Baker panel recommends plans for post-Saddam Iraq

Baker panel recommends plans for post-Saddam Iraq
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“The United
States may lose the peace, even if it wins the war,”
unless the Bush administration lays out plans now for how
to best reconstruct and govern Iraq post-Saddam Hussein,
warns a panel of experts. Led by two distinguished diplomats,
Ambassadors Edward Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy, and Frank Wisner, vice
chairman of external affairs at American International Group,
the panel calls for the appointment of a “coordinator
for Iraq” to oversee and articulate a three-phased
strategy in the areas of security, economics and governance.

In the first
systematic and comprehensive effort to outline guiding principles
and priorities in the post-war environment, an independent
panel sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and
the Baker Institute have prepared an “intellectual
road map” to help the Bush administration promote reconstruction
and reconciliation in Iraq and build a more stable Middle
East in the days and the decade after war. The report makes
clear that although considerable resources are available,
Iraq’s oil revenues will not be enough to provide for
the many tasks required to stabilize and rebuild Iraq.

The panel asserts
that U.S. efforts must be accompanied by a vigorous public
diplomacy campaign in the Middle East and the Muslim world
to deflate criticism in the region and deny terrorists and
extremists the ability to use military action to their own
political advantage.

Key tasks and
objectives the memo considers include security, governance
and economics:

Security:
Immediately after the conclusion of hostilities, a strong
American presence will be needed to establish and maintain
law and order to ensure that anarchy, revenge and score-settling
do not overwhelm the opportunities for lasting political
change. As soon as possible, the United States must pivot
from a leading role to a “superintending” one,
recognizing that the Iraqi people will be a liberated, not
a defeated people.

Early efforts
must focus on eliminating the Republican Guard, the Special
Republican Guard, intelligence services and other key institutions
of Saddam’s rule, while preserving the Iraqi Army —
minus the uppermost leadership and any others guilty of
serious crimes. Iraqi leaders whose crimes are so egregious
that they can be tried for crimes against humanity must
be detained and prosecuted.

Governance:
The report endorses a federal and democratic Iraq with
Iraqis playing the leading role. The United States must
make clear that it has no desire to become the defacto ruler
of Iraq and its vast oil reserves. The report recommends
a phased transition from an immediate “emergency transitional
government with Iraqi advisers” to an “internationally
and U.N.-supervised Iraqi government” and finally to
a “sovereign Iraqi government.”

The report cautions
the administration to resist the temptation to establish
a provisional government in advance of hostilities or to
impose a post-conflict government dominated by exiled Iraqi
opposition leaders. The external opposition has a role to
play, the report contends, but it should be considered an
important voice among many.

Economics:
Although Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves
in the world, the Iraqi oil industry is being held together
by “Band-Aids.” Oil production capacity in Iraq
is dropping by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) annually. Significant
technical challenges exist to stanching the decline and
eventually increasing production. The report concludes that
it will take 18 months to three years and $5 billion to
bring the Iraqi oil industry back to pre-1990s production
levels of 3.5 million bpd, in addition to $3 billion in
annual operating costs. To get to the oft-quoted 6 million
bpd will take years and require massive expansion of infrastructure,
billions of dollars in investment and a stable political
environment. War and its aftermath could further limit,
not increase, Iraq’s oil production.

Leaving aside
immediate humanitarian needs, which will be massive, reconstruction
will take between $25 billion and $100 billion. Repairing
existing oil export installations will require $5 billion,
and rebuilding Iraq’s electrical power infrastructure
could cost $20 billion. Given that Iraq’s revenues
are now in the neighborhood of $10 billion/year, significant
financial support will have to be generated by neighboring
states, multilateral institutions and other Western partners.

Initial investment
requirements will have to compete with costs for humanitarian
and other reconstruction needs that have to be met to avoid
a major health and economic crisis in Iraq after a war.
If not planned for in advance, the challenges faced by Iraq’s
oil industry could leave Iraq’s population of 23 million
largely dependent on international donor aid and portend
a humanitarian crisis of serious proportions.

The report identifies
a set of principles that should guide U.S. oil policy:

• Iraqis
should maintain control of their own oil sector.
• A significant portion of early proceeds should be
spent on the rehabilitation of the oil industry.
• A level playing field should be established for all
international oil companies.
• Any proceeds are shared fairly by all Iraqi citizens.
If de-politicized, the U.N. oil-for-food distribution mechanism
is a useful starting point for distributing oil revenues
throughout the country.

Full text of
“Guiding Principles for Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq”
is at <www.bakerinstitute.org>
and <www.cfr.org>.