GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
U.S. ditching democracy in Iraq?
Appointment of Brahimi signals 'cut and run' policy
May 29, 2004

The Bush administration's agreement for Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to
Iraq, to choose the next interim Iraqi government could signal the end of U.S.
efforts to establish democracy in Iraq, says Geostrategy-Direct, the global
intelligence news service.

The appointment appears to be part of a scenario in which the United States
plans to order troops home after a general election in Iraq by the end of the
year. Under this scenario, Iraq will have had its election, the United States
will have declared victory and the only losers may be those who hope for Iraqi
and Arab democracy.

GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
U.S. ditching democracy in Iraq?
Appointment of Brahimi signals 'cut and run' policy
May 29, 2004

The Bush administration's agreement for Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to
Iraq, to choose the next interim Iraqi government could signal the end of U.S.
efforts to establish democracy in Iraq, says Geostrategy-Direct, the global
intelligence news service.

The appointment appears to be part of a scenario in which the United States
plans to order troops home after a general election in Iraq by the end of the
year. Under this scenario, Iraq will have had its election, the United States
will have declared victory and the only losers may be those who hope for Iraqi
and Arab democracy.

"The decision to allow Brahimi to run Iraq until the end of the year means the
administration has embarked on a cut-and-run policy," a senior congressional
aide involved in U.S. policy on Iraq said. "The policy is based on pleasing the
same Arab despots that the administration has sought to oppose to perhaps win a
few months of quiet in Iraq - just enough time for the U.S. to get out."

The choice of Brahimi could not have given a better indication of the
administration's about-face on Iraq. Brahimi symbolizes everything the
administration's so-called democratic reform policy for the Arab world opposes.


For decades, Brahimi's job in the Arab League, Algerian Foreign Ministry and
U.N. has been to ensure the Arab status quo. No democracy, no human rights, no
peaceful avenues for change have been noticeable items on his agenda

Brahimi has been particularly close to such so-called models of democracy as
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He was foreign minister of and chief
apologist for Algeria during the worst excesses of the military regime from
1991 to 1993. His daughter is engaged to the brother of Jordan's King Abdullah.
Brahimi is regarded as extremely close to Arab League Secretary-general Amr
Mussa and to the Egyptian leadership.

Brahimi's conduct during the Taif talks to end the civil war in Lebanon offers
a glimpse into how this diplomat operates. Brahimi worked out an agreement that
consolidated Syria's military occupation of Lebanon for at least a decade. That
gave Damascus enough time to so thoroughly co-opt the government and elite in
Beirut that not one prominent Lebanese politician has since called for the
withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Indeed, such a call has been regarded
as a crime in Lebanon.

Iraqi sources said Brahimi - who helped set up the new government in
Afghanistan - has approached his current job in Iraq in a similar way to that
of Taif - lots of talk but leave the real authority in the hands of the
despots. They said that during his first meeting with the Iraqi Governing
Council, Brahimi made it clear that he was not just meeting them as a U.N.
envoy, but rather as a "brother Arab." For those Kurds and Shiites, who form
the majority of the IGC, the message was clear: You are not wanted.

Already, Brahimi has focused on marginalizing Kurds and Shiites in any Iraqi
leadership with the Kurds being the first target. He told the Kurds they would
not be included in the first level of Iraqi leadership. Instead, the Kurds were
offered one of the two vice presidents, a formula used in the Arab world to
provide an impressive title bereft of authority. The Kurds already have
rejected the proposal, which expected to delay U.S. hopes for general elections
in Iraq in January 2005.

The Shiites also have been shifting uneasily. Brahimi appears to be passing
over the democrats in the Shiite community and instead seeks those who are
ready to guarantee the minority Sunni community with a leading role in Iraq.
And when Brahimi talks of Sunnis, he means Saddam's former thugs.

Iraqi sources that have attended Brahimi's meetings said the U.N. envoy plans
to appoint a figurehead - perhaps Sharif Ali -- as president. But the real
power will lay with Ali's deputy who almost certainly will be a former Saddam
aide. As Brahimi sees it, Iraqis need a strong hand.

Brahimi has made it clear he opposes removing Baathists from power. He said
U.S. efforts to remove the Baathists from government, schools, police and the
military have been extreme. The 2 million Baathists in Iraq carried out
Saddam's policy of torture, death and deportation. The only criteria for
government jobs was Baathist membership.

In Saddam's world, there were no technocrats. As a result, the U.S. military
was ordered to release Iraqi terrorists and criminals en masse from Abu Gharib
prison. Saddam's former generals and troops were given the keys to Fallujah,
the heart of the Sunni insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition.

Ironically, the U.S. "de-Baathification" policy has been deemed the most
popular policy in Iraq. CPA chief Paul Bremer continues to be thanked by
ordinary Iraqis for removing Saddam loyalists that did nothing for the country
other than rob and kill.

Why the about-face in the Bush administration? Senior U.S. State Department
officials will tell you straight: The administration was wrong in its Iraqi
strategy. The plan should have been to just get rid of Saddam and leave the
rest to the U.N. As these officials see it, the Iraqis, along with the rest of
the Arabs, are basically criminals and incapable of democracy.

"Iraq is very much a tribal society, and tribal leaders and tribal membership
is extraordinarily important, and I think we were not as farsighted on that as
possible," said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. "The second thing
is, I don't think any of us had realized the extent to which much of Iraq had
become a criminal society during the time of Saddam Hussein; and particularly
since the sanctions, people had become very entrepreneurial in criminal
enterprise, and I think that was an element that we hadn't properly expected.
So those are a couple of my disappointments."

Armitage made clear that the United States essentially has dropped its reform
policy in both Iraq as well as the rest of the Arab world.

Washington will serve as a cheerleader, nothing more.

"To the extent they spread democracy, it will be by their example," Armitage
said. "Let's be clear on that."

Already, the Iraqi experiment has shown that, given stability, Iraqis will make
the right choices and reject despotic regime sponsors.

U.S. officials said that in the March and April local elections that took place
in the Shiite provinces in southern Iraq, independents and representatives of
non-religious parties beat the Islamists backed by Iran in nearly every case.
Take away the belief that the U.S. wants a real election in Iraq - by having
Brahimi stack the deck against independents - and Iraqis will choose the
candidates they fear most.

There is one obstacle to the administration's policy - Ahmad Chalabi. The
State Department, CIA and parts of the White House regard Chalabi as a
dangerous man. Simply put, he knows too much.

Chalabi repeatedly has warned the United States not to backtrack on its
decision to remove Saddam's aides from power.

Chalabi said allowing Saddam's generals to command the army and security forces
would destroy any chance of democracy in the country and threaten to split Iraq
into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni zones. He has also threatened to release
damaging details on the corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program, which
included high U.N. officials, possibly including the son of Secretary-general
Kofi Annan.

"I have opened up the investigation of the oil-for-food program, which has cast
doubt about the integrity of the U.N. here," Chalabi said. "They don't like
this."

But Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell were not to be dissuaded. They are
convinced that unless the administration converts Iraq into an international
problem, the U.S. will never succeed in leaving Iraq. The sight of U.S. boys
dying daily in Iraq without a clear exit strategy is not seen as a reelection
strategy.

"There will be some Baathists who wind up getting back into positions of power
in violation of the policy - people with blood on their hands, people who
were directly involved in the former regime's crimes, and when that's made
available to us, we will get to the bottom of it and ensure that they're out of
positions of power," CPA senior adviser Dan Senor said. "But we need to know
who these people are."

The first thing the administration did was to cut off funding for Chalabi and
his Iraqi National Congress, or INC. The INC had been receiving $335,000 a
month from the Defense Department to provide intelligence. And none other than
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has testified that
INC-provided intelligence saved American lives.

The second goal by CIA and State was to discredit Chalabi. Former U.S.
officials, including a current lobbyist to an Arab state, have been feeding the
major U.S. media word that Chalabi relayed U.S. funding and intelligence
information to Iran. Of course, Chalabi has not been formally charged or even
accused on the record by any U.S. official.

The third goal was to humiliate Chalabi. The CPA and the Iraqis had arranged
for television news crews to record Chalabi and his top aides being led out in
handcuffs. But Chalabi outwitted the U.S. authorities, and he was not at home.

Brahimi's role in Baghdad - with U.S. endorsement - could destroy Iraq once
and for all. The assessment by many Iraqis is that the United States will begin
to withdraw its troops from Iraq after the presidential elections in November.
By mid-2005, most U.S. troops will be out of the country and Iraq will be
plunged into civil war. Iran will grab the Shiite areas of central and southern
Iraq. Turkey will invade northern Iraq. And Jordan and Saudi Arabia will vie
for control over the Sunni minority.

For Washington, time is short. U.S. officials hope that Brahimi will come up
with names for the new interim Iraqi government by the first week of June. The
proposed government will be presented to the UN and work has already begun on a
Security Council resolution to endorse the arrangement.

Powell has spent much of his time trying to convince Congress of Brahimi's
usefulness to administration policy. He hopes Brahimi will win Iraq
international recognition and a U.N. peacekeeping role that would include Arab
states. Already, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Oman have signaled their
willingness to contribute troops under a U.N. umbrella.

"Brahimi is not an unknown to us," Powell said. "Ambassador Brahimi worked with
us in Afghanistan. We really need the U.N., and we work with the U.N. And for
people who say we want to internationalize this, that means the United Nations,
it means NATO, it means other international organizations."