Iraq's New Government First Order Of Business: How To Deal With U.S. Military

by Aaron Glantz

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- One of the first orders of business for the new Iraqi government under Kurdish President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shi'ite Islamist, will be to strike a deal with the United States military over the terms of the 150,000-troop-strong U.S. military presence.

A United Nations Security Council resolution authorises that the occupation ends in December. After that, the occupation will be technically illegal. Chris Toensing of the Washington-based Middle East Research and Information Project says the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance, which won the most votes in January's election, has already abandoned its election promise to demand a timeline for U.S. withdrawal.

"Right now, the United States is the protector of the United Iraqi Alliance," Toensing said, noting the U.S. military had promised to protect whatever government was elected.

Today on Capitol Hill, the Senate Appropriations Committee considered adding $80 billion more for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total emergency monies for the two wars to $210 billion.

"That's the structure," Toensing said. "Now the big danger is that relationship will become enternched even though the Iraqi side will not be really happy with it, but they will perceive that they will have no other choice if they want to stay in power."

Toensing expects the U.S. military to become tightly linked to both the armed wings of Shi'ite religious parties and Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas under the new government, since both support large-scale crackdowns on the largely Sunni insurgency, taking more prisoners and secretly locking them up in prisons like Abu Ghraib with minimal oversight.

"I couldn't get close to the prison when I was there two weeks ago," Democratic Senator Dick Durban of Illinois told IPS. "Members of Congress who go there are not allowed to leave the Green Zone so I couldn't get close to it."

International human rights groups have also been barred from visiting U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. Amnesty International's Washington lobbyist Jumana Musa says it is unclear what this latest government will mean for the more than 10,000 Iraqis in U.S. custody. Most of them have never seen a lawyer and never been charged with a crime.

"There is the creation of something that is supposed to represent the rule of law," she said, but added that it is unclear how much authority the new Iraqi government will have over detainees.

"What does this mean?" she asked. "Do they face justice in the Iraqi system? Are they in U.S. military custody, in which case they would face justice through a military tribunal? Are they going to face justice? Are they going to be held indefinitely? We don't know the answers to any of these questions."

Beyond that are the substantive differences between the two factions. Shi'ite political parties want Islamic law to form the basis for government, a move rejected by Kurds who want autonomy and control of the oil-rich region around the city of Kirkuk.

Ken Livingstone is the CEO of the consulting company Global Options Inc and a leading neo-conservative thinker.

"When they craft a constitution, which is the first effort that is going to be made by the new Parliament, there they've got to have checks and balances. Without those checks and balances they're probably going to end up with a majority Shi'ite state that is going to create an Islamic Republic," he said.

Livingstone says he doesn't trust the Shi'ite religious leaders who placed first in January's election in Iraq. He likened their election to Adolph Hitler's in Germany in 1933, telling IPS sometimes people come to power through legitimate elections who later need to be "dealt with."

Like many neo-cons, he also believes Iraq will eventually be fractured with an independent Kurdistan emerging in the North. "The Kurdish self-determination is something that they have had for more than a decade and we should recognize it's a reality," Livingstone said.

Then, he says, Kurds who feel oppressed by governments in Iran, Turkey, and Syria, could move to an independent Kurdistan in Iraq rather than destabilising their own ethnically diverse countries.

Livingstone isn't the only prominent Republican to say the dissolution of Iraq and the creation of Kurdistan is desirable.

His view is shared by Henry Kissinger, who wrote two years ago that a "breakup into three states is preferable to refereeing an open-ended civil war."