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 ast
week the State Department cut off nearly all funding for the Iraqi
National Congress, citing financial mismanagement.
State claims
the coalition of rebels has failed to implement the basic reforms
called for in a U.S. audit completed last October. They complain
that there are no procedures in place to account for how the INC's
information-collection program spends its money. And they raise
concerns over the effectiveness of other programs.
The INC counters
that the program employs operatives in dangerous countries surrounding
Iraq that can't have their names show up in a document that could
be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Sparking a revolution
is, after all, messy business that doesn't neatly fit into annual
ledgers.
The real problem
is not how the rebels keep their books, but rather what they intend
to do with the money that's on them. The INC's driving force, Ahmad
Chalabi, has been fairly straightforward about how he intends to
use American support. He wants to eventually train enough men to
challenge a single Iraqi brigade and gain a foothold inside Iraq,
a home address to attract more defectors and soldiers to fight Saddam.
Chalabi came close to this goal in 1996 before the Kurdish Democratic
Party allowed Saddam's troops to vanquish the remaining stronghold
the INC had in northern Iraq in Erbil.
Not surprising,
the State Department does not share the INC's view of itself. It
would like for the group to be a political organization, nonviolently
presenting alternative perspectives on Saddam's rule through newspapers
and until recently a television station.
The problem
in Iraq appears to not be so much a question of popular support
for ousting their ruler but faith that a group of Saddam's opponents
would have enough military muscle to protect them from the state's
death squads. After all countless Iraqis were slaughtered in 1991
when the first President Bush told them to rise up against the regime
and then allowed that regime to use its remaining helicopters to
put down the rebellion.
In the last
ten years, Iraqi people's faith inside in the opposition has weakened
in the face of bungled coups and Washington's foot dragging. This
trend appears to be exacerbated by a near four-year marriage between
Chalabi's rebels and the State Department. Iraqi rebels do not need
better accountants, they need weapons and training superior to the
Iraqi Republican Guards (and probably lots of U.S. air power).
If the second
President Bush is serious about toppling Saddam's government, he
should not entrust this task to diplomats who are prized for their
skills in negotiating with existing governments. The stated goal
of Iraq policy for the INC, Congress, and, for that matter, the
Republican party (according to the 2000 platform) is the removal
of Saddam Hussein from power. In foreign policy speak this is called
regime change, which is a nice way of saying war, the proper domain
of the Pentagon.
But regime
change runs counter to the grist of what the State Department does.
Modern diplomacy is based on the principle of the sovereign equality
of states within the international system. The notion was first
sketched out in the 1815 Congress of Vienna and is enshrined in
the chapter two of the United Nations Charter. The idea is simple,
no matter what different governments think of each other, they may
not interfere in each other's internal affairs, because every country
is a sovereign entity. For this reason, much of the CIA's work is
secret. Washington can't come right out and say they are influencing
events inside a country because it violates the basic tenets of
diplomacy.
Letting the
diplomats manage an insurrection inside Iraq is akin to asking the
director of Central Intelligence to negotiate a ceasefire between
the Israelis and Palestinians. Admittedly, this is a bad analogy
since the substance of the current U.S. ceasefire proposal for the
holy land was negotiated by George Tenet last June. But it proves
the point, the spymaster's ceasefire failed miserably, just ask
the Israeli navy.
As abhorrent
as Saddam's regime is, the United States still formally recognizes
it as the government of Iraq. Mind you this hasn't stopped American
spies from buying off various Saddam opponents or hatching coup
plots, but the State Department at least doesn't have to worry about
these matters. Contrast this with the Taliban, which the United
States never recognized as the government of Afghanistan or the
current warlords who run Somalia. The diplomatic problems with military
action in those places are far less complicated.
Foggy Bottom
has long been suspicious of Chalabi and his plans for insurrection
inside Iraq. The State Department has opposed not only arming and
training INC rebels but also a more modest plan to distribute humanitarian
aid inside the country. In October, the State Department even sent
an envoy to London to urge the INC's leadership not to make defectors
the group recruited available to journalists and other U.S. intelligence
agencies.
Meanwhile,
the primary Iraq policy goal of the State Department, at least under
Colin Powell, has been the modification of international sanctions
against Iraq. This policy by its nature recognizes the legitimacy
of Saddam's regime because if "smart sanctions" work then
they will persuade him to allow weapons inspectors inside the country.
As one State Department official told me recently, "Regime
change is plan B if the sanctions don't work."
The Pentagon
opposed smart sanctions from the beginning of the administration
and also made a modest grab for the INC account in the early part
of the 2002 budget process. The reason is because people who work
at the Pentagon focus on winning wars. Most analysts there believe
that Saddam Hussein is at war with the United States and should
therefore be defeated, Congress of Vienna be damned. After all,
the guy tried to kill the first President Bush in Kuwait and won't
live up to the terms of the agreements he signed to end the Gulf
War back in 1991 anyway.
Fortunately
for President Bush, the Pentagon employs many experts in the kind
of war likely to be most successful against Saddam. They reside
in the office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.
If the president wishes to end Saddam Hussein's career as a statesman
he should transfer INC responsibilities to the SOLIC offices.
If not, he
should just come out and say he opposes regime change in Iraq and
propose legislation reversing the Iraq Liberation Act that set aside
the first bundle of money for the INC in 1998. In the meantime he
should do Colin Powell and Ahmad Chalabi both a favor and promise
them that neither will have to deal with each other again.
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