KUWAIT CITY/LONDON, 10 April 2003 — The diplomatic ruptures triggered by the US decision to go to war in Iraq without UN approval are set to be reawakened in a new fight over who will play the lead role in the immediate post-Saddam Hussein era. With Washington determined to keep the upper hand, France, Britain and other countries pushing for a UN role and a gaggle of fractious opposition groups jockeying for position, Iraq’s future is likely to remain complicated.
US President George W. Bush made reassurances Tuesday that Washington would not act unilaterally in rebuilding the country, pledging to work “with international institutions, including the United Nations”. But key members of Bush’s administration — angered at the UN Security Council’s failure to support the war — have balked at granting the world body a role as a power broker in the region.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said recently that “having given life and blood to liberate Iraq,” it was natural that the United States and Britain should take the lead in the country when the war is finished. To that aim, retired US Gen. Jay Garner has been working with a 200-strong staff out of offices in Kuwait over the past few months as director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for Iraq, answerable to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
When Baghdad is finally considered secure Garner is expected to move up to Baghdad to begin in earnest his task of overseeing the rebuilding of Iraq.
Iraq’s notoriously fractious opposition groups have been split over Garner’s role. Sharif Ali Hussain, leader of the Monarchist Constitutional Movement (MCM), said in London on Tuesday that it would not work with Garner.
“We are not under the command of the US,” he said. “We won’t participate in any appointed post under the command of Garner.”
But the US-backed Iraqi National Congress has welcomed Garner’s role. The INC, led by Ahmad Chalabi, recently claimed to have sent hundreds of fighters to southern Iraq to join the US campaign against Saddam. “We see it as a very positive sign,” INC spokesman Faisal Chalabi told AFP.
“We do believe that the civil administration he (Garner) is setting up in Kuwait with Iraqis and some American experts is a serious commitment by the United States towards the Iraqi people, towards a future democratic Iraq. “We do not see ORHA as any kind of military rule of Iraq.”
