Military Rule Not Likely in Postwar Iraq

The Bush administration is talking to allies about governing a postwar Iraq under a U.N. mandate or through an international civilian coalition, abandoning proposals for U.S. military rule during an expected two-year transition back to Iraqi rule, senior administration officials say.

As a model for the process, the United States increasingly is looking at the international civilian administration established in 1999 for Kosovo -- a province of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic -- rather than the military rule of Japan or Germany after World War II, the sources say. Instead of assuming full responsibility for Iraq, Washington wants to bring in other resources and international institutions to share the burden -- as well as the potential benefits -- of a complex and sensitive transition in the oil-rich country.

“Interagency discussions are still ongoing, but the idea of a military governorship or a figure like Gen. [Douglas] MacArthur running Iraq is really no longer considered a viable answer,” said a State Department official.

MacArthur oversaw the occupation of Japan following World War II.

“There’s growing recognition of the need for an international imprimatur, or U.N. support or a coalition of like-minded nations -- always in close concert with the Iraqis themselves,” the official added.

Just as Washington has approached about 50 nations seeking help for a potential military offensive to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials are now exploring a potential postwar role with dozens of countries.

“A big part of our message is that you have to begin thinking about the post-Saddam period, and now is the time to get involved,” said a well-placed U.S. official who requested anonymity. “It’s contingency only at this stage, and it’s not a done deal. But they are responding.”

Like strategy for a potential armed conflict with Iraq, U.S. planning for a postwar period began long before the United Nations recently launched a new weapons inspection program in the country. The planning is based on the assumption that Hussein’s regime will not fully cooperate with the U.N., sparking a U.S.-led assault.

As part of the inspections program, Iraq handed over thousands of pages of documents to U.N. officials Saturday, denying it has weapons of mass destruction.

Plans for a postwar Iraq are still a long way from being finalized, and the U.S. military is likely to play the leading role in the first stage of a transition, U.S. officials say. But the U.S. goal is now to make that period as brief as possible in what may be the chaotic aftermath of decades of authoritarian rule and to quickly open the way for an international administration, U.S. officials say.

After a U.S.-led bombing campaign forced Yugoslav troops to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999, the U.N. set up an interim administration. It was backed by a security force led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a reconstruction plan orchestrated by the European Union and a humanitarian effort run by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“We’re using Kosovo as the model. We want a civilian administrator, not a military person. And we’d prefer a non-U.S. person,” such as a European diplomat, an administration official said.

The U.N. mission in Kosovo has been led by French, Danish and German administrators.

“We’d be quite happy to see Iraq under U.N. mandate too,” the administration official added. “That should be quite feasible if the war is fought under clear authorization of the [U.N.] Security Council.”

After months of intense debate inside the Bush administration, the growing consensus about sharing responsibility for post-Hussein Iraq reflects the Pentagon’s reluctance to remain entrenched there as it has been in Afghanistan.

“Take the problems we’ve seen in Afghanistan and multiply by 30. That’s Iraq,” said the administration official, who also requested that his name be withheld.

The United States has also tentatively concluded that the leadership of a post-Hussein Iraq would most likely come from within Iraq, not from among the exiled opposition groups backed by Washington.

The administration is increasingly frustrated with the Iraqi exile groups, which are scheduled to open a long-deferred conference this week in London. On the eve of the meeting, set to bring together all the major ethnic and religious factions, the groups are divided on several issues.

“In my personal view, the next leader of Iraq is going to be someone inside the country,” said a second senior State Department official. “It’s unlikely that anybody who’s been outside the country for 35 years is going to be the next leader of Iraq.”

One of the biggest disputes within the opposition has been an insistence by Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi that the groups form a government in exile or an equivalent body, a move U.S. officials staunchly oppose. Several top Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department officials met with the opposition last week in an attempt to quash any jockeying for top positions in a post-Hussein era.

The White House last week also named Zalmay Khalilzad, who serves as special envoy for Afghanistan, as ambassador to the “free Iraqis” to more closely coordinate their efforts.

Washington expects that at their conference, the opposition groups will come up with an “advisory entity” or “executive committee,” as well as some guiding principles for a new government in Iraq, according to administration sources.

In a signal of deepening U.S. intent to end Hussein’s 23-year rule, Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Charles Hagel (R-Neb.) made a surprise visit this weekend to Iraq’s northern Kurdistan, an autonomous region protected by U.S. and British warplanes since 1991.

“I do not know what the next weeks and months will bring, but I do know what the future must bring for you and for Iraq -- a country that is united, that addresses the goal of democracy and that respects the rights of all its citizens,” Biden told a hastily assembled session of the Kurds’ 105-member parliament. “We will stand with you in your effort to build a united Iraq.”

Biden and Hagel both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Biden is its outgoing chairman.