'Multi-national Force' for Iraq

03/05/2003| IslamWeb

The United States and its allies are forming a multinational force to "stabilize" post-war Iraq and will seek neither a United Nations mandate nor active participation of those countries who opposed the war, US official said. Iraq will be divided into three sectors to be commanded by the United States, Britain and Poland, which will enlist other countries to provide forces to secure the peace, said the official Friday, speaking on condition of anonmity. "The thought is the force would be generated by a coalition of the willing on a bilateral basis," said the official. That would exclude a UN-backed force. On the Greek island of Rhodes, meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers were looking for their own ways of bridging divisions over post-war Iraq. Although the informal meeting resulted in few decisions, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said they were "very concerned to look forwards and not back." Among the chief EU diplomats gathered there, Germany's Joschka Fischer, a fervent opponent of the US-led war on Iraq, sought to downplay EU divisions. "I don't have the impression that we are at loggerheads," he said. EU countries, he said, "have different positions on Iraq, but I think that we agree that we need stable progress in the whole region's democratisation." France, Germany and Russia -- which all opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq -- were not invited to the London "Initial Coalition Stabilization Operations Conference." The US official said no UN mandate would be sought for the force, but if some countries felt they needed a NATO umbrella to participate it would be taken up in the alliance's defense planning committee. France is not a member of the committee and so could not use its veto. Asked whether France, Germany and Russia were being excluded as punishment for their opposition to the war, the official said, "That's one view." "Another explanation is that they just didn't offer anything," the official said. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who returned to Washington Friday from a weeklong trip that included a stop in Baghdad, held talks earlier in the day in London with Hoon and Prime Minister Tony Blair about the UN role in Iraq. The official said there was a consensus in Washington that the UN role should be restricted to "what it does best" -- humanitarian affairs, dealing with refugees and internally diplaced people, and reconstruction. A draft UN resolution has been devised to frame the UN role in Iraq, he said. "There is complete agreement in the government on how to proceed," he said. At a press conference before leaving London, Rumsfeld said it was not yet known how many troops will be required in Iraq and for how long. But he said other planning meetings will be held. Britain will hold a follow up meeting to generate forces from other countries for its division May 7. Poland will hold another meeting May 22. "And of course the larger number of countries that participate, the fewer number of forces from the United States will be necessary," Rumsfeld said. The senior official said the stabilization force would supplement the US and British ground forces now in Iraq, which would be maintained at current levels as long as necessary. About 132,000 US and 23,000 British troops are in Iraq! All coalition forces in Iraq, including the stabilization force, would fall under the command of US General Tommy Franks, the official said. "It would be a terrible mistake to think of Iraq as fully secured, fully pacified. It is not. It is dangerous," Rumsfeld said in London. "There are people who are rolling hand grenades into compounds. There are people who are killing people, and it's not finished," he said. The size and make-up of the stabilization force will be worked out in future meetings, but they will be heavily weighted toward military police or gendarme forces. They would likely include engineers, medical units, ordnance disposal specialists, demining units, and units that specialize in detecting and decontaminating nuclear biological and chemical warfare. The three division have not been designated yet, but the boundaries will not be drawn along religious and ethnic lines, the official said. **No Arab country has offered troops for the stabilization force*** "The Arabs want to play a role -- they want to play a significant role -- But they all want to be careful about longstanding ethnic and religious divisions," the official said. The United States, Britain, Poland, Italy, Spain, the Ukraine, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria have offered troops for the force. Albania already has an infantry company in Iraq. The Qatar, Philippines, Australia and South Korea offered aid but not troops. Meanwhile at the UN Security Council in New York, Pakistani ambassador Minir Akram, who assumed the rotating month-long presidency on Thursday, said he had scheduled four meetings in May on "the inter-related issues" of sanctions, the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, and weapons inspections. Together with humanitarian aid to Iraq, "these are issues it will be almost obligatory to deal with," he said, adding that "decisions will need to be taken" by June 3, when the current six-month phase of oil-for-food runs out. **PHOTO CAPTION*** US soldiers in Iraq (AFP/File)