The Rich get Richer...

Reluctance to Share Control in Iraq Leaves U.S. on Its Own

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A27

NEW YORK -- To rebuild Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration wanted control and it wanted international help on U.S. terms. A difficult few days of personal diplomacy at the United Nations last week confirmed that President Bush cannot have both, so he has settled for control.


Neither the United Nations nor the Iraqi Governing Council will have much authority over events in Iraq anytime soon, the White House has decided. Policymakers consider the Iraqi overhaul too complex and the stakes too high to risk surrendering enough responsibility to win significant amounts of fresh international assistance.

That calculation, rooted in the politics of Iraq and Iowa alike, leaves Bush and his key aides largely where they were on the war's opening night: calling the shots, essentially alone.

"They're on their own," a U.N. official said. "It's just between them and the American taxpayer."

Six months into the most ambitious U.S. nation-building effort since post-World War II Germany and Japan, the reconstruction of Iraq is predominantly an American project, with lesser roles being played by other countries and officials under U.S. command. The Bush administration has been forced to lower its expectations for contributions of troops and money amid security worries, opposition to the U.S.-led occupation and its early results, and frustration at the American unwillingness to share power and contracts.

That helps explain why the White House is asking Congress for more than $87 billion as the next installment for the anti-terrorism war, the vast majority destined for Iraq, including $20 billion for reconstruction. Bush and his lieutenants working the U.N.'s diplomatic corridors said Congress would be less likely to deliver the money if the United States were not in control of Iraq, sources reported.

Some diplomats, anticipating a strong U.S. effort to attract backing for a postwar effort far more violent and expensive than the White House had anticipated, were struck by how little the administration was prepared to yield in return for international partnership.

"Every young democracy needs the help of friends," Bush said in Tuesday's speech to the U.N. General Assembly. "Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid. And all nations of good will should step forward and provide that support."

"What surprised us was his attitude in his speech and the meeting," said a senior diplomat familiar with one of Bush's private sessions in New York. "It was, 'We're going to go ahead and do what we need to. You're welcome to come along. It's up to you.' " A respected Republican foreign policy veteran said he has found the president's chilly approach to the United Nations and important allies "baffling." The former official -- who, like many interviewed for this story, would speak only on background -- described it as consistent with dominant themes in the Bush administration's overall approach to international affairs.

"It's unilateral by design," said the former official, who described a White House and Pentagon that do not reach out or listen very well. Influential figures believe, he said, that "if we pay attention to others, they'll just hogtie us. We'll be Gulliver and the Lilliputians."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "a strong case can be made that there could and should have been a larger international role from the outset." But he believes the opportunity is gone, leaving the administration little choice but to run the country.

"I don't see where you gain a lot by bringing in a new crowd of outsiders and having them get up to speed," said Haass, who recently departed as the State Department's director of policy planning.

Leading up to the war, the Bush administration's strongest voices believed the postwar period would be relatively smooth. The White House and Pentagon viewed the United Nations and an array of other potential partners more as a hindrance than a help in postwar management. The oft-repeated "vital role" assigned to the world body was largely confined to U.N. agencies designed to handle such issues as refugees, food distribution and children's health.

Now, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is leading the effort to win more foreign contributions, but the U.N.'s future role in Iraq's politics and economics is less clear than ever.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered much of the remaining U.N. staff to evacuate last week after a second bombing near the organization's Baghdad headquarters. An Aug. 19 bombing killed more than 20 people and shook the organization's confidence.

Security fears, coupled with the uncertainty about what role the Bush administration will permit, mean that no significant U.N. presence is likely for weeks -- or longer -- said senior U.N. officials and Security Council diplomats.

On the positive side, a European diplomat in New York said Bush administration emissaries made progress in convincing their counterparts that the U.S. government does not want to remain an occupying power. What remains, however, is "a competition of ideas on how to reach the common object of a democratic, stable Iraq."

Diplomats said they received conflicting signals from the Americans about the shape a new draft Security Council resolution will take, likely reflecting unresolved aspects of the Washington policy debate. The administration is seeking a council mandate that could make it easier for governments to contribute personnel.

One U.N. diplomat said he was told to expect few significant changes from an initial draft that French and German diplomats, among others, criticized as offering too paltry a role to Iraqis and the United Nations. Diplomats and high-ranking U.S. officials say the Americans have enough votes to pass a resolution, but remain doubtful that it will seriously ease the U.S. burden.

Yet officials from among the 10 elected members of the U.N. Security Council took heart from a give-and-take with Powell, who said he had limited maneuvering room but wanted to explore all possibilities before the Bush administration returns with a new proposal.

Powell asked his counterparts to react, for example, to the idea of creating a provisional government backed by Iraq's 1958 constitution. The provisional government, an option favored by Ahmed Chalabi, a senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council, would presumably be stronger than the existing body appointed by U.S. civilian coordinator L. Paul Bremer.

Annan lobbied visiting dignitaries to support the provisional government idea, shifting the proposed U.S. sequence to grant a measure of sovereignty to Iraqis before elections are held. He said it would eliminate the U.S. occupation opposed by many Iraqis and prevent a rush to complete a constitution and vote before Iraqis are ready.

"It's highly questionable whether they can complete a plausible and credible constitutional process before next April," a U.N. official said. "Why rush it?"

Chalabi angered the administration by declaring the Governing Council ready to take significant responsibility in Iraq. Although he later tempered his comments, he continued to tell diplomats in private that the Iraqis deserve more authority.

One foreign official who spoke with him summed up Chalabi's pitch this way: "We are not in a mood to wait. We think we can do a lot of this ourselves better than the Americans can. We can do this better than Bremer."

The Bush administration strongly disagrees, and has said so Tweet