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U.N. can't take the lead in Iraq's reconstruction
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 3/28/03 | RALPH PETERS

Posted on 03/29/2003 10:16:03 AM PST by optimistically_conservative

Corruption will be the most important variable in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. If not controlled, it will frustrate all of our hopes for Iraq's future, as it has ravaged the prospects of dozens of countries in the developing world. Yet, corruption is not even considered a strategic factor by planners and decision makers.

Corruption is the cancer that kills all else. It polarizes and balkanizes societies. It fosters mistrust and destroys incentive. The danger posed to Iraq's recovery by rampant corruption is the great reason our government must not hand over Iraq's future to the United Nations.

Contrary to a great deal of anxious speculation, the United Nations has not been destroyed or even much diminished by the dissension leading to the present war. We simply have been reminded, again, of the limits of the United Nations' abilities.

The organization can help feed and house refugees, it can support peacekeeping operations in relatively benign environments, it provides a global platform to the otherwise voiceless and it serves as a tremendously effective employment agency for out-of-work bureaucrats from around the globe.

But what the United Nations cannot do is summon the will to depose dictators -- too many dictatorships are represented in its body -- and it lacks the integrity to reconstruct countries that tyrants have ruined. Do we wish to charge Libyan or Nigerian officials with rebuilding Iraq and setting the example for good governance? Nor can the United Nations ever bring a project to conclusion. Each new endeavor creates a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.

While it must be said, in fairness, that many honest and dedicated people do work for the United Nations, not one of my numerous friends working within or beside the United Nations in the field believes the organization is capable of honest management. The tales of corruption, from skimming relief funds to sexual exploitation of refugees, are so appalling that readers would be disinclined to believe them. The United Nations, at its best, does good work, despite its ethical laxity. At its worst, it contributes to the stagnation of troubled societies.

Current demurrals notwithstanding, the United Nations will maneuver to gain control of rebuilding Iraq -- and not for humanitarian reasons. The ongoing oil-for-food program has been a huge source of income and employment for the United Nations. Last year, the revenue from oil-for-food sales approached $20 billion, of which the United Nations takes a percentage off the top for administering the program. No bureaucracy, anywhere, wants to surrender several hundred million dollars a year in income.

U.N. avoids scrutiny

Oil-for-food also has fostered extensive corruption within and around the United Nations. While formal restrictions exist on how the revenue can be spent by the Baghdad regime, work-arounds tolerated by the United Nations enabled Saddam Hussein to buy French-built antitank missiles and Russian-made radars and jammers while continuing to purchase components for the missiles his forces have been firing toward Kuwait. In the tradition of U.N. aid programs around the world, the basic operating principle of oil-for-food has been "Don't ask, don't tell."

The income from future Iraqi oil sales must be used efficiently and honestly to benefit Iraq's people. Using the United Nations -- an organization subject to far less scrutiny than Enron ever was -- as a broker would mean the wrong people making the wrong spending decisions for the wrong reasons. Open books and transparent operations in Iraq's oil industry will be the single most important gauge of integrity in the redevelopment process, simply because that's where the money is.

When the United Nations, eager to retain its income stream and the bureaucracy it supports, comes to us to says, "Well, we've changed our minds now and we're ready to help out by taking over Iraq's reconstruction," we must say no -- despite our national inclination to pass the buck once the bullets have stopped flying.

Some members of our own government who were impatient for this war to begin will be even more eager to evade our responsibilities after a military victory. But the future of Iraq is vitally important -- to the Arab world and to us.

Behind their ornate rhetoric and bravado, Arabs suffer from an agonizing inferiority complex. They fear that they truly may not be capable of building modern, rule-of-law, market economies, to say nothing of post-modern information societies. And the challenges are daunting, given the low levels of education, the perversion of information, the oppression of women, the prevalence of kinship as the organizing principle of society and the economy -- and, above all, the paralyzing levels of corruption endemic to Arab societies.

A wealth of resources

Iraq is the one major Arab country that has a fighting chance to break the pattern of failure. The odds are not as encouraging as we might like, but the effort is well worth the risk and expense that we will incur in helping the Iraqis build an even comparatively successful, reasonably liberal economy and state. They do have great advantages in their wealth of resources -- oil -- and in the education levels of an urbanized population. But the Iraqis will need the discipline of law and plenty of good examples during the initial phases of recovery from more than a generation of oppression.

The United States has accepted the responsibility for this war. Now it must accept a genuine responsibility for the peace.

U.N. participation must be limited to tasks that are subject to rigorous observation and that offer limited opportunities for graft. It is far too easy to say, "Tut-tut" about corruption, implying that things are just that way "over there." I always have found that attitude arrogant and racist, given the countries of which we usually speak in this regard. Corruption is as unacceptable in a country struggling to build a better future as it should be here in the United States. To suggest otherwise is to imply that we Americans not only enjoy superior privileges, but also are superior human beings.

As for U.N. corruption in the field, some of it is large-scale and daunting, while much appears minor, barely a nuisance, easy to dismiss. But it is often the small, personal instances of corruption that do the greatest damage over time. Even a tiny bribe extracted for a transient advantage destroys the trust of the local population. Other forms of U.N. corruption are institutional and focused on building power bases within the organization, or on protecting privileges and positions.

There is no effective mechanism for imposing discipline within the United Nations. Corrupt officials, even when caught red-handed, suffer at worst a transfer to another, similar post -- and sometimes enjoy a promotion as a quid pro quo for going quietly.

Expensive mistake

Even at its best, the United Nations is an inefficient manager of resources. Nor can it make difficult decisions, always pursuing the course least likely to excite resistance. The goal of the United Nations -- not unworthy -- is to maximize cooperation between states. But the means used to achieve that goal generally lead to a minimum of effective leadership.

The oft-cited Marshall Plan worked well for many reasons, but one of the key factors was the "tough love" it imposed on the occupied states. The plan was not simply a matter of handouts. Especially early on, it was carefully regulated and demanding of results. And the earlier, pre-Marshall Plan phases of postwar reconstruction in Germany and Japan were even more stringent. We did not lower our standards -- which academics consistently recommend -- but forced the subject populations to raise their own.

If corruption is tolerated in Iraq's reconstruction, whether from U.N. agencies or our own contractors, it will send the message to the Iraqi population that nothing really has changed, that business as usual may continue. This is a mistake we have made elsewhere, and it is a painfully expensive one.

Our first error, consistently, is to fail to impose the rule of law. We hand over matters to the locals as quickly as possible because we want to do things on the cheap. In Bosnia, then Kosovo, our failures to impose the rule of law have left us with deeply troubled societies that will be on our hands for years to come. We look away as corruption flourishes, allowing aid to flow with few conditions -- while our soldiers patrol the roads but do little more. To a disappointing extent, we simply have made the Balkans safe for black marketers.

Iraq is far too important strategically to receive the same treatment.

In a very real sense, President Jacques Chirac did us a favor by announcing, in advance, that France would veto any U.N. proposal that would leave the United States and Britain in charge of Iraq's reconstruction. Good. The French would set a dreadful example, with their legendary affinity for nourishing corruption in developing countries. Chirac has given us the excuse we needed not to turn to the United Nations as the overall reconstruction authority.

Maintain scrutiny

Certainly, we cannot help the Iraqis rebuild without help from other states, but active participation on the ground should come primarily from the "coalition of the willing." Those countries that have supported the removal of Saddam Hussein should have exclusive call on submitting bids for reconstruction projects -- at least until the Iraqis take over the management themselves. Then it will be Iraq's right to decide to whom contracts are allocated.

In the meantime, even companies and individuals from the friendliest states -- as well as from our own country -- must be subject to stern and constant scrutiny, as well as to meaningful penalties for engaging in corrupt practices. As a start, I recommend investing in a large number of polygraph machines.

The temptations to engage in corruption are going to be enormous, especially because that is how Iraq's economy has functioned in the past. The Iraqis are no innocents, and many of their businessmen and officials will take a quietly cynical view toward efforts to help the greater population. Human nature is a constant, not a variable. Those who are well aware of the money to be made through U.N. corruption will be the first and loudest voices within Iraq to call for a U.N. takeover of reconstruction efforts.

We must resist listening to those voices, too, although they will always find a hearing among those ill-disposed to any endeavor the United States undertakes. Long-term results are far more important than responding to transient complaints, and enduring success is of far greater value than brief popularity.

The battle against corruption is one we must fight with a perseverance equal to the military war. No matter what else we get right, if we get corruption wrong, Iraq will remain a danger to its people, its neighbors and to us.


peters
Ralph Peters
is a retired military officer and the author, most recently, of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."




TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: postwariraq; ralphpeters; warlist
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I've been reading his articles for a while, and am very impressed with him - since he agrees with me so often, of course.
1 posted on 03/29/2003 10:16:03 AM PST by optimistically_conservative
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To: optimistically_conservative
Let's see, we're going to put the most corrupt NGO, the UN, in charge of programs in which we're very concerned about corruption. This whole article seemed to straddle both sides oif the issue.

How did we handle it in post war Europe? Did the occupying powers administer, aid, etc. or did we get the UN involved?
2 posted on 03/29/2003 10:26:30 AM PST by x1stcav (HooAhh!)
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To: optimistically_conservative
I agree too, he wrote what I would have written if I had the expertise- but then, I am a mere retired military Non-comissioned officer , and author of little more than a few poems and many letters to the editor, all for free of course. It is a pleasure to once again salute a genuine superior officer, fully deserving of respect- by my own free will and not by rule of law.
3 posted on 03/29/2003 10:40:24 AM PST by F.J. Mitchell (Rangel proved his patriotism in Korea-McVeigh in Gulf War I-that was then-this is now.)
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To: x1stcav
U.N. participation must be limited to tasks that are subject to rigorous observation and that offer limited opportunities for graft.

He's saying that if the U.N. is involved, it must be watched carefully, just like the maid you suspect of petty theft.

If left to the U.N., Iraq reconstruction and NGO arrangements will become a veritable hog wallow for those who know how to play the game.

4 posted on 03/29/2003 10:41:19 AM PST by angkor
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To: x1stcav
Let's see, we're going to put the most corrupt NGO, the UN, in charge of programs in which we're very concerned about corruption.

I do see a certain perverse logic here...

5 posted on 03/29/2003 10:41:43 AM PST by Publius6961 (p>)
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To: angkor
Then I've got to reread this more carefully. If Peters is aguing that inspite of the limitations of the UN that we go ahead and let them handle it afterall, and if the UN needs to be watched so carefully, then who will do the watching? Us?

If that's the case, why don't we just administer the reconstruction in the first place?
6 posted on 03/29/2003 10:50:22 AM PST by x1stcav (HooAhh!)
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To: optimistically_conservative; Bob J
Corruption is the cancer that kills all else. It polarizes and balkanizes societies. It fosters mistrust and destroys incentive. The danger posed to Iraq's recovery by rampant corruption is the great reason our government must not hand over Iraq's future to the United Nations.

I agree completely. It's why Bush's gift to Tony Blair (a socialist) of reinstituting oil-for-food was so very foolish. Instead of freeing the US from the burden of managing post-war Iraq, it virtually guarantees that we will be blamed for the mess that the UN will make of it.

7 posted on 03/29/2003 10:58:32 AM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: optimistically_conservative
This reminds me of the story "The Little Red Hen". Nobody wants to help weed the field, plant, water or spend the time it takes to harvest..... then prepare the meal.......but ALL expect to sit down at the table and partake of the feast. The U.N. needs to take a hike.
8 posted on 03/29/2003 11:16:37 AM PST by LaineyDee
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To: LaineyDee
Wish I had said that.
9 posted on 03/29/2003 11:36:24 AM PST by Pushi
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To: LaineyDee; x1stcav
I think what is being argued for here it that we (US/UK/allies) are the administrators of post-war Iraq. Nothing/no one operates in Iraq without our oversight. The UN can bring in food, medicine, etc., as well as other NGOs, but under our auspices and our rules.

I am also for ending the UN oil-for-food program and turning it over to an Iraqi administration under our oversight. If humanitarian efforts are successful initially, Iraq should be using this money for infrastructure and economic rebuilding while we take care of the basics (ala Marshall Plan).

I also agree with the Little Red Han analogy - think I saw this posted here before....

Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"

"Not I," said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I, said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be too much work," said the cow.

"I'd lose my welfare benefits" said the duck.

"I'm a public school graduate and never learned to read," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for her neighbors to see.

They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, 'No, I can eat the five loaves by myself."

"Selfish!" cried the cow.

"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights! Or, I'll Call The ACLU" yelled the goose.

We'll sue, yelled the pig, a biased judge without the proper constitutional oath will see our way. And they painted "unfair" and "selfish" on their picket signs and marched round and round the little red hen shouting obscenities.

When the cops with the government facilitator came, they said to the little red hen, "You must do consensus. Volunteer to give 50% or go to jail. I earned that bread, this is wrong said the little red hen.

Doesn't matter, said the agent, the law is the law. In today's modern world there is no such thing as right or wrong, everything is relevant. Government must collect taxes, there is hunger out there. We're compassioned and must provide soup kitchens and welfare for the needy.

And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who keeps working and baking bread. Next time, the agent come for 60% of her bread. The increase was necessary said the agent, there is more hunger.
10 posted on 03/29/2003 11:45:25 AM PST by optimistically_conservative
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To: Carry_Okie
I agree completely. It's why Bush's gift to Tony Blair (a socialist) of reinstituting oil-for-food was so very foolish.

I'd think so, except that the Iraqis won't let the program be resumed. Perhaps Bush is being crazy like a fox.

11 posted on 03/29/2003 12:01:04 PM PST by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
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To: supercat; Bob J
I hope so. The corruption of the UN isn't just small-time crap like bribery and inside deals, it is an institution structurally predisposed to organized crime at all levels (at which I would regard the venality of M. Chriac to be that of a mid-level hood). In fact, it is my opinion that the UN was intended to bring us the kind of institutional corruption that would destroy free markets worldwide, and a free America with them, instituting a democratic socialist synthesis of fascism and communism, world-wide.

The big-time corruption is breath-taking in scope (like Carter citing a Ford Foundation-sponsored GreenPIECE study to kill the nuclear industry and maintain our dependency upon imported oil to benefit his principal sponsor: David Rockefeller). I like to call such machinations, "Highly Organized Crime." Tax-exempt "charitable" foundations have instituted a system of for-profit racketeering using environmental NGOs to sue on behalf of regulatory agencies in federal court. These suits cite laws pursuant to treaties drafted, administered, and maintained at the UN. It is truly an integrated system of organized regulatory corruption at all levels of domestic government.

I wrote a book on the topic; more important, the book contains a free-market antidote.

12 posted on 03/29/2003 1:08:09 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be managed by politics.)
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To: optimistically_conservative
I like your version better. I'd never seen it posted here before, but it sure fits the way our world works right now.
13 posted on 03/29/2003 1:27:12 PM PST by LaineyDee
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To: Carry_Okie
Corruption aside, the F4O program is still the best mechanism in place to get someone other that the US paying for the humanitarian aid...until the war ends. Once we mop up Hussein and the Baathe party, it's All America all the time.
14 posted on 03/29/2003 2:21:23 PM PST by Bob J
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To: Bob J
Corruption aside, the F4O program is still the best mechanism in place to get someone other that the US paying for the humanitarian aid...until the war ends. Once we mop up Hussein and the Baathe party, it's All America all the time.

I hate to disabuse you (again), but despite the President's request, the UN is already operating at variance to Mr. Bush's expectations: The OFF program isn't scheduled to begin operating again until hostilities are over. OFF was used to buy weapons and line the pockets of bureaucrats and the Iraqi elite. That's what will happen again unless this is stopped. The UN will do everything it can to make certain the money is distributed "fairly." The French, with all their inside ties to the officials who used to run the programme, will be right there.

Read the whole article.

15 posted on 03/29/2003 2:55:00 PM PST by Carry_Okie (Because there are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Let the UN play their petty machination games. I believe Bush has a plan that will insure minimal actual UN powerafter the war. Bush may allow some face saving virtual authority by the UN, just to keep the petty dictators from having to go home looking like dolts.
16 posted on 03/29/2003 3:34:55 PM PST by Bob J
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To: Bob J
Let the UN play their petty machination games. I believe Bush has a plan that will insure minimal actual UN powerafter the war. Bush may allow some face saving virtual authority by the UN, just to keep the petty dictators from having to go home looking like dolts.

So far, all you have offered me is handwaving, unsupported by facts. Unfortunately for your argument, Chirac, Putin, Shroeder, and the Chinese are hardly "petty dictators" and they did very well off OFF as you well know selling the very weapons systems that now threaten American lives. It was they who pressured Blair and it looks to me as if they got what they wanted. We pay for the war, we fight it, they get to throw rocks at us the entire time, and STILL get in on the spoils through OFF. They "gave in" and signed onto 1441 and then turned their backs while we got stuck once again in UNESCO and paying its back "dues." As long as the UN and their friends in the IMF have their filthy hands on the cash, I don't think they care what the President thinks. History bears me out.

Those UN "petty machinations" and their failings are precisely why Korea is still a mess, Vietnam was lost, Iraq was sold enriched uranium (for the reactor), South Afrcia has turned into a hell hole, Cyprus is still divided, Pakistan got its bomb... See a pattern? None of those perils are what a rational person would call Lilliputian. Hell if OFF had worked as advertised, we wouldn't be in this war either!

I don't look forward to a future where this nation is bankrupted and dragged into chaos patching all the disasters those "petty machinations" induce. Further, they significantly inhibit our ability to afford managing them. The UN Agenda21 (now called Sustainable Development or Smart Growth) is still being popagating nationwide, causing housing shortages, urban congestion, and high prices for goods everywhere it's been instituted. If you think it's going to go away under Bush, consider that the first state to sign onto it was Florida under Lawton Chiles. Under Jeb Bush, it's still there and gaining steam. I have yet to see a single community sucessfully unshackle itself from that bureaucratic tyranny of those "petty machinations."

The landgrabs haven't stopped and the bogus ESA listings with their ecologically destructive critical habitat designations continue unabated. If those like you continue to turn a blind eye to such things, this nation will depend upon the likes of Mexico and Argentina for food and the only big winner will be Lloyd Bensten, George Soros, Tyson Foods, and their Slave Party cronies who are heavily invested in that foreign food production.

Sorry, but your stance appears to me to be blind Party loyalty, however commendible. Those "petty machinations" are so ubiquitous, and collectively so damaging, that conservatives had best hold the President's feet to the fire for every concession he makes to socialist connivances.

17 posted on 03/29/2003 5:36:56 PM PST by Carry_Okie (Because there are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: optimistically_conservative
If we turn this over to the UN the war will become pointless.
18 posted on 03/29/2003 6:10:04 PM PST by PuNcH
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To: Carry_Okie
I agree with everything you state. All I'll I've said is that Bush is not going to withdraw from and declare the UN dead after the current engagement. The fact that it needs to be done is not the question, to believe it will happen soon is folly.

Like welfare, I do not think the UN will ever go completely away. Even if the US withdraws and takes it's contribution with it, it will continue to operate, gelded of course, on it's leftover 60%. It allows pathetic socialists like france and germany to believe they are still a world power as they command an audience of other pathetic socialists and affords every tinhorn dictator a soapbox so they can go home and convince their ruling elites that they are relevent. Symbolism over substance has always been highly valued by the incompetent.

It may be more practical to gradually clip the UN's wings until it really is nothing more than a guilded debating society, passing their meaningless resolutions, then sending them home fat and happy and stupid as the US and Great Britian control the important events in the world.

19 posted on 03/29/2003 6:28:10 PM PST by Bob J
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To: Bob J
It may be more practical to gradually clip the UN's wings until it really is nothing more than a guilded debating society, passing their meaningless resolutions, then sending them home fat and happy and stupid as the US and Great Britian control the important events in the world.

The quickest and most certain way to do that is for the United States Supreme Court to review existing treaties for their claims to control the use of private property. There are many treaties with scope and authority that go far beyond the limited powers the people granted to the United States in the Constitution. With that change, many regulatory powers enjoyed by Federal agencies would vanish as their authorizing statutes would lack the authority they currently cite.

20 posted on 03/29/2003 7:07:56 PM PST by Carry_Okie (Because there are people in power who are truly evil.)
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