A Clean, Brief Occupation

President Bush said in his Feb. 26 speech to the American Enterprise Institute that the United States would “remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more.” However, what that means is open to debate, and one has raged inside the U.S. government.

One faction, rooted in the Pentagon, says that because Washington went to war without endorsement by the U.N. Security Council and with a sizable troop commitment only from Britain, the United States is entitled to lead the occupation of Iraq, with the United Nations bringing up the rear. But keeping the U.S. in charge indefinitely would only fuel hatred from those who say the United States aims to colonize first Iraq and then the rest of the Middle East. The U.N. should seek a larger role in the name of quelling the inevitable violent fallout of that hate.

It is not possible with the war still raging to develop a detailed blueprint of what postwar Iraq should look like, but the outlines are clear. The major concerns after Saddam Hussein’s regime has been toppled, even as the hunt for chemical and biological weapons goes on, will be maintaining security, providing food, water and medicine for the Iraqi people and reconstituting a government. Except for the first point, security, these are jobs for which the U.N. is better suited by experience and reputation.

* Security: First soldiers, then international civilian police, will have to patrol cities. Individual Iraqi police officers should also be back on duty as soon as they are cleared of close ties to Hussein’s regime. The forces’ first jobs will be to prevent looting -- which began in some cities as soon as the first bombs dropped and police vanished -- and block revenge killings, aimed primarily at Hussein loyalists. Ideally, the U.S. should lead an international coalition with forces from NATO -- again to show that it is not just Washington that has a stake in rebuilding Iraq into a democratic nation. One model is the U.S.-led deployment of NATO forces to Kosovo and Bosnia; a poorer example is Afghanistan, where the international peacekeeping force was too small from the start and unwisely limited to Kabul.

* Humanitarian aid: The United Nations specializes in feeding victims of war and binding their wounds. It has extensive experience in Iraq, including supervision of the program that fed 60% of Iraqis with food purchased from Iraqi oil sales funds. Dozens of private aid groups also are ready to help in Iraq, as they have in Afghanistan. The job of soldiers is killing and imposing security; civilians with experience in cleaning up after wars are better at resettling refugees and providing food and medical care. They are less likely to leave resentment in their wake.

* Rebuilding: Getting Iraq functioning should depend heavily on Iraqis, not outsiders. Baghdad has an extensive, if impoverished, middle class and many educated civil servants and technocrats. Hiring local dockworkers, crane operators and administrators for the Umm al Qasr port, where much humanitarian aid will enter the country, and bringing back oil field workers to resume production will be important early steps. So will be getting government ministries running, using engineers and administrators not tainted by close ties to Hussein’s regime. Foreign supervision of some ministries may be needed at the start, but Iraqis should have control as soon as possible.

Washington must ensure that foreign firms as well as U.S. companies are able to make money from reconstruction and must keep its promise that Iraq’s oil wealth will be used to help Iraq.

* Government: Iraqi exiles supported by the Pentagon have tried to form a provisional government, hoping that they will be the backbone, if not the entire structure, of an eventual Iraqi interim authority. The White House has resisted, insisting it must ensure that those inside the country, including Kurds, are consulted about forming a transitional regime. The U.S. has to stick to this line or risk even more civil friction than already exists in Iraq. It is uncertain how much support exiles have within Iraq and how much they are resented for leaving. Ahmed Chalabi, a Pentagon favorite to lead Iraq, left the country several decades ago.

Additionally, the State Department, not the Pentagon, should be responsible for overseeing creation of a civilian government until the U.N. becomes involved, preferably within weeks. Every U.S. soldier overseeing a government ministry would be viewed as a signal of occupation and imperial ambition. Until an interim authority is set up, civilian authority is expected to be exercised by Jay Garner, a retired general, who would report to Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command and the officer in charge of the war. This setup should be as brief as possible.

The U.S. should consult groups like the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Iraq’s neighbors. Saudi Arabia will not be happy if Iraq comes to be dominated by the majority Shiite Muslims, as is next-door Iran. Jordan depends on Iraq for discounted oil and will be in grave difficulty if the price rises to market rates. Turkey fears an uprising by Kurds in Iraq that would spread to restive Kurds in Turkey.

The Bush administration set lofty goals for war in Iraq, including liberating its people and peacefully returning their nation to them. The estimates of U.S. troop strength needed to enforce the peace -- perhaps 75,000 or more soldiers -- and of the cost of rebuilding the nation -- perhaps $20 billion annually for several years -- are staggering. Oil revenue might pay for part of that, but not all. International partners could provide financial help for reconstruction; some of that might even come from nations angered at what they saw as preemptive war against a nation that posed little direct threat. A participation deal would help repair damaged relations with France, Germany, Russia and others opposed to the war.

Bush and his aides did a poor job of explaining the rationale for this war, switching from finding weapons of mass destruction to changing Hussein’s regime to alleging a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda to encouraging democracy in the Middle East to all of the above. The postwar effort will demand much greater clarity, as well as humility in knowing when to bow out, if the world is to be persuaded that the U.S. lives up to its stated ideals.