In America, the wave of patriotism that gripped the country after the terrorist attacks and carried it through two wars gradually seems to be subsiding. When asked whether it was politicians or members of the intelligence community who manipulated the truth, many US citizens now point to the Pentagon and the White House. It was no coincidence that Vice President Dick Cheney made frequent trips to CIA headquarters in Langley before the war, so as to arm himself with the right arguments, nor is his current genteel reticence a coincidence. Rumsfeld, for his part, created a small department at the Pentagon to review CIA analyses he considered overly cautious, and to promptly produce the desired outcome.
For the first time since September 11, 2001, the opposition is making itself heard with open criticism of the president. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy is at the head of the pack, claiming that Bush' post-war policies "are built on a quicksand of false assumptions, and the result has been chaos for the Iraqi people, and continuing mortal danger for our troops." At the same time, he has urged that the United States move for a UN resolution under which NATO would be asked to assume responsibility for reconstruction in Iraq. The Democratic presidential candidates are also weighing in. "In some respects, this administration has a problem with the truth," said John Edwards, the boyish senator from North Carolina. His colleague from Florida, Bob Graham, has taken this a step further, claiming that the manipulation of the evidence of Saddam's intentions constitutes a sufficiently serious crime to justify impeachment proceedings - just as an apparent lie served as the basis for impeachment proceedings against Bush' predecessor Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, a new television commercial uses a play on the words "leader" and "misleader" to impress upon viewers the idea of Bush the leader, a man who misled his people and the world.
Unlike the case of Tony Blair in England, however, the debate surrounding the legitimacy of the war has yet to undermine the authority of the US president. The alleged weapons of mass destruction do not carry the same significance for the Americans as for the British. In the mind of the American public, the war against Iraq is, for the most part, a second strike in the collective retribution for the attacks of September 11, 2001. For this reason, the daily death toll among US soldiers in Baghdad, Najaf and Faludja is still a greater cause for concern with the American people - as well as the fact that the chaos in Baghdad simply refuses to go away.
Every day, the Americans hand out street maps of the Iraqi capital, on which dangerous neighborhoods are marked in black. So far, the danger zones have not become smaller. Gunfire can also be heard there during the day, and the gunshot wound victims being treated in hospitals still outnumber the victims of traffic accidents. Thick smoke still hangs over some parts of the city, where arson is just as much a part of the daily routine as muggings and car theft. Baghdad's residents who, for the most part, stoically endured even the hail of US bombs, now complain about how unsafe life has become.
There are still daily power failures, a problem partly attributable to attacks on power plants and transformers. However, because there are too few specialists among the 2,000 civilian employees reporting to the 61-year-old American administrator, Paul Bremer, the US military is forced to send out its soldiers to maintain the power supply.
And they're barely able to muddle their way through.
Until recently, the Americans were still talking about Iraq's reconstruction being financed by its immense future oil revenues. But those revenues will be a long time in coming. Although the US civil administration has now been able to sell the first oil pumped after the war, it still has to import gasoline from neighboring countries to avert constant bottlenecks.
The mistrust is mutual. As the Iraqis protest ever more vocally, the occupiers retreat behind their protective walls and into their fortresses whenever possible. Their priority, as the new supreme commander Abizaid has also confirmed, is the hunt for Saddam Hussein.
To that end, special forces of the US army have once again combed through the bomb crater in the upper-class Baghdad neighborhood of Mansur left by remote-controlled precision weapons on April 7. Seventeen truckloads of debris from the apartment building in which Saddam was supposedly hiding were brought to the military airport. From there, the debris was flown to the United States, where scientists will examine it for traces of DNA, using the same methods used to identify victims of the World Trade Center attack.
35 of the 52 protagonists from the Saddam nomenclature the Pentagon had pictured on playing cards have now been captured. The most prominent figure is Abd al-Hamid Hamud, the dictator's security advisor and secretary, who had just returned from Syria with a forged passport and Belorussian identification papers. Could this indicate that Saddam and his trusted circle are really in exile there?
Each new capture raises hopes that it will provide new information on the escape routes of Saddam and his sons. The search for the three men lies in the hands of Task Force 20, a secret military unit whose existence the Pentagon has now officially acknowledged. Its arsenal includes spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, and drones armed with Hellfire rockets.
The special unit was deployed again on July 9. Shortly before sunrise, tanks and soldiers surrounded an isolated farm northwest of Baghdad. It belongs to a cousin of Saddam, and locals had seen "many new cars" parked there. Intercepted telephone calls supported the assumption that Saddam and his entourage could have taken refuge there.
Apache helicopers circled over the property while speedboats idled nearby in the Tigris. But the house the soldiers stormed was abandoned. There was fresh bread in the kitchen, and sweat-drenched men's clothing suggested a hasty departure. False documents and pieces of paper with satellite telephone numbers were seized, while a machine gun, antitank rockets and explosives were found in the garden.
By now the Americans believe it is possible that Saddam had already planned his escape underground and the guerilla war prior to his defeat. "Newsweek" has cited an Iraqi secret service document, which allegedly contains the command "to take appropriate action against the American-British-Zionist coalition after the fall of the Iraqi leadership." This included eleven steps, from looting and arson to acts of sabotage against power plants and the murder of mullahs - in short, anything that contributes to chaos.
The as yet unsuccessful hunt for Saddam is fast becoming a myth of the deposed dictator no one is able to catch. Last Thursday, he apparently delivered his third taped message, in which he derides the Iraqi National Council, established last week at the instruction of US administrator Bremer. As long as Saddam remains at large, the guerilla movement will remain active.
Career diplomat Bremer is attempting to fill the power vacuum by making drastic decisions. The 25 members of the National Council closely reflect the ethnic and religious makeup of the country; 13 are Shiiites, who constitute 65 percent of the total population. Although the council is intended as an advisory body for Bremer, it took him by surprise by sending two emissaries to New York, who intend to lay claim to the representation of their country before the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Ahmed Chalabi, a third council member and former exile politician whose position is now severely compromised, refused to make the trip because the Americans were only willing to provide a military transport plane. He wanted an upholstered seat.
Bremer is making a considerable effort to win over unsuspicious portions of the old establishment. 250,000 soldiers of Saddam's army are still being paid a salary of between 50 and 150 dollars, and 1.3 million civil servants have also remained on the payroll. 70,000 police officers will soon be deployed to help bring about law and order, and to facilitate the occupying army's withdrawal from cities and villages. To date, however, not even half of these officers are performing their duties.
America's experience these days is paradoxical: Although it is a vastly superior superpower, its solo efforts have rather narrow limits. It can win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, in doing so, take revenge for September 11th. But the actual trophies, Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, remain elusive, diminish the victory, and inspire resistance.
The United States can claim that the UN and NATO have lost their significance, and it can even divide Europe into regions friendly and hostile to America, into a new and an old Europe, but their unilateralism quickly and drastically imposes limits. It is for this reason that, following the capture of Baghdad, a renaissance of international cooperation is taking place, a virtual rebirth of diplomacy.
In dealing with North Korea, America hides its cluelessness behind its request that China, in particular, do its best to exercise its influence over Kim Jong Il.
Multilateralism instead of unilateralism is also the order of the day in dealing with Iran. Russia and the European Union are pressuring the mullah regime to refrain from building nuclear weapons. In contrast, Washington's threats of making Iran or Syria the next targets of regime change have gradually subsided. And the "Road Map" for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is a joint effort by the EU, the United Nations, Russia, and the United States. Now Washington is even asking for a Security Council resolution to send peacekeepers to Liberia.
The United States has overtaxed its own strength. During the current fiscal year, the Bush administration faces a deficit of 455 billion dollars, one third more than predicted. Stationing 148,000 troops in Iraq costs 3.9 billion dollars a month. Millions of Iraqis are more dependent than ever on the distribution of food and medical aid.
Just how much reconstruction is costing is concealed by a tangle of numbers that even the US Congress has found difficult to decipher. The occupying power still has about seven billion dollars for non-military purposes at its disposal. This includes one billion from development funds, 1.7 billion from frozen Iraqi assets in other countries, and 1.6 billion from oil business concluded before the war.
In the long term, oil will be the only means of refilling the official coffers of the new regime - 15 to 22 billion dollars a year, based on the current oil price, and provided two to three million barrels are drilled each day. But as long as the Iraqi oil industry is dominated by chaos, anarchy and sabotage, this will remain an illusion.
Under the Geneva Convention, the occupying power is responsible for all problems in the occupied country and, therefore, must pay the associated costs. Until now, the Bush administration has viewed other countries' efforts to have a say in the matter as meddling, regardless of whether these efforts have come from Europe or the United Nations. This is beginning to change. During the past few days, there has been talk of distributing the burdens associated with ongoing work in Iraq over the next four years. The 1991 Gulf War is inevitably being used as a model. At that time, Japan, Germany and the Gulf states assumed 52 of the 61 billion dollars in costs. It was the golden age of checkbook diplomacy.
The United Nations have scheduled a donor conference to finance reconstruction in the occupied Iraq for October. 50 interested countries have been invited, as well as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and independent aid organizations.
France, Great Britain and the US have agreed in principle to participating in an international Iraq fund. "As great as the differences of opinion on the war were, we do after all share a common interest in a stable, flourishing and open Iraq," said Chris Patten, the EU Commissioner for External Relations.
But now the Europeans are also insisting on what they were denied immediately after the war - a truly significant role for the United Nations in Iraq. This time the circumstances are more favorable. As the political, monetary and military fiasco in Iraq grows, the Bush administration, bent on attaining dominance, will be all the more forced to be willing to compromise.
In any event, an average of 20 armed assaults on US soldiers in Iraq every day are increasing pressure on Bremer to return more and more responsibility to the Iraqis themselves. He currently anticipates that Saddam's former subjects will be able to go to the polls and vote on a new constitution during the second half of 2004.
To one visitor to Iraq from Washington, things are clearly not moving quickly enough: Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, who was filled with optimism when promoting the war. His ultimate dream is of an imperial America, one that brings peace and freedom to the Middle East. But he too is now faced with Iraq's sobering reality: "I am here to gain a better understanding of what must be done during this period of transition," he says.
GERHARD SPÖRL, BERNHARD ZAND
Translated by Christopher Sultan
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