No Easy Peace: Rising to the Challenge of Rebuilding Post-Saddam Iraq
(February 26, 2003)
Remarks of Senator Joe Lieberman to the Council on Foreign Relations
Thank you, Senator Mitchell. I am honored by your introduction and proud of your extraordinary work in international diplomacy and mediation in the years since you left the Senate. I also want to express my gratitude to the Council for your exceptional foreign policy leadership in these uncommon times.
A funny thing happened today on the way to the Council to deliver this speech on post-war Iraq. We learned this morning that President Bush plans to talk tonight on the very same subject. This is good news--more than just because it means some of you will be getting a free think tank dinner to go along with your free think tank lunch.
For a long time, several of us have been urging the Administration to articulate its strategy for Iraq after Saddam and to put forward a plan to help realize that vision. Senator Hagel and I have been working on a major bill to help spark political and economic reform in Muslim nations around the world that will counter the poisonous ideology the terrorists spew. Two weeks ago, I introduced a resolution urging the Administration to answer a series of urgent and yet-to-be-resolved questions on the future of Iraq.
I'm pleased the answers are starting to come. News reports last week outlined the Administration's plan, in broad strokes, for how post-Saddam Iraq will be governed and transitioned into self-rule. Hopefully tonight in his speech, the President will build on that report--and begin a concerted push to make the case for why we must build up the Iraqi people after Saddam is brought down.
This is so important--not just to meet the immediate post-war security threats, but to counter the serious suspicions that exist in America and around the world about our motives in Iraq. We can't deny or dismiss those charges. We must answer them--with an affirmative plan for the more peaceful, democratic, and open society we want to help the Iraqi people create.
Now the Administration needs to follow through with more details, depth, and dollars. We need details because what we know so far is vague and has been leaked to the media, not told directly to the American people. That hasn't helped dispel the suspicions that the Administration hasn't thought things through--or that our motives are dishonorable.
We need dollars because Congress will need to put money in the pipeline soon so it's there when we need it. The President's budget regrettably included no funding projections at all for either the war or the peace that will follow. That left people with the understandable impression that he was underestimating the risks by not estimating the costs.
And we need depth because our allies, the Iraqi people and the region need to know that our interest in Iraq and the region is not a fleeting fancy but part of a broad strategic and moral commitment to bring progress and security to the Muslim world. Right now, none of that is clear: the Administration has asked for $145 million for a Middle East Partnership Initiative to help sow the seeds of a better life there. In comparison, this war to disarm Saddam, as crucial as it will be, may cost--according to estimates reported today--$95 billion.
If it comes, the war against Saddam will be just and necessary, and we will win it. But the next steps will be more difficult to accomplish without the understanding, investment, and support of the American people and the international community.
We Americans are idealists--but we're also realists. To sustain a difficult policy for any length of time in a democracy, the people need to know the costs and consequences--the risks, responsibilities, and rewards. To proceed without that understanding, even when the cause is good, is to risk a public backlash that could produce pressure to leave Iraq before we have completed our mission and discharged our responsibility to help create a more just, free, and peaceful society.
I'm disappointed the administration has taken this long to engage on this part of our policy toward Iraq. But there is still time to do this right, and to seize the opportunity to create in Iraq a model that will best answer Osama bin Laden's incendiary lies about us and create hope, not hatred, throughout the Arab world. To do so will take a clear, comprehensive, and collaborative strategy to win the peace in Iraq--one that applies the lessons of history to build a better future for the Iraqi people and the region. Today, in the hope of advancing the public discussion we should have, I want to discuss with you a number of elements that strategy should include.
The Lessons of Afghanistan
A good place to start is with the most recent and relevant experience we have had, in Afghanistan--where we fought and won a war but have not yet won the peace. As a result, what began as a lesson in the power and precision of the American military has devolved into a cautionary tale of the problems that result from engaging the world too haphazardly, too arrogantly, and too belatedly.
It started in the wake of the September 11th attacks, with NATO's invocation of Article 5--a powerful and moving act of solidarity. The Bush Administration failed to grasp that outstretched hand to help us fight the war in Afghanistan. We made the war our own--and the subsequent peace thereby became far too much our own as well. We have had to go to extraordinary lengths to recover from this mistake.
The transitional government's control over the country is now so weak, in fact, that some refer to President Hamid Karzai as the Mayor of Kabul. And non-governmental organizations working in Kabul report that coordination among their donors, the military, U.S.A.I.D., and the U.N. remains badly disorganized.
Months after NATO's initial offer, late last week the Administration had to return to the alliance seeking contributions to peacekeeping in Afghanistan. That's the right choice. And several of our allies, particularly Germany, responded generously. But we would have been in a much better position by now if we had acted collaboratively with NATO from the start.
A Pre-War Action Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq
We cannot afford to make the same mistakes again. In post-Saddam Iraq, the stage will be bigger, the stakes will higher, and the consequences of failure more severe than in Afghanistan.
Although many details of the Administration's strategy haven't yet been forthcoming, the outlines--according to press reports--appear to be as follows: Our military would exercise control over Iraq until basic security has been established and weapons of mass destruction have been secured. After that, an American civilian administrator would run the civilian government for a period of time to direct reconstruction and humanitarian aid. That administrator would then be responsible for helping transition the nation, over time, into some form of self-rule.
If the Administration does in fact intend to name an American civilian administrator to govern Iraq, I feel strongly that would be a mistake. Although American military rule will be required for a short time after hostilities end, it would be an error to continue it longer than it takes to deal with the war's immediate aftershocks. To do so would risk making the peace--and all the risks and costs that go with it--our own, again. It would put America in the position of an occupying power, not a liberator. And it may well widen the gulf between the United States and the Arab world.
Instead, the Administration should begin working with our international allies to name an international civilian administrator--perhaps an experienced government official from an Arab nation--who will guide Iraq in the critical transition period between war's immediate aftermath and Iraqi self-rule. America should have an important role in post-war Iraq--but not a singular one. This should be a genuine ensemble production, not--as I fear the Administration envisions it--a play with one lead player and a dozen character actors who are offered bit parts.
Let me now discuss how America, along with the international administrator I recommend, can lead in meeting three pressing challenges in post-Saddam Iraq. The Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Center on Strategic and International Studies and others, have already done excellent work in defining those challenges. I want to build on your analysis and guidance with a few thoughts of my own.
1. Strengthening Internal and Regional Security
The single most important immediate challenge will be ensuring that Iraq becomes a safer place.
That means having our military work closely with allies in NATO, in the region, and from elsewhere in the world to deploy an international security force that can join American forces in keeping the peace when the fighting stops and help keep Iraq intact. When Saddam is gone, we will want to make clear to the Iraqi people that it is a new day--one in which dissent will no longer be met with torture, executions, and other intimidation; one in which movement and worship are free; one in which ethnic factions will live and govern together, not be pitted against one another. And in this new day, we need to show the Iraqis the security forces are on their side.
Over time, the international security force must help develop a new Iraqi security force. The leadership of Iraq's 350,000-soldier military will have to be swiftly dismantled, as will the Republican Guards and the intelligence agencies that have been some of Saddam's most sinister tools. In their place, we and our allies should help create a new domestic police department accountable to the Iraqi people.
But it will take more than police and peacekeepers to counter the post-war security threats. If the weapons of mass destruction and those who built them are allowed to fall in with terrorists or onto the open market, it will make a mockery of our soldiers' bravery.
I urge the Administration, if it has not done so already, to immediately form a task force of Defense, State, and Energy Department representatives--as well as critical international and private sector experts--to develop plans to secure the chemical and biological weapons as well as any pieces of Saddam's nuclear program and locate the scientists so they don't become a problem with another regime months or years from now.
To exploit every opportunity to improve post-war security, we must look beyond Iraq's borders as well. In the post-Saddam Middle East, the influence of the United States should be greater, and we must use it to advance a new vision of regional stability and political and economic change. That should include re-engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and developing a broad, post-Saddam initiative for Persian Gulf security.
It's no longer enough for the President to say he supports a democratic Palestine living in peace alongside a secure and sovereign Israel while doing nothing to help produce that outcome on the ground. America must re-engage without delay, expend political capital, and help Israel and responsible Palestinians move beyond the violent and debilitating stalemate that is devastating lives on both sides.
That must start with a 100 percent effort by the Palestinian Authority to stop terrorism against Israelis, and an Israeli commitment to react positively and concretely to such an effort. I believe there are ripening conditions for a very high-level American engagement to help both sides move toward the positive goals each has spoken of. A new Gulf security initiative should also intensify pressure on Syria and Iran to stop their pursuit of dangerous, destabilizing weapons, and remove any incentive for other Gulf nations to pursue those weapons. It would be an awful irony to have our operations against Iraq coincide with the beginning of a broader regional nuclear arms race. This initiative should also focus on cutting off state support of terrorists by Syria and Iran, which is corrosive for the region's stability. In the wake of war, we may well find opportunities for diplomatic and security breakthroughs; we should be ready to seize them.
2. Laying the Foundations of Democracy
The second challenge we face in post-war Iraq is to lay the foundations of a more free and more civil society. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, peace is not simply the absence of conflict--it is the presence of justice. Peace in Iraq must be marked by more than the absence of tyranny; it requires the presence of an effective representative government that includes all the nation's different communities.
To do that, the United States, the United Nations, NATO, and the international civilian administrator I have proposed should start working together to develop a clear process and timetable under which the people of Iraq will shape their own government. If what ultimately replaces Saddam appears to the world to be indefinite occupation, another dictatorship, or a weak and ineffective ad-hoc government, it will breathe life into the most cynical claims about American motives--and put our long-term security right back in jeopardy.
Last Sunday, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz announced a new initiative to recruit Iraqi-Americans to serve in post-war Iraq in our military reserves, as translators, and as temporary Iraqi civilian employees. That's a sound idea that I support.
The Administration must also waste no time in developing, in partnership with the international community, a system for public prosecutions of Saddam Hussein, if necessary, and his inner circle, whose crimes over all these years must not go unpunished. We have recently read press reports that such plans are in the works--and that's promising. Making clear it is the world's intent--not America's alone--to bring Saddam and his associates to justice will help reassure Iraqis and underline the principles that motivate our cause.
3. Meeting Humanitarian Needs and Promoting Prosperity
Our third critical challenge in post-Saddam Iraq will be rebuilding the country's economic infrastructure. Of course, Iraq has a more advanced economic and educational system than Afghanistan--but Saddam's rule has done terrible damage to the proud heritage of Iraqi enterprise, and many humanitarian needs will have to be met in the wake of war. Iraq's oil revenue will help meet some of these Iraqi needs--but more help will be required, especially in the near term. The United States can start this effort now by partnering with the World Bank, the U.N, and the International Monetary Fund, as well as with major national donors from around the world, to get commitments to meet those needs quickly.
Under Saddam's cruel control, Iraq's debt, along with reparations claims from the Gulf War, have become enormous. The U.S. should be prepared to quickly convene an international conference on Iraqi debt relief to restructure that burden. And we must work swiftly through the United Nations to alter the sanctions regime, which in its current form would prevent all but humanitarian goods from flowing into and out of Iraq. A replacement for the current sanctions regime shouldn't be implemented six months or a year from now; it should be developed as soon as possible to make clear to the Iraqi people that a better life awaits them immediately after Saddam.
We also need a plan now for handling Iraq's oil industry and oil revenues. Those who say that a war in Iraq would be about an American quest to control Iraqi oil are patently wrong. But those suspicions exist, and will persist in the minds of many until we rebut them with action.
After the country and its oil production is wrested from Saddam's control, three things should happen. First, we must be clear: Iraq must own and manage its own oil resources. Reports indicate that the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization is a credible and well-managed organization. If this is so, it makes sense for it to continue doing the job, this time in service to a legitimate Iraqi government with the interests of the people at heart.
Second, we must require that for an initial period of time, all the financial benefit from that oil is invested directly in Iraq's revival and reconstruction.
Third, to guarantee that all these dealings are fair and transparent--and deflate the suspicion that particular oil companies or individuals are profiting disproportionately--I propose the establishment of an Interim International Oil Oversight Board. For too long, Saddam has diverted oil proceeds to build palaces for himself and weapons of mass destruction for his military. In the new Iraq, the Iraqi people and the world's people need to see that it is Iraq that benefits from its oil revenue. An oil oversight board, with Iraqi and international membership, could audit all dealings and disclose information to the public to make sure everything happens above board.
If we meet these urgent challenges quickly, decisively, and collaboratively with other nations, we will prove we have learned the lessons of Afghanistan and will secure in peace the victory we will surely win in war.
Conclusion
As you at the Council understand well, the Muslim world is being torn apart today by a civil war which pits a silent, impoverished, intimidated majority against a fanatical, violent, totalitarian minority that wants to exploit poverty and desperation and spark a clash of civilizations with the West. If we Americans are to stop a new theological iron curtain from falling and protect ourselves from the terrorism that will come from the other side of it, we need to support the silent majority in the Muslim world with the full force of our economic, political, and diplomatic clout. As the terrorists and tyrants seek to spread their poisonous hate, we must counter them with the antidotes of hope--economic opportunity, political freedom, and religious tolerance.
If we do that effectively in post-war Iraq, it will not only guarantee that the victory we achieve there will be lasting. It will also lead to long-term progress for the people of the Arab world, and long-term security for the people of the United States.
Thank you.
© Joe Lieberman for President, Inc. 2003
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