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IRAQ-REACT May-26-2004 (1,260 words) With photo posted May 25. xxxn
Catholic leaders find Bush's Iraq policy too U.S.-dominated
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Iraq policy outlined by President Bush in a nationally televised speech May 24 remains too U.S.-dominated while a more multinational approach is needed, several Catholic justice and peace leaders said in telephone interviews.
They said American mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners has dealt a heavy blow to U.S. moral authority in the region.
"We've been in favor of a swift handover (of governance) to the Iraqi people," said Trinitarian Father Stanley W. DeBoe, justice and peace director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. But the U.S. plan for a transitional government taking over June 30 involves "an overwhelming U.S. presence," with U.S. military forces still in place and U.S. advisers holding key staff positions throughout that government, he said.
Franciscan Sister Marie Lucey, associate director for social mission of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said Bush indicated some movement toward making security and reconstruction in Iraq a more international effort, but "it's extremely late to look for a U.N. presence. That should have been done long ago."
The CMSM and LCWR are national organizations representing the heads of U.S. men's and women's religious orders.
President Bush's 33-minute speech at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., was largely an amplification on a U.S.-British draft resolution introduced earlier that day to the U.N. Security Council.
The proposed resolution pledges a transfer of power to an interim government June 30 and sets a timetable for direct elections for a transitional national assembly by Jan. 31, 2005. It calls for U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is currently engaged in selecting a president and top Cabinet members for an interim government, to convene a national conference in July to select an advisory council for the interim government. It provides for Iraqi control of oil revenues but retains the international advisory board monitoring proper use of the Development Fund for Iraq.
In his speech Bush said, "There are five steps in our plan to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom. We will hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government, help establish security, continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, encourage more international support and move toward a national election that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people."
He called the June 30 transfer of power "an essential commitment of our strategy."
George A. Lopez, director of policy studies at the University of Notre Dame's Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, said, "There's a bit of a disconnect between what the president indicated was forthcoming and what's really in the (U.N.) resolution."
Lopez said the proposal would make Iraq "the only country in the world that has sovereignty but has no administrative control over foreign troops on its soil. There is no provision for what an American command or communication obligation is to Iraqi authority."
Despite the president's call for greater internationalization of the peacekeeping force in Iraq, Lopez said, "the truth of the matter is that this is the same coalition force, even with its dwindling numbers. The only request for a new force (in the U.N. resolution) is the one he didn't mention (in his speech), which would be a smaller multilateral unit to protect U.N. administrative services, should the U.N. choose to come in."
The U.S.-British proposal that the Security Council "review" operations of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq after 12 months carries no teeth, Lopez said, because it has no provision for those forces to withdraw unless the council votes for a withdrawal -- and the United States holds veto power over such a vote.
The president's reference to building a modern prison at Abu Ghraib and tearing down the existing one, now notorious for the American abuse of Iraqi prisoners there, raises several questions about authority lines under the proposed interim government, Lopez said.
Among questions he asked were: Who will be in charge of Iraqis taken prisoner by coalition forces after June 30, the coalition or the government? Who will make arrest and detention decisions? Will American forces have to turn any prisoners over to Iraqi authorities or can they ship them off to the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? After June 30 who will be in charge of those currently detained by coalition forces? Who will have authority to approve or conduct raids against suspected insurgents? When a riot or insurgent attack takes place, who responds? Does it depend on who is closer? Who decides who will respond?
"These are really, really difficult questions" that were not addressed by the resolution or the president's speech, but that need to be worked out before there can be a transfer of power, he said.
Father DeBoe and Sister Lucey both criticized the president's announcement of plans to destroy the Abu Ghraib prison if the new Iraqi government agrees. They called his approach an emphasis on symbol over substance.
"I do not believe what happened in that prison was (the fault of) a building. The demolition of a building is not going to change attitudes," Sister Lucey said. She said a reform of practices in handling detainees was needed, "but I really believe that the roots go deeper. ... There is a basic underlying attitude that has demonized the Iraqis and enabled such behavior to occur."
Father DeBoe agreed. "To me, just saying that we're going to tear it down is almost like (saying) let's put that to the side and forget about it. We can't forget. Some changes need to be made ... tearing down some of the cultural structures of our military that created conditions like this."
While a few "low-level military people" have been arrested and face charges, he added, "people of authority need to take responsibility for this ... and not let this rest entirely on the shoulders of the people who were on the ground."
John Borelli, special assistant for interreligious affairs to the president of Georgetown University and a longtime expert in Christian-Muslim relations, said Bush's speech named some of the difficult factors confronted in Iraq.
Among them, he said, is the fact that the rapid coalition victory with little military resistance meant that some "thugs and criminals of Saddam's regime" evaded capture and "have joined forces with people inspired by a terrorist or al-Qaida ideology, so Iraq has become the battleground."
"What's not named is the fact that the people of Iraq continue to suffer. ... Their country has become this terrible battleground, and the American forces brought it there," he said. "What moral high ground we had for removing Saddam and his thugs is evaporating, unfortunately, and moral high ground was lost in the treatment of prisoners -- and nothing was said of that (in Bush's speech). The apology's over."
Borelli expressed strong doubts that the United States can be the one to put together a strategy that will work in Iraq in the wake of blunders that have alienated virtually the entire Islamic world. "The rhetoric of the clash of civilizations is out there," he said. "I think a great deal of suspicion and distrust of the West and American-led forces by Muslims around the world is predictable. I think we lost the compass here."
Lopez said he did not think a transfer of the current coalition force to U.N. command would be feasible. "I think you would have to constitute a very different multinational force," he said. "We had that opportunity last November and we had that opportunity last May, when it was the best opportunity to do that. And we decided no, we'd go it alone."
END
Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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