KurdistanObserver.com

Galbraith Explains Choices in Iraq
By RANDY HOLHUT
Reformer Staff

Friday, October 21, 2005 - BRATTLEBORO -- As former Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith sees it, the United States faces a choice in Iraq.

"If our mission is to build a unified, stable and democratic Iraq, we will have our troops there for along time," he told an audience of about 200 people at the World Learning campus Thursday night. "But we cannot build a nation where none exists."

Galbraith's 55-minute talk, "Last Chance for Iraq: Civil War, Iran, and the Constitution," dealt with the question of whether a unified Iraq was possible given the long standing religious and ethnic divisions between the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

Galbraith said that Iraq's Kurds "almost unanimously want their own country" in what is now northern Iraq, "an independent state in all but name."

The Shiites, Galbraith said, voted overwhelmingly to create an Islamic state and do not want to live in a secular society. They control the southern part of the country, including Iraq's second largest city, Basra.

In the middle of Iraq exists "a political vacuum," Galbraith said. The Sunnis, the minority group in Iraq, nominally controls Baghdad, but the central government's authority doesn't extend beyond that point.

Because Baghdad is a multi-ethnic city, Galbraith said it has become the front line for the ongoing civil war. He said that the murder rate in Baghdad, excluding those killed by car bombs, averages about 1,000 a month.

Galbraith, who spent July and August in Baghdad, said there is "a complete breakdown in law and order" in the city and said that "ethnic cleansing" was underway in the mixed neighborhoods.

"It's not a pretty picture for a campaign that was supposed to bring democracy to Iraq and transform the Middle East," he said.

The new Iraqi Constitution, which was voted on last weekend, sets up a government that recognizes the impossibility of bringing together Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. It sets up a loose federation that establishes a Kurdish region in the north and a Shiite region in the south.

The Sunnis, who Galbraith said aren't as in favor of this arrangement as the Kurds and Shiites, said that their real objection to the new constitution is "that they no longer rule Iraq. Once they understand that, they'll see that the constitution actually protects them."

It protects every group because there is limited central government. Almost all of the important decisions are left to the individual regions, Galbraith said, including the sharing of the nation's natural resources.

Dividing Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni states would not necessarily be a bad idea, Galbraith said. Having seen the breakup of Yugoslavia as U.S. ambassador to Croatia in the mid-1990s, Galbraith believes a similar outcome in Iraq would be desirable, but only if the U.S. shifts its focus from trying to unify Iraq to trying to prevent a civil war.

"A political settlement in Iraq will pave the way for the U.S. to leave," he said.

But Galbraith believes a full and immediate withdrawal would be impractical. He sees an alternative: redeploying U.S. forces to the Kurdish north, where they would be welcomed and supported by the Kurds and still be close enough to provide security to the rest of Iraq.

Galbraith warned about placing too much faith in the Iraqi army. He said of the 115 battalions that exist, nine are Kurdish, 60 are Shiite and the remaining ones are Shiite and none have any loyalty to anyone but their own religious ethnic groups. On top of that, he said at least 40,000 of the stated 80,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army do not exist except as names on a payroll sheet.

"You can't build a national army when there's no loyalty to the nation," he said.

Galbraith criticized the Bush administration's lack of post-war planning after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying that "whether you were for or against the war, you should be very angry about what happened after the invasion."

The lack of planning and lack of follow-through in restoring security and basic services to Iraqis hurt the U.S. cause, Galbraith said.

Instead of what Galbraith called the thoughtful diplomacy and planning that followed the Bosnia war in 1995, he said that the Bush administration saw Iraq "as a place for political patronage and an ideological crusade."

Galbraith said the key to bringing stability to Iraq is for the U.S. to let go of the idea of a unified Iraq, especially since the unified Iraq under Saddam Hussein was "the source of ghastly actions against 80 percent of the Iraqi people."

"There's no need to mourn the passing of a unified Iraq," he said. "If the price of a unified Iraq is another dictator, that's too high a price to pay."

The talk was hosted by the Windham World Affairs Council of Vermont.