washingtonpost.com
Policing of Iraq to Stay U.S. Job
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2003; Page A20
Bush administration officials, after months of diplomatic effort, proudly discuss their expectation that more than 40 countries will combine to send at least 20,000 troops to help U.S. forces police Iraq. The result, as a Pentagon spokesman put it, is a "good news story."
Yet with President Bush and his most senior advisers making telephone calls and cornering foreign leaders in meetings around the globe, the number of military personnel offered by other countries remains small compared with the U.S. contingent and Iraq's anticipated need.
The high ratio of U.S. forces to coalition partners will do little to diminish the reality that the remaking of Iraq is a U.S.-commanded operation, analysts and diplomats contend, and it seems unlikely to deliver the relief expected by U.S. military commanders anxious to shift the peacekeeping burden to other nations.
Administration officials found a wide array of contributors from Spain and Slovakia to Ukraine and South Korea, but few able or willing to send large forces to Iraq, according to several people involved in the effort.
Some governments said they could not afford the economic or political costs. Some said they remain dubious about the legitimacy of the unprovoked U.S. war. Some said their militaries are already stretched thin by peacekeeping projects in Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere.
And one major country capable of sending troops has not been asked.
France, which bitterly opposed the U.S. war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, remains on the sidelines. A French official said, "We were never contacted." A White House official said, "They haven't offered." The Frenchman continued, "There is a commonly recognized perception that we are unwelcome, so there is no point."
The structure of the Iraq force is markedly different from the peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia and Kosovo following wars that attracted broader international support. After hostilities ended in Bosnia, the security force was about one-third American; in Kosovo, about one-fifth. By contrast, the United States currently has 146,000 troops operating in Iraq alongside 12,000 foreign troops, mostly British.
Combined with another 67,000 U.S. soldiers in neighboring Kuwait, the American total is 213,000, a number the Pentagon has said will drop as security conditions and the arrival of foreign forces permit. For the foreseeable future, U.S. troops will be the predominant occupation force.
"It's all dependent on the security situation on the ground. That's not knowable. There's no magic formula for this," said a senior administration official who is working on the postwar effort. "We are very comfortable with the support we are getting in the stability operation."
Attacks on U.S. troops have escalated in recent weeks, claiming the lives of nine American soldiers this month and 16 since Bush declared hostilities formally over on May 1. The bulk of foreign troops headed to Iraq are not expected to arrive until late summer. Some military analysts and members of Congress contend that current troop levels should be increased even as they argue that U.S. forces should bear less of the burden and the expense.
U.S. officials appealed to about 85 countries for postwar help in Iraq in a campaign that began before the war began in March. They worked through embassies and then targeted governments with individual requests, often delivered by Bush advisers selected because of their connections to a country or ties to particular leaders.
Those making direct contact include Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, as well as top Pentagon and State Department officials. On the military side, U.S. Central Command dispatched officers to appeal to Middle Eastern colleagues. Bush was called upon in crucial moments, often to seal a deal with a telephone call of thanks.
The British sometimes took the lead when an approach from the Americans was deemed less likely to succeed, officials said. A European diplomat said some countries preferred to serve with the British in southern Iraq, duty perceived as less perilous and less political than work elsewhere with the Americans.
"Individual countries reacted in different ways. The real turning point came once we had a Security Council resolution," said a U.S. official who added that NATO support for Polish contributions to the peacekeeping force helped provide diplomatic legitimacy sought by other countries.
The willingness to assign troops to the security force in Iraq, however, was rarely matched by offers of large numbers of personnel, the Americans found. One described a "general paucity" of troops trained for postwar missions. "It's hard to put together divisions based on lots of little tiny contributions."
As described by one military official, the administrations of Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have assembled two divisions of 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers. A division commanded by the British has four or five member countries, while a Polish division has seven or eight members so far. The Poles will contribute 2,000 soldiers underwritten by other countries, said embassy spokesman Artur Michalski.
The administration is seeking a large commitment of forces from India and another from Pakistan. But officials were rebuffed when they suggested alternatives to Denmark that would mean a deployment of 1,500 or 5,000 troops. The Danes offered 380 soldiers, motivated by the limits of the force and the cost involved. One Danish official said they did the math "and saw this would go beyond what defense had."
The Netherlands, already contributing forces in Afghanistan, offered 1,100 troops -- including engineers, military police, medical staff and helicopter crews -- to be deployed under British command. Spain expects to play a significant role in the Polish division, and the Philippines has offered soldiers, while seeking funding. Talks are underway with Fiji, Bangladesh and Nepal, among others.
"A lot of countries don't want us to fail, but they don't feel any responsibility for making the United States succeed or even to contribute to that success, because of the manner in which we went to war," said Brookings Institution scholar Ivo Daalder, who wrote a book with colleague Michael O'Hanlon about the Kosovo campaign. "The chickens are coming home to roost."
Daalder contends that the number of countries cobbled together by the Bush administration helps hide the limited commitment most nations are making to a project often viewed with ambivalence, at best. Despite U.S. efforts, he predicted, American forces will long continue to be the primary foreign security force in Iraq.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Policing of Iraq to Stay U.S. Job
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2003; Page A20
Bush administration officials, after months of diplomatic effort, proudly discuss their expectation that more than 40 countries will combine to send at least 20,000 troops to help U.S. forces police Iraq. The result, as a Pentagon spokesman put it, is a "good news story."
Yet with President Bush and his most senior advisers making telephone calls and cornering foreign leaders in meetings around the globe, the number of military personnel offered by other countries remains small compared with the U.S. contingent and Iraq's anticipated need.
The high ratio of U.S. forces to coalition partners will do little to diminish the reality that the remaking of Iraq is a U.S.-commanded operation, analysts and diplomats contend, and it seems unlikely to deliver the relief expected by U.S. military commanders anxious to shift the peacekeeping burden to other nations.
Administration officials found a wide array of contributors from Spain and Slovakia to Ukraine and South Korea, but few able or willing to send large forces to Iraq, according to several people involved in the effort.
Some governments said they could not afford the economic or political costs. Some said they remain dubious about the legitimacy of the unprovoked U.S. war. Some said their militaries are already stretched thin by peacekeeping projects in Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere.
And one major country capable of sending troops has not been asked.
France, which bitterly opposed the U.S. war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, remains on the sidelines. A French official said, "We were never contacted." A White House official said, "They haven't offered." The Frenchman continued, "There is a commonly recognized perception that we are unwelcome, so there is no point."
The structure of the Iraq force is markedly different from the peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia and Kosovo following wars that attracted broader international support. After hostilities ended in Bosnia, the security force was about one-third American; in Kosovo, about one-fifth. By contrast, the United States currently has 146,000 troops operating in Iraq alongside 12,000 foreign troops, mostly British.
Combined with another 67,000 U.S. soldiers in neighboring Kuwait, the American total is 213,000, a number the Pentagon has said will drop as security conditions and the arrival of foreign forces permit. For the foreseeable future, U.S. troops will be the predominant occupation force.
"It's all dependent on the security situation on the ground. That's not knowable. There's no magic formula for this," said a senior administration official who is working on the postwar effort. "We are very comfortable with the support we are getting in the stability operation."
Attacks on U.S. troops have escalated in recent weeks, claiming the lives of nine American soldiers this month and 16 since Bush declared hostilities formally over on May 1. The bulk of foreign troops headed to Iraq are not expected to arrive until late summer. Some military analysts and members of Congress contend that current troop levels should be increased even as they argue that U.S. forces should bear less of the burden and the expense.
U.S. officials appealed to about 85 countries for postwar help in Iraq in a campaign that began before the war began in March. They worked through embassies and then targeted governments with individual requests, often delivered by Bush advisers selected because of their connections to a country or ties to particular leaders.
Those making direct contact include Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, as well as top Pentagon and State Department officials. On the military side, U.S. Central Command dispatched officers to appeal to Middle Eastern colleagues. Bush was called upon in crucial moments, often to seal a deal with a telephone call of thanks.
The British sometimes took the lead when an approach from the Americans was deemed less likely to succeed, officials said. A European diplomat said some countries preferred to serve with the British in southern Iraq, duty perceived as less perilous and less political than work elsewhere with the Americans.
"Individual countries reacted in different ways. The real turning point came once we had a Security Council resolution," said a U.S. official who added that NATO support for Polish contributions to the peacekeeping force helped provide diplomatic legitimacy sought by other countries.
The willingness to assign troops to the security force in Iraq, however, was rarely matched by offers of large numbers of personnel, the Americans found. One described a "general paucity" of troops trained for postwar missions. "It's hard to put together divisions based on lots of little tiny contributions."
As described by one military official, the administrations of Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have assembled two divisions of 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers. A division commanded by the British has four or five member countries, while a Polish division has seven or eight members so far. The Poles will contribute 2,000 soldiers underwritten by other countries, said embassy spokesman Artur Michalski.
The administration is seeking a large commitment of forces from India and another from Pakistan. But officials were rebuffed when they suggested alternatives to Denmark that would mean a deployment of 1,500 or 5,000 troops. The Danes offered 380 soldiers, motivated by the limits of the force and the cost involved. One Danish official said they did the math "and saw this would go beyond what defense had."
The Netherlands, already contributing forces in Afghanistan, offered 1,100 troops -- including engineers, military police, medical staff and helicopter crews -- to be deployed under British command. Spain expects to play a significant role in the Polish division, and the Philippines has offered soldiers, while seeking funding. Talks are underway with Fiji, Bangladesh and Nepal, among others.
"A lot of countries don't want us to fail, but they don't feel any responsibility for making the United States succeed or even to contribute to that success, because of the manner in which we went to war," said Brookings Institution scholar Ivo Daalder, who wrote a book with colleague Michael O'Hanlon about the Kosovo campaign. "The chickens are coming home to roost."
Daalder contends that the number of countries cobbled together by the Bush administration helps hide the limited commitment most nations are making to a project often viewed with ambivalence, at best. Despite U.S. efforts, he predicted, American forces will long continue to be the primary foreign security force in Iraq.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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