Whoever
You Vote For, Washington Wins
How
The US Plans To Dominate The New Iraqi National Assembly
14 February 2005 |
Posted: 14 February
2005
|
The elections in Iraq have been an unprecedented
opportunity for ordinary people to influence the destiny of
their country, but the National Assembly they have elected is
so hedged in with US-imposed restrictions that the cabinet it
produces will be more like a chain-gang of prisoners than an
independent government.
A prominent Iraqi politician in the Shia
coalition told the New
Yorker in January that the US had quietly told the parties
before the election that there were three conditions for the
new government: it should not be under the influence of Iran;
it should not ask for the withdrawal of US troops; and it should
not install an Islamic state.
One important but neglected issue is the
steady re-Ba’athification of the security forces under
US direction. This re-Ba’athification is hotly rejected
by the majority Shia coalition, and is therefore a key issue
for the new government.
The British mass media, as elsewhere, has
concentrated on the division of power between the Sunni, Shia
and Kurdish communities, and on how power may be shared between
the different elements of the ‘winning’ Shia coalition.
What has not been examined is the framework within which the
newly-elected National Assembly, and the soon to be appointed
‘Iraqi Transitional Government’, must operate.
What has been off the agenda, due to a
colossal act of media self-censorship, is the division of power
between the elected Iraqi National Assembly and the unelected
US-led occupation. There are several levers of power that the
US has created to retain control.
One US device is the Transitional
Administrative Law (TAL), an interim constitution written
in Washington and imposed on Iraq in March 2004.
Jawad al-Maliki, member of Daawa, one of
the two main Shia parties, has pointed out correctly that ‘the
body which we have elected has more legitimacy than this document’.
(FT,
14 February 2005, p. 9) Unfortunately, the TAL is self-defined
as the default constitution of Iraq until a permanent constitution
has been adopted in a referendum.
In a clause bitterly rejected by the Shia
majority parties, the TAL states that the permanent constitution
must obtain the approval of at least one-third of the voters
in sixteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. This was put
in to give Kurdish provinces a veto over the final text (it
also gives Sunni-dominated provinces the same veto). (Nathan
J. Brown, ‘Post-Election Iraq: Facing the Constitutional
Challenge’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Democracy and Rule of Law Project, February 2005, pdf)
If this veto is used by the Kurds, the
TAL continues to be the constitution. (And, according to Article
59 of the TAL, the Iraqi military will continue to function
under US command.) (Nathan J. Brown, pdf)
The effect of these provisions of the Transitional
Administrative Law is to give Washington’s most loyal
clients in Iraq – the Kurds – a powerful veto over
political progress.
Another device for US control is the debt
relief plan put together in November 2004, under which some
of Iraq’s creditor nations will forgive some of Iraq’s
debt (in stages), conditional upon the Iraqi government following
an IMF ‘liberalization’ programme. This programme
will prioritize foreign investors, privatization, and ‘tax
reform’, but not unemployment or poverty in Iraq.
The new Iraqi government will have to choose
between defying the rulers of the international economic and
financial order, or following the IMF. Following the IMF will
also mean pursuing the economic re-structuring and privatization
set in motion by US administrator Paul Bremer during his time
as ruler of Iraq.
The main tool of US control is, of course,
military. As the FT pointed out recently, ‘US leverage
rests upon awareness among the Shia that their government is
unlikely to survive a civil war without continued US support’.
(13 January 2005) The Shia coalition that won the greatest number
of votes in the election had to announce its list of candidates
in the Convention Centre in the US-controlled ‘Green Zone’
in Baghdad, ‘protected by US soldiers’. (Independent
on Sunday, 19 December 2004)
In November 2003, when the US unveiled
an earlier version of the ‘handover’ process, a
senior US official told the New York Times, ‘It’s
a gamble, a huge gamble. But it’s easy to overestimate
the degree of control over events we have now and to underestimate
how much we will retain.’ Another senior official said
that even after the establishment of the interim Iraqi government,
‘We’ll have more levers than you think, and maybe
more than the Iraqis think.’ Among the levers the US expected
to be able to use: the US military presence itself; the $20bn
US reconstruction budget for Iraq; and the requirements of US
investors. (‘America’s Gamble: A Quick Exit Plan
for Iraq’, New York Times, 16 November 2003)
Another device for maintaining control
was Paul Bremer’s appointment of key officials for five
year terms just before leaving office. In June 2004, the US
governor ordered that the national security adviser and the
national intelligence chief chosen by the US-imposed interim
prime minister, Iyad Allawi, be given five-year terms, imposing
Allawi's choices on the elected government. Bremer also installed
inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry, and
formed and filled commissions to regulate communications, public
broadcasting and securities markets. (Washington
Post, 27 June 2004, p. A01)
It is in the area of national security
that Allawi’s choices are most significant. A former Ba’athist
himself (see JNV
Briefing 67), Allawi restored former servants of the Saddam
regime to important posts, and has filled the security forces
with former Ba’athists. Saddam’s Special Forces
soldiers and former intelligence officials are even being rehired
as a police commando strike force. Last summer Allawi’s
government appointed
Rasheed Flayeh to the post of director-general of the secret
police force, despite objections from the Supreme Commission
for De-Ba’athification that as head of security in the
city of Nasiriyah, Flayeh had taken part in the brutal suppression
of the 1991 Shia uprising.
Last October, Allawi tried and failed to
disband the De-Ba’athification Commission (headed by his
old rival Ahmed Chalabi). Allawi wanted to be able to openly
readmit former senior Ba’athists to power unless they
have been found guilty of serious crimes in court, a policy
supported by Washington. The Shia coalition that has ‘won’
the elections has vowed
to reverse re-Ba’athification, and it is likely that
Allawi’s enthusiasm for this policy will bar him from
being a compromise prime minister in the new government.
Since 1991, the US government has pursued
a policy of ‘regime stabilization, leadership change’
in Iraq. The collapse of the regime in 2003 was a shock from
which Washington has not yet recovered. The Bush Administration
has been forced into a zigzag path of retreats and assaults
which has landed us, today, with a major defeat for the (heavily-US-funded)
Bush candidate Iyad Allawi, a plurality of votes for the most
Iran-friendly group of parties in Iraq, and a strong voice in
the National Assembly for the de-Ba’athification brigade,
who are determined to reverse the US-directed re-nazification
of Iraq.
Washington is going to need every lever
of power that it’s got.
