with a
little help from the UN
Resolution 1511 was passed
unanimously by the Security Council on 16 October. It
1. paves the
way for the occupying powers in Iraq to privatise state assets, and
2. transforms
the occupying forces in Iraq into UN forces in all but name, and authorises
them to use force to put down resistance to the
occupation.
The chief opponents of the
invasion – France, Germany and Russia – voted for these measures, and so did
Syria and Pakistan.
Order 39
The
1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Geneva Conventions put strict limits on
what occupying powers can legally do.
They have no right to rewrite the laws or remodel the economic system of
the state they are occupying. As the
Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned Blair in a memo dated 26 March (and
later leaked to the New Statesman):
“The imposition of major structural economic reforms
would not be authorised by international law.”
Article
43 of the Hague
Regulations says:
“… the [occupying power] shall take all the measures
in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and
safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in
the country [our emphasis].”
Iraqi
law bars non-Arab foreigners from owning Iraqi companies and forbids the
privatisation of key state assets.
Nevertheless, on 19 September, Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition
Provision Authority (CPA) in Iraq, signed Order 39 on Foreign Investment. This permits 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi companies and
assets (apart from natural resources) in economic sectors that have hitherto
been publicly owned, and the repatriation of 100% of the proceeds of asset
sales. 200 Iraqi state companies are to
be privatised.
Since
there is no plausible excuse for not respecting Iraqi law on these matters, on
the face of it, the occupying powers are acting way outside the Hague
Regulations. As a result, there is a
real possibility that contracts entered into by, for example, buyers of Iraqi
state assets could be legally unsound and could be overturned without compensation
by a future Iraqi government. Such
uncertainty does not generate buyers.
The US/UK are attempting to get around this difficulty by
saying that the Iraqi finance minister, Kamel al-Keilami, is responsible for
the measures, not the CPA itself. Like
other Iraqi ministers, Kamel al-Keilami was appointed by the 25-member Iraqi
Governing Council, appointed by the CPA, so it is not obvious that he is part
of an Iraqi government with the authority to remake the laws of Iraq and
remodel its economy at the stroke of a pen.
Is this what George Bush means by exporting democracy to the Middle
East?
Happily, for the US/UK, the Security Council has now come to
their assistance in resolution 1511.
Paragraph 4 of it makes it
clear that from now until there is a representative government of Iraq, Iraqi
sovereignty lies with the CPA-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and the
ministers appointed by the Council. It
says:
“[The Security Council] Determines
that the Governing Council and its ministers are the
principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration, which, without prejudice
to its further evolution, embodies the sovereignty of the State of Iraq during
the transitional period until an internationally recognized, representative
government is established and assumes the responsibilities of the Authority;”
So, the Security Council has declared the Council and
its ministers to be the sovereign Iraqi body, which can change its laws and
sell off its assets at will. Though
appointed by the CPA, with this help from the Security Council, it can
apparently do what the CPA itself is barred from doing under the Hague
Regulations.
This may seem a rather farfetched proposition, but it
is certainly the UK Government’s view of the matter, as explained
by Hilary Benn, the new International Development Minister, in the Guardian on
20 October 2003:
“The
measures on foreign investment in Iraq were introduced by the finance minister,
Kamel al-Keilami, with the support of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and
were supported by the governing council – which is recognised by the UN in the
resolution approved unanimously last Thursday as embodying the sovereignty of
the state of Iraq during the transition to representative government”
Thanks
to the Security Council, it looks as if the US/UK will be able to sell off
publicly owned Iraqi assets at will.
Formally, the sales contracts will be with the finance minister
appointed by the Governing Council, which the Security Council has declared to
be the owner of all state assets in Iraq.
As a consequence, potential buyers can be reasonably confident that
their contracts are legally watertight.
In the absence of paragraph 4 of resolution 1511 to give that confidence,
buyers would have been more than a little reluctant to buy.
UN forces now
Resolution 1511 also
transforms the occupying forces in Iraq into UN forces in all but name, and
authorises them to use force to put down resistance to the occupation. In March, the
US/UK failed to get Security Council authorisation for the invasion of Iraq,
but they have now got Security Council authorisation to use force to maintain
it.
This is contained in paragraph 13
of the resolution, which reads:
“[The Security Council] Determines
that the provision of security and stability is essential to the successful
completion of the political process as outlined in paragraph 7 above and to the
ability of the United Nations to contribute effectively to that process and the
implementation of resolution 1483 (2003), and authorizes a
multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to
contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq [my emphasis]”
Paragraph 14 urges states to
contribute to the “multinational force”:
“[The
Security Council] Urges Member
States to contribute assistance under this United Nations mandate, including
military forces, to the multinational force referred to in paragraph 13 above;”
Lest there be any doubt that the entity referred to as “a multinational
force under unified command” is, in fact, the occupying forces commanded by the
US, paragraph 25 says:
“[The Security Council] Requests
that the United States, on behalf of the multinational force as outlined in
paragraph 13 above, report to the Security Council on the efforts and progress
of this force as appropriate and not less than every six months;”
And here is what US Ambassador,
John Negroponte, said
after the vote:
“ … the resolution establishes a United Nations authorized multinational
force under unified United States command”
The
ostensible reason given in paragraph 13 for authorising the occupation forces
to use force is so that security and stability can be restored and the UN can
function in Iraq. It has become
impossible for the UN to play any role, separate from the occupying powers,
since UN employees on the ground are going to be killed without their
protection. That is the inevitable
result of the fact that, after the event, the UN has endorsed the US/UK
invasion. The chief opponents of the
invasion – France, Germany and Russia – have not yet gone so far as to supply
occupation forces, but they have sanctioned the occupation in successive
Security Council resolutions.
That began with resolution
1483, passed
on 22 May, which mandated the CPA to govern Iraq and sell its oil for the
foreseeable future. 1511 goes very much
further.
War on terror
Resolution 1511 also goes along with George Bush’s portrayal of the
invasion as part of his “war on terror”.
It has numerous references to “terrorism” in Iraq, and the need to
combat “terrorism” in accordance with resolution 1373, passed
after the events of 11 September 2001.
George Bush was, therefore, able to welcome the resolution in the
following terms on 28 October 2003 (transcript here):
“Our coalition
against terror has been strengthened in recent days by UN Security Council Resolution
1511. This endorses a multinational force in Iraq under US command, encourages
other nations to come to the aid of the Iraqi people.”
With popular support for his Iraqi adventure falling rapidly, not least
because of the absence of “weapons of mass destruction”, every time Bush speaks
about Iraq these days, he yokes it together with Afghanistan, and by
implication therefore with 9/11. His message to the American people is that the war in
Iraq is an essential part of preventing a repeat of 9/11. As he told
an audience in Alabama on 3 November 2003:
“… a free and peaceful Iraq are important for the national security of
America. A free and peaceful Iraq will make it more likely that our children
and grandchildren will be able to grow up without the horrors of September the
11th. We'll defeat the terrorists there so we don't have to face them on our
own streets.”
The Security Council has given
credence to this baloney in resolution 1511.
The
US/UK hoped that as a result of resolution 1511 being passed more states would
assist them with money and troops.
Their
success with regard to money has been limited.
At the conclusion of the donors’ conference in Madrid on 24 October,
according to the US State Department, more than $33 billion had been promised
over the next 4 years. In reality, only
about $27 billion was in the form of donations; the rest was loans from the
World Bank and the IMF. And 75% of this
$27 billion was promised by the US/UK, $20 billion from the US itself and $450
million from the UK. The only other
significant contributors were Japan: $5 billion, Spain $300 million, Italy $235
million, South Korea $200 million and Canada $150 million.
As regards troops, the US/UK have
had no success. Turkey was their best
hope. The Turkish Government expressed
its willingness to send troops and it was said that they were going to serve
under US command west of Baghdad, where they were bound to take
casualties. However, that prospect has
disappeared in the face of opposition from the Iraqi Governing Council. Perhaps, the Turkish Government made the
offer in the knowledge that it would be refused.
Over
90% of the troops in Iraq are from the US/UK, 140,000 from the US and 11,000
from the UK. There are supposed to be
nearly 15,000 troops from 30 other countries, based in the southern zone under
British command and in the central zone under Polish command. Up to now they have taken very few
casualties. There has been very little
press coverage about them, so it is very difficult to find out what they are
actually doing. Are these troops
committed for the long term? Probably,
not. The odds must be that if they begin
to take significant casualties they will be quietly withdrawn and not replaced,
and the US/UK will have to bear an even greater share of the burden in future.
Happily, the invaders are having
to pay the bulk of the costs of reconstruction, as well as the military costs
of invasion and occupation. It would be
too much to hope that they will have to pay off the debts of the previous Iraqi
administration as well: these stand at some $130 billion plus $27 billion for
reparations from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, with a further $172 billion of reparation claims yet to be dealt
with. The illusion that Iraqi oil was
going to pay for everything has disappeared.
The US/UK have very little option
but to continue to pay up. They cannot
withdraw until some sort of stable democratic government is established – which
might take forever, since Iraq is a wholly artificial state.
Withdrawal from Iraq may turn out
to be more difficult than withdrawal from Vietnam, where there was never any
doubt that a stable Vietnam state would emerge afterwards, albeit under
Communist control. With Iraq, stability
may be impossible to achieve.
November 2003