BY DOUG LORIMER
With US public support for the occupation of Iraq evaporating as the death toll among US soldiers continues to rise, due to persistent Iraqi guerrilla attacks, Washington is seeking more countries to participate in the occupation.
There are currently 146,000 US, 11,000 British and 1000 Australian troops in Iraq. Sixteen out of the US Army's 33 active-duty combat brigades are tied down in Iraq; another two are tied down in Afghanistan, fighting the counter-insurgency war there.
With two more brigades deployed in South Korea, and one in the Balkans, that leaves only 12 available for deployment, and most of those are now preparing to relieve existing units in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The July 24 New York Times, citing US military officials, reported that there are only three active-duty combat brigades in the US Army that are available for any new mission.
Writing in the August 3 Japan Times, Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael Hanlon noted: "This makes for a very difficult situation for the army... By the end of next year, virtually every army combat unit will have recently spent up to a year abroad. Among other problems, that raises the question of who would deploy in 2005, assuming that the Iraq mission were still difficult and required large American forces...
"So there is a long-term challenge. Sending people back to Iraq who have already been there could break the morale of the US military, convincing many of our fine volunteers to leave the service."
Imperial overstretch
In an attempt to relieve the US Army's imperial overstretch, US President George Bush issued an appeal on July 23 for other countries to contribute troops to Washington's colonial occupation of Iraq.
While up to 29 countries had agreed by early August to send troops, the total number does not exceed 16,000, with the largest contingents coming from the Netherlands (3200), Poland (2500), Ukraine (1644), Spain (1320), Italy (1130), Japan (1000) and Thailand (886).
According to a July 29 Reuters report, Washington will pay US$240 million in support costs for most of these foreign troops, which will cover their airlift transportation, meals, medical care and other expenses.
The August 4 USA Today reported that "there won't be enough foreign troops to permit the replacement and withdrawal of some US forces planned for early next year". According to USA Today, the Pentagon "expected some 30,000 foreign troops to replace war-weary US combat forces. But dozens of interviews with foreign political and military officials found that so far, 29 countries have committed only about 15,500 troops".
Furthermore, about a third of these troops are either unqualified for combat or deliberately barred from combat operations by their governments. "That could limit their usefulness in the violent, guerrilla-style war that coalition forces are now waging in Iraq", USA Today lamented.
"Pentagon officials have said that at least 160,000 troops will be needed in Iraq for the foreseeable future", USA Today reported, adding: "Pentagon officials remain hopeful they can pry significant numbers of troops out of India, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, France and Germany, but many or all of those have signalled they are unlikely to participate unless the United Nations adopts a specific new resolution creating a peacekeeping force."
Oil
While US officials insist that UN Security Council resolution 1483, adopted on May 22 (which anointed the US and Britain as the occupying powers), already provides a "legal basis" for UN member states to commit troops to the Iraq occupation, they have not ruled out seeking a new UN resolution.
US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the US Senate foreign relations committee on July 28 that while Washington "would welcome any resolution that would make it easier for countries to contribute peacekeeping troops", he would be "very concerned" about one that would "put limitations on what [US] ambassador [Paul] Bremer and our people can do in Iraq".
What "ambassador" Bremer — head of the US-UK Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) — has been appointed to do is to supervise the installation of an "internationally recognised" pro-US puppet regime that will ratify the handing over Iraq's oil resources to big US and British oil corporations.
Iraq has the world's second largest proven oil reserves. According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq's known reserves to 200-300 billion barrels of high-grade crude, which is extraordinarily cheap to produce, offering a potential gold-rush of profits for Western oil firms.
The world's four largest oil corporations — two of which (Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco) are US-owned, and two of which (Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum) are British-owned — have been keen to regain control of Iraq's oil industry, which they lost when it was nationalised in 1972.
Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime granted major oil contracts to the world's fifth largest oil firm, the French-owned Total (previously named TotalFinaElf), and to a number of Russian oil companies. But with a US-British military coalition having taken control of Iraq, the big four expect to gain the most lucrative oil deals.
The May 7 London Financial Times reported that Total CEO Thierry Desmarest said he was confident his firm had as good a chance as any of its competitors of winning an auction to exploit Iraq's oil resources, providing it was conducted by a "legitimate Iraqi authority" and was "transparent, giving everyone their chance and allowing the best offer to win".
This is why the French government — the political arm of the French corporate elite — is pushing for the UN, rather than the US-controlled CPA, to be put in charge of the creation of a post-Hussein regime. But the US government — the political arm of the billionaire families that own the US oil corporations — is reluctant to agree to any new UN resolution that would put limitations on what the CPA can do.
On August 3, the Financial Times reported that British Foreign Office political director John Sawers had told the paper that the US and British governments were discussing whether a new UN resolution was needed to get more foreign troops to participate in suppressing the Iraqi armed resistance.
"We are exploring among ourselves— and we are exploring with the Americans — what the pros and cons [of a new UN resolution] might be", Sawers said, adding that London and Washington were waiting to see what demands Paris and Moscow would make as to the role the UN might play in Iraq.
Tensions
"We are all conscious of tensions in the UN Security Council", Sawers told the Financial Times. "They have not gone away. But before we go down the road of seeking a new UN resolution we would want to be confident it was achievable in a way that would support the coalition's present efforts."
One sign of the continuing "tensions" in the Security Council was Washington's failure get council recognition for the new Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), which was handpicked by Bremer and endorsed by Sergio De Mello, the UN's special representative to Iraq.
On July 22, US ambassador John Negroponte introduced three of the 25 members of the IGC to the Security Council.
Fronting for Washington, the Spanish UN ambassador circulated a draft statement after the meeting which welcomed the IGC as an "important first step" toward the formation of an internationally recognised government in Iraq. However, it was not even brought to a vote because of opposition among the 15 council member states, particularly France and Russia.
Indicative of the opposition to the IGC was the Arab League's announcement on August 4 that its 22 member states will not recognise the US-appointed body. It will only recognise an elected government in Iraq.
"The Arab League and the United Nations should play a role in solving the Iraqi question through ending the occupation and allowing the Iraqi people to govern itself", an Arab diplomat told reporters after the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.
At his monthly lunch with the Security Council on August 5, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan expressed regret that the council had said nothing about the IGC. "It doesn't send a very good message", Annan later told Associated Press.
On August 5, Agence France Presse reported that Washington and London had asked for a closed-door Security Council discussion on Iraq. While the council's provisional program foresaw a debate on Iraq taking place on August 21, Syria's UN ambassador and current council president Mikhail Wehbe told reporters that the US and Britain had officially indicated they might present a resolution on Iraq calling on all UN member states to provide military support for the occupation of Iraq.
From Green Left Weekly, August 13, 2003.
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