Posted on: Tuesday, September 2, 2003

EDITORIAL
U.S. must have help in Iraq rebuilding effort

It's only one of "several ideas that are being explored," said Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state. It's an idea that needs to be pursued with all the enthusiasm of a drowning man grabbing a life vest.

For the first time last week, Armitage said the United States might accept a United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping force in Iraq if it were led by U.S. military commanders.

He also said diplomats were considering the idea of giving U.S. commanders the top military role, while shifting control of the civilian reconstruction to the United Nations.

This new thinking reflects a realistic, if overdue, assessment of what clearly were unexpected difficulties in the occupation of Iraq. Although the White House stays firmly on message, insisting all is well with the Iraq effort, many indications strongly suggest otherwise.

Foremost are the bizarre internecine complications of this new landscape, as shown Friday by the deadly blast at a Shiite mosque in Najaf, and the earlier senseless bombing of unguarded United Nations offices.

This against the steady drumbeat of American casualties in the days since an upbeat President Bush declared "mission accomplished." And the $4 billion-a-month cost of the military deployment, plus unexpectedly high reconstruction costs, have quickly depleted the seized Iraqi assets, the money already set aside by Congress, and revenues from the dribble of Iraqi oil now being sold.

Last week Paul Bremer, who leads the American reconstruction effort in Iraq, suddenly admitted that he would need "several tens of billions" in aid next year. Why do we get the idea his message was intended, not for the public, but for the White House?

We owe thanks to the "coalition of the willing" that is sending troops to Iraq, but this force is too small to make an important difference. Substantial help can come from larger countries — if those countries can be assured that they will have some say in the disposition of their troops, and if the enterprise is endorsed by the United Nations.

It's reassuring that some administration officials are now thinking along those lines. But it's no secret that a deep fault line separates the thinking of Armitage and his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, from that of the stalwarts at Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, who have resisted all but minor U.N. involvement in Iraq.

While the total number of allied troops on the ground in Iraq may be adequate for suppression of the guerrilla warfare that has plagued the reconstruction effort, it is clear that there's a severe shortage of many other skills, ranging from police to aid, health and medical workers.

Full-on U.N. involvement is what is needed to keep Iraq from becoming another warlord-riven Afghanistan.