Posted on 06/17/2003 7:22:54 AM PDT by dead
The United States-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is "in chaos" and suffering from "a complete absence of strategic direction", a very senior British official in Baghdad has said.
The comments paint a grim picture of American incompetence and mismanagement as the Coalition Provisional Authority struggles to run post-Saddam Iraq.
The comments were made as a US soldier was killed by sniper fire while on patrol in Baghdad on Monday evening. Forty-one soldiers have died in attacks and ambushes in Iraq since the main combat operations were declared over on May 1.
The British source revealed that Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, had "fewer than 600" staff to run a country the size of France but with a civil infrastructure on the point of collapse.
"The operation is chronically under-resourced and suffers from an almost complete absence of strategic direction," he said.
Similar frustrations have been voiced privately in London, where officials said the US had transposed Washington's inter-departmental fighting to Baghdad and ministers were said to be fed up with being "taken for granted".
For instance, the payment of salaries has been slowed down by Washington's inability to decide which currency to use - US dollars, the former regime's "Saddam dinars" or the so-called "Swiss dinars" used in the Kurdish areas.
In Baghdad, the senior British official said the chaos at the heart of the coalition was seriously hampering its ability to deliver vital services, such as salaries, electricity and security, to the Iraqi people.
"We are facing an almost complete inability to engage with what needs to be done and to bring to bear sufficient resources to make a difference," he said.
A dangerous gulf was opening up between the expectations of the Iraqi people and what the coalition was realistically able to deliver, the official said.
Some April salaries remain unpaid and the electricity supply is still extremely unreliable.
The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of any visible Iraqi partnership in government is adding to resentment.
The official, who was involved in the planning for postwar Iraq from its earliest conception, said Washington had been caught out by the discovery that Iraq was no longer a functioning country.
The coalition arrived in Baghdad to find the ministries looted and destroyed and Iraqi civil servants "unable to make decisions themselves" after many years of living in a police state.
"They demand written authority to do the tiniest thing, as a consequence of living under Saddam," he said.
Within weeks it became obvious that the operation would take years, not months.
Joseph Collins, head of stability operations at the US Defence Department, conceded to congressmen last week that bringing order to Iraq had proved "tougher and more complex" than had been expected.
The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has appointed Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's best-known diplomat, as his special envoy in Baghdad in an attempt to put some political muscle into the administration.
And how do we accomplish that? Just pick people at random and say "you're in charge" and then take off? Would that make the electricity come on any faster? Just the opposite. It would be total chaos over there, and if we left now, the same people that are blaming us now, would be blaming us for "abandoning" the Iraqis. It's sooooo easy to criticize when you don't have to do it yourself.
But all the Armchair Generals and Strategists know exactly how things should be done, way better than anybody else.
And I should care what an anonymous brit thinks because... ?
I didn’t make you click on the post.
More to the point, the huge crowd of refugees that was expected never materialized.
If people are staying in Iraq despite the problems, I don't think things are all that bad. The Brit who's speaking in this article is probably one of those aid workers disappointed that there's not more wrong so he can make a career out of fixing it.
I'm sure there's no shortage of grumblers, but look at America - we have plenty of them here, too. That doesn't mean Iraq can't improve, just as it doesn't mean America can't improve. But I think the fundamentals are there for a good recovery and an enormous improvement in people's lives post-Saddam.
Of course this is not to say that there aren't major problems with government, but clearly they are not preventing people from picking up the post-war pieces and living their lives.
And that's all for the good.
D
The spirit of Monty lives!
Now THAT I have to agree with. America's problem, unlike Russia in Chechnia, is that we plan to have some Iraqis left when we're done.
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