Annan and
leading UN officials in New York, and state department officials in
Washington, the international development secretary returned home with
the issue unresolved. 


"They see a new resolution as cover for their activities rather than a
route to enabling the UN to co-ordinate reconstruction," said one
Whitehall official. 

President George Bush promised Tony Blair at the Azores summit that the
UN would have a key role after the war ends. But the Pentagon believes
this should be confined to humanitarian assistance and is pressing ahead
with its own plans, which would put US companies in charge of the
country's schools and hospitals. 

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the US agency for
international development has called for American companies to bid for
more than $1bn (£640m) worth of reconstruction contracts, including
running health and education services. 

Without a UN resolution, Whitehall lawyers say that the US and UK
occupying forces would have no legal right to run the country's
institutions. "There is no legal mandate for that sort of activity,"
said one Whitehall official. "It's all quite bizarre." 

While state department officials are believed to be sympathetic to the
British vision, the Pentagon is determined to win over the hearts and
minds of the Iraqi people by branding the postwar reconstruction effort
with an American flag. America has set up its own office for
reconstruction and humanitarian assistance as part of the department of
defence. 

UN officials have warned that they have no intention of acting as a fig
leaf for a US occupying authority. "We can't have a scenario where the
US says this is what is needed, now you guys get on and do it," said one
UN official. 

Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the UN development agency, said this
week that UN agencies could not act as "sub-contractors" to the US
government. The Pentagon's plans have alarmed aid agencies, which are
concerned about the precedent it would set and the likely political
fallout throughout the Middle East. 

"We are worried that the US believes and acts like it can replace the UN
in delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction," said Justin
Forsyth, head of policy at Oxfam. "We don't believe they have the skills
or the legitimacy." 

The disagreements between Britain and the US extend even to who should
be in charge of the immediate humanitarian work as the battle rages.
Washington is boasting that its soldiers will double as mobile aid
workers, bringing rations to the vulnerable population, 60% of whom
depend on food handed out by the UN's oil for food programme. 

"We don't want our aid equipment to be offloaded off the back of a US
military lorry, because if we were to do that we would be seen as part
of a belligerent force," said Mr Forsyth.