Bush’s Enemies List

The Pentagon, by allowing for too few troops and by exercising too much optimism in planning for postwar Iraq, shot itself in both feet. It also apparently deafened itself to international reality.

The military’s announcement Tuesday that it would not issue major Iraq reconstruction contracts to countries that didn’t support the U.S.-led war was clumsy enough; consider that Canada was included on this updated enemies list. The timing is what puts the ban in the “what were they thinking?” category.

Just last week, President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to wheedle patience from countries that are owed more than $100 billion in debts incurred by Saddam Hussein’s regime. The two biggest creditors are France and Russia, which of course are among those banned from getting major reconstruction contracts.

It’s true that Paris and Moscow snuggled up to Hussein even after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to procure lucrative contracts allowed under United Nations guidelines. But Russia has cooperated in helping to destroy its own Soviet-era nuclear weapons and is a U.S. ally in trying to stop or roll back North Korea’s nuclear arms program. France has provided troops to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan.

Canada sent troops to Afghanistan and saw several killed in an accidental bombing by a U.S. plane. Canadians have directed peacekeeping forces in Kabul as well. Ottawa opposed the war but has pledged more than $200 million for reconstruction of Iraq. Outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Thursday that Bush had told him Canadian firms would not be stopped from bidding, but it was unclear whether they would be limited to being subcontractors, like firms of other banned countries.

Bush called the leaders of France, Russia and Germany (also on the list) on Wednesday to urge them to help restructure Iraq’s debt. We can only imagine the reception he got.

The Iraqi government to be formed next year will indeed start from too big a hole if it is forced to spend most of its money just paying interest on the debts of the Hussein regime. To get international cooperation, Washington should at least cancel the ban for countries that donate to Iraqi reconstruction, Canada foremost, and those suspending or forgiving debt.

The ban, laid out in a memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, has blown big holes in the shaky efforts of the Bush administration to seek international help in mending and pacifying Iraq. If Bush didn’t know what Wolfowitz was about to do, that’s incompetence. If Bush knew, and perhaps even saw it as part of a carrot-and-stick policy, that’s foolhardy.