BAGHDAD, 4 May 2003 — A multinational force plans to deploy in Iraq this month to try to stabilize a country rocked by lawlessness since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, Poland’s foreign minister said yesterday.
The United States, Britain and Poland are to lead the 10-nation force, which Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said would arrive by the end of May.
“The idea is to have all the countries, ready to engage, there by the end of this month,” he said on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Greece.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was more reticent on the deployment saying “no final decisions have been made”.
A senior US official has said Iraq will be divided into three as yet undefined sectors, one patrolled by about 20,000 US soldiers and the other two by contingents under British and Polish command. Ten nations have so far offered troops.
The official said the stabilization force would be separate from the 135,000 US-led combat troops still in Iraq.
US President George W. Bush proclaimed victory in Iraq but said the US-led war on terror was far from over and vowed to hunt down America’s enemies before they could strike.
Bush closely linked the ousting of Saddam to the anti-terror campaign launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that still goes on,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.
Although the Iraq war may be more or less over, violence, looting and lawlessness persist and shortages of vital services such as water and electricity have soured the euphoria felt by many Iraqis when Saddam’s iron-fisted rule ended on April 9.
United Nations officials warned yesterday of a potential humanitarian disaster in postwar Iraq unless there was swift action to feed its people and restart basic services.
Speaking at the first UN media briefing in Baghdad since international staff returned to Iraq after the war, the officials said distribution of food rations would start in May.
About 60 percent of Iraqis depend on rations that were distributed under a UN-monitored “oil-for-food” program, but they have not received rations for weeks.
“The conditions for the potential development of a humanitarian disaster still exist,” said Ramiro Lopes Da Silva, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq.
Baghdad’s new police chief resigned yesterday in a setback to US efforts to restore order in the chaotic capital.
US forces spokesman Lt. Col. Alan King quoted police chief Zuhir Al-Naimi as saying he wanted to make way for a younger man. No other explanation was available for the resignation of a man appointed only on April 24. The US military says about 3,000 Iraqi police are patrolling the city of five million and has urged more to return to duty.
Overcoming postwar disorder will be a huge challenge for the multinational force.
Apart from the three lead nations, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Albania have volunteered troops. Conspicuously absent are France, Germany and Russia. They were not invited to a meeting of 16 nations that approved the plan in London on Wednesday.
