US Drags UN Into Iraq Conflagration

Prakash Karat

THE horrific bombing of the United Nations office in Baghdad on August 19 has led to the killing of the top UN official, Sergio Vieira de Mello, special representative, and many other staff members. The attack on the UN must be seen in the context of the United States trying to use the UN to buttress its occupation. The US had made it clear that it has no intention of handing over Iraq to a UN administration. It wishes the UN to serve under the US occupying authority to undertake humanitarian and relief work.

COUNCIL WITH NO REAL POWERS

On July 13, the US occupying regime set up a “governing council” of 25 members. Most of them were Iraqis who were expatriates and returned to Iraq after the occupation. Leaders of six parties represented on the council were those who were financed by the US government over a period of time. In fact, a presidential order on the eve of the invasion of Iraq stated:

"I (President Bush) hereby direct  funding of up to 92 million dollars in defence articles from the department of defence, defence services from the department of defence and  military education and training in order to provide assistance to the following organisations: 1) Iraqi National Accord, 2) Iraqi National Congress, 3) Kurdistan Democratic Party, 4) Movement for the Constitutional Monarchy, 5) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, 6) Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution on Iraq."

Apart from these American financed organisations, a few more groups and individuals were included in the council. The Iraqi Communist Party also joined the council with one representative. It is not yet clear why the party took such an unfortunate decision. The ICP had refused to join the committee of opposition groups set up by the United States in November 2002. After two weeks of wrangling, the council could not agree on who should be the chairman. They finally decided to have a rotating chairmanship among nine  persons, with each being chairman for one month. 

On July 13, this council was inaugurated with Sergio Mello of the UN opening the function and welcoming its formation. That the council had no real powers and Paul Bremer, the US administrator, would be the final authority was made amply clear at the time of the formation of the council.  By this imprudent and unilateral act, the UN became complicit in the US manoeuvres to set up a puppet administration. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has much to answer for this identification of the UN with the council even before the Security Council formed an opinion on the issue.

UNITED NATIONS SIDELINED

On August 14, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1500 that welcomed the formation of the council. The US ensured that no greater role for the UN was accorded. The Bush administration is determined to keep control over Iraq. It is not for any expanded role for the UN which would allow countries like France, Germany and Russia some say in the administration of the country. All that the resolution sanctioned was the setting up of a UN humanitarian mission for Iraq.

According to The New York Times, “The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials say."

This resolution will disappoint those in the Indian establishment and the Vajpayee government who were expecting a UN resolution authorising the setting up of a UN peacekeeping force or UN participation in the administration. This they hoped could pave the way for sending Indian troops to Iraq. But now there is only a US occupation regime, with the UN being asked to conduct some humanitarian missions under the regime’s auspices. Kofi Annan, who was under pressure to give legitimacy to the US occupation, asked the Security Council to set up an “assistance mission” to support the UN relief and humanitarian activities.

The refusal to take a principled stand against the US pressures has now led to this devastating loss of the UN staff at Baghdad. The UN was bypassed and its charter violated brazenly by the US and Britain. The UN can maintain its credibility only by refusing to be part of the illegal occupation regime in Iraq. Sergio Mello and the scores of UN staff were killed and maimed --- a terrible price paid for the US imperial ambitions.

WIDENING RESISTANCE

In the meantime, resistance to the US occupation of Iraq is steadily widening and getting more organised. Till August 14, 59 US soldiers were killed since Bush declared the end of combat on May l; according to a American military spokesman there were on an average 12 to 13 attacks daily on US troops in July. After denying that the resistance had any organised command, faced with the growing attacks, the US authorities now grudgingly accept that there is a network and coordination in the resistance. Unable to accept that the opposition is national in character, the new theory put out is that these are “foreign terrorists” who have infiltrated into the country.

The killing of Saddam Hussein’s sons was expected to demoralise the opposition. Nothing of that sort has happened. Instead, attacks on US soldiers have now been widened to target the oil pipelines and other infrastructural facilities. Waging a war against economic targets makes sense to the anti-American resistance, as the Bush administration single-mindedly goes about the business of plundering Iraq’s oil wealth. The favours being handed out to Halliburton, a company that was earlier headed by US vice president Dick Cheney, is already causing a scandal. Protests by rival companies are appearing in the media. The US army in Iraq has to expend a lot of energy and time to guard the American executives and installations of these corporations. As an American soldier dies every day, the rank injustice of young Americans dying for the profits of the big corporations and the futility of sacrificing lives to pacify a hostile Iraqi people is being realised both by the soldiers stationed in Iraq and by more and more people back in the US.

Both Bush and Blair have to be held accountable for the war crimes on the Iraqi people and for the insensate carnage inflicted upon the Iraqi people,   their own soldiers and the United Nations staff. There is only one way out for them: Withdraw from Iraq and hand over the country to the United Nations to pave the way for a quick transition to a genuine Iraqi government of the people’s choice. If they cannot be made to do this of their own volition, they must be forced to do so. For that, the only course open for the Iraqi people is fierce resistance backed up by international solidarity.