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IRAQ: U.S. Plans to Rebuild Undermined by Attacks – Analysts

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 27 2003 (IPS) - Sustained guerrilla attacks on U.S. and UK military forces in occupied Iraq are threatening to undermine Washington’s plans for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country, Middle East analysts say.

”The dilemma the reconstruction process faces in Iraq is that national reconstruction cannot begin in earnest without security,” former U.N. assistant secretary-general Hans von Sponeck, who headed the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq, told IPS.

”And the security situation will not get better,” he predicted, ”unless there are signs that reconstruction is beginning to make a tangible difference in the lives of the average Iraqi.”

According to James Paul of the New York-based Global Policy Forum: ”You cannot start reconstructing Iraq when there is an ongoing insurgency in the country.”

”What we are seeing are not only attacks on U.S. troops but also on oil pipelines,” Paul said. ”Still the United States wants us to believe that it is marching towards a brilliant future in Iraq. This is a charade,” he told IPS.

Paul, whose group focuses heavily on U.N. issues, said it would perhaps be wiser for the United States ”to cut its losses and run” before its military forces get really bogged down in Iraq.

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid warned of the dangers of continuing attacks against U.S. and UK soldiers.

”We are certainly in for some difficult days ahead periodically,” said Abizaid, who is expected to succeed Gen Tommy Franks as head of U.S. Central Command and will also lead U.S. military forces inside Iraq.

”We need to be just as firm that we can’t be driven out (of Iraq),” he added.

The increasing casualties among U.S. forces – triggered mostly by guerrilla attacks and partly through accidents – have reached an average of about one soldier a day in June alone. Since U.S.-led forces launched the war on Mar. 20, more than 196 Americans have died.

U.S. plans for Iraq ”are running into the hard reality that they did not anticipate: that Iraqis detest (ousted President) Saddam Hussein as much as they do U.S. colonial rule,” says As’ad Abukhalil, a Middle East expert and professor of political science at California State University.

”The mounting guerrilla attacks on American troops indicate the possibility of a nation-wide movement, and it cannot be simply traced to Saddam’s lackeys,” Abukhalil told IPS.

”If (or once) the movement spreads to Shi’ite areas in Iraq, the United States will then be forced to reconsider its plan for long-term occupation, and the U.S. public (opinion) may shift,” he added.

An informal meeting on the reconstruction of Iraq at the United Nations early this week, drew representatives from about 52 countries, along with senior officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) currently running the administration in Iraq.

It resolved that a donor conference on Iraq, sponsored by the European Union (EU), Japan, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), will take place in October.

Paul questions the wisdom of the United Nations getting involved in Iraq when the situation in the country is so uncertain.

”Should there be a U.N. role in Iraq and should the United Nations really get mixed up in the current impasse?” he asked. ”I don’t know. Perhaps it is wiser for the United Nations to keep off.”

But there is also a lingering fear that most Western donors might, in the long run, be reluctant to commit themselves to reconstruction plans – particularly when the administration of President George W Bush has awarded all of the more than one billion dollars in contracts to just seven U.S. companies.

(After loud complaints from the international community, the administration agreed that non-U.S. firms could bid for sub-contracts.)

At least one of the companies – Bechtel Corporation – has close political ties to the administration.

So far, the U.S. Congress has appropriated about 2.4 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The CPA has projected about 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in Iraqi oil revenues for the next six months of this year, and 13 billion dollars for 2004. But the long-term reconstruction of war-torn and sanction-weary Iraq is expected to cost close to 100 billion dollars – far above projected annual oil revenues.

The London-based ‘Economist’ magazine says in its current issue that the sabotage of oil pipelines is also hindering the export of oil.

”After three months in the country, America has yet to export a drop of fresh oil, and its production rates are barely half the 1.5 million barrels a day target set over a month ago.”

The magazine said the deteriorating security situation is threatening the flow of foreign investments and endangering U.S. reconstruction plans.

Frank Dall, who landed a 63-million-dollar contract to rebuild Iraqi schools destroyed in the war, is having second thoughts about his venture. ”We don’t want to bring our people back in body bags,” he is quoted as saying.