US
Ambassador Peter Galbraith Talks About His Book "The End of Iraq"
30.8.2006
By Judith Latham | |
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Washington, 30 August 2006,
-- Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and author of
a controversial new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence
Created a War without End, says America invaded Iraq with the goal
of bringing democracy to it and transforming the region. Instead, he
claims, Iraq has disintegrated into three parts – a pro-Western
Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-dominated Shiite entity in the
south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center. Speaking with
host Carol Castiel of
VOA News Now’s Press Conference USA, Ambassador Galbraith says,
in developing a workable strategy for Iraq, one must begin by facing
up to the current situation.
Ambassador Galbraith states categorically, “There can be no strategy
of keeping Iraq together because it is not together.” For example,
the Kurds in the north don’t want to be part of Iraq, and in a
referendum last year 98 percent voted for independence. It took 6
months to form the new Iraqi government, he says, but “most
important it doesn’t govern anything” – neither the Kurdish north,
nor the south (which is run by Shiite religious parties) nor the
Sunni Arab area (which is a “battleground”) nor even Baghdad (which
beyond the Green Zone is the “frontline of a civil war”)
Ambassador Galbraith suggests there are important historical
parallels between Iraq and other multi-ethnic states put together at
the end of World War I, such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the
Soviet Union. The lesson, he argues, is that, “where people in a
geographically defined area don’t want to be part of a state, you
can’t keep them in a state.”
Although Iraqi leaders before the war told Washington that they
wanted a unified or a federal Iraq, he says it’s “not surprising”
that exiled leaders would present the case to the U.S. superpower in
a way that would “bring about the result they wanted, which was
American military action to overthrow Saddam.”
According to Ambassador Galbraith, the occupation of Iraq - from the
day that American troops toppled Saddam Hussein’s statue in April
2003 - is probably the “single most incompetently managed major U.S.
policy undertaking in the history of our republic.” The United
States, he says, went into Baghdad with “too few troops,” ignoring
the advice of the military, with “no plans to secure anything,
except for the oil ministry,” and furthermore the “feuding parts of
the U.S. government had opposed strategies” for actually governing
Iraq. But most important, Ambassador Galbraith says, Washington had
no plan to avoid the violence, which has “tragically spun out of
control.” |
Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia
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It was never the U.S. administration’s plan to break up Iraq, but
according to Ambassador Galbraith, “They knew so little about Iraq
that they never understood that one of the consequences of the
invasion was likely to be the breakup.” Ambassador Galbraith says
Iraq has already broken up, and “to try to put it back together
again” would involve U.S. troops fighting Shiite militias to disarm
them with U.S. troops “becoming the police of Baghdad.” Most
troubling, he says, is the administration’s erroneous belief that
the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis think of themselves primarily “as
Iraqis.”
Washington has a choice, Ambassador Galbraith says. If the mission
is to pursue a “unified and democratic Iraq,” it will have to commit
300,000 more troops and accept 10 times as many casualties to disarm
the Shiite militias. If it is unwilling to make that commitment, he
argues, it should “get the coalition out of southern Iraq tomorrow.”
And if U.S. troops are unable to stop the civil war in Baghdad, he
argues, there is “no purpose in being there.” He suggests the Sunni
Arabs be encouraged to set up their own region and to provide their
own security.
Ambassador Galbraith notes that Iraq’s neighbors have vital
interests in its fate. He says Iran’s influence in Iraq is
unavoidable, but a formal breakup of Iraq might limit that influence
to a southern Shiite state. Kurdistan, he says, is independent in
all but name. He argues that Turkey’s attitude toward Iraqi
Kurdistan has “evolved” over time, and Ankara now fully endorses
“federalism.”
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