LONDON, 3 April 2003 — Iraq must be governed by Iraqis as soon as the US-led war to overthrow President Saddam Hussein is over, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday. “Iraq in the end should not be run by the Americans, should not be run by the British, should not be run by any outside force or power,” he told MPs in his weekly question period in the House of Commons. “It should be run for the first time in decades by the Iraqi people,” he said in his most strongly-word statement yet on what Iraq should look like once Saddam’s regime has fallen.
Blair reiterated Britain’s determination to see that any interim postwar administration in Iraq is endorsed by the United Nations, amid concern that Washington intends to put Americans in charge in Baghdad. Postwar Iraq should be run “by Iraqi people on basis of a broadly representative government that protects human rights and that is committed to peace and stability in the (Gulf) region,” he said.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was traveling yesterday to Berlin, then on to NATO headquarters in Brussels, for talks focusing on postwar Iraq and its reconstruction. Blair promised MPs that, apart from his yesterday’s question periods, he would be making a major statement in the Commons on Iraq before it rises for a two-week Easter recess on April 14.
With a decisive battle for Baghdad imminent, Blair said British forces — who are focusing on the main southern city of Iraq — had performed “absolutely magnificently” in the war that began March 20. “We can take immense pride in them,” he said. But he ruled out any reinforcements for the 45,000 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel from Britain who are deployed in the Gulf.
“We don’t believe at the present time that we need additional troops. We believe we have the troops to do the job but of course we keep this under constant review,” he said. In a morale-boosting announcement, Blair also said that families of British troops in the Gulf would be able to send parcels to their loved ones “entirely free of charge ... entirely free of charge.” Many relatives had complained bitterly that the cost of mailing packages to the Gulf was so high that it sometimes outstripped the value of the gifts wrapped inside.
Earlier, Straw insisted that a postwar government in Iraq would be run by Iraqis, not outsiders. Straw, who will meet his German counterpart Joschka Fischer and the foreign ministers of Russia and France in Brussels today, said he was starting negotiations on “post-conflict” United Nations resolutions for Iraq.
“There could be advisers from other countries but there will not be foreign nationals running the Iraqi government. That is not the purpose of this action,” he told BBC Radio.
British officials deny differences with Washington over the postwar running of Iraq, but last week US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington had not taken on “this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future”.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper said on Tuesday Washington was planning an interim Iraqi government consisting of 23 ministries, each of them headed by an American. Straw did not confirm or deny that report, saying there was always speculation. But he made clear Iraq would sooner or later be run by Iraqis after Saddam Hussein was toppled. “What we have agreed with the United States is that the post-conflict arrangements should be endorsed by the United Nations. If that’s so, they have got to be acceptable to the United Nations,” he said.
“What we will be seeking is ... an interim Iraqi authority moving to a more representative government which is drawn from the Iraqi people.”
