|
When I look to the future in
Iraq, I start by studying the past
By Paddy Ashdown
05/27/07 "The
Observer" -- - -Those who, like me, supported the
removal of Saddam Hussein by force now have to face up to the
awkward task of deciding what can be salvaged from the mess. I
have joined a new and independent Iraq study group, the Iraq
Commission, with Tom King and Margaret Jay, to do this in front
of Channel 4 cameras. We will be concentrating on the future,
but it is important not to forget the lessons of the past.
The tragedy is that the military invasion was not a failure. It
was a success. But what happened afterwards has been a lesson in
how to make a mess of the peace that follows. It didn't have to
be like this.
The US administration wasn't unaware of the past. In 2003, it
convened a group of historians in Washington to help spell the
lessons out. One was Dr Helmut Trotnow, an expert on the
occupation of Germany. The problem was, as he later discovered,
all the recommendations made at the conference were completely
ignored by the US war planners.
What Trotnow said should have been listened to. The allies ran
Germany from 1945 to 1949 and in that period, the rule of law
was re-established, human rights respected, robust democratic
institutions created and the foundations of Europe's strongest
economy laid. Much of this happened despite some spectacular
blunders in the early days, many of which were repeated in Iraq.
In 1945 the allies planned to remove 180,000 officials from
their posts, but discovered that if they did, they would have no
one to run the state. Former membership of the Nazi party ceased
to be a barrier; West Germany's second president was a former
member.
The situation the coalition found in Iraq was similar. Most of
those responsible for running the country were members of the
Baath party. The coalition proceeded to purge all the Baathists
from their posts. And then found, as in Germany, they were left
with no one to run the state and its services.
There was the similarly disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi
army. Here, the coalition did not have to look as far back as
Germany. In most more recent international interventions, the
soldiers of the defeated army had been given a month's salary,
then reintegrated into a the army or helped to find a job in
civilian life. But in Iraq, the army was peremptorily dissolved,
leaving the coalition with too few soldiers to maintain
security. For many soldiers, joining the insurgency became a
very attractive option.
One of the ironies of the German experience is that it was the
US who were the most enlightened and the British and French the
most reactionary. The US military had no truck with the
ridiculous instructions of General Montgomery to British troops
not to speak to any Germans. The Americans were the first to
realise that dismantling German industry was a mistake; in the
interests of lasting peace, it was far better to help rebuild
it. In the coalition in Iraq, the Americans have proved by far
the least sensitive to the local population.
Since the end of the Cold War, international intervention has
halved the number of wars in the world and reduced the number of
casualties by even more. But success depends on basic rules that
were ignored in Iraq. Plan even harder for peace than for war;
you will probably need more troops to provide security after the
war than you needed to win it; make the most of the 'golden
hour' after the war ends; creating security should be the first
priority; get the economy going fast; you may have to remove
those at the top of the old regime, but you will need the rest
to run the state; work with the local population and its
traditions; you need the help of the neighbours - one of the big
mistakes over Iraq was to make enemies of Iran and Syria.
It should hardly need to be said, but we are more likely to
succeed if we replicate what succeeded in the past, rather than
repeat what has failed. The new Iraq Commission will decide what
should happen next. But the wider lesson should not be lost as
to how we got here and why we must never do it like this again.
Winning the Peace, a four-part series on the World Service,
begins on 11 June. The Iraq Commission will be on Channel 4
from 2 July
Click here
to comment on this and other articles
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
