Bush Wants Corpses from Many Countries

Iraq Resolution: The UN as a War Chest of the US Government

By Bettina Raus

[This article originally published in: die tageszeitung, September 4, 2003 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.taz.de/pt/2003/09/04/a0113.nf/textdruck.]

A new UN resolution on Iraq should now expand the international basis for the US military operation. Some opposition politicians in Berlin unhappy with the German reserve in Iraq regard this as an encouraging sign of US readiness for compromise. This is wrong. What is involved is a brazen attempt to shift the risks and costs of an irresponsible offensive war and nevertheless to be in control of everything.

The United States achieved its professed main goal in Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. However they are hammering other pegs. Lucrative contracts for US firms are in the bag. The only Iraqis that can join the conversation a little by the graces of the Bush administration are politicians. In another regard, the picture is hardly rosy. According to a congressional report that leaked out several days ago, the US will be strained both financially and militarily in a few months in Iraq. No wonder they are looking for other sponsors and more soldiers. The UN cannot serve as Washington’s war chest.

If the adversaries of the occupying power in Iraq only regard the United Nations as an extended arm of the US, a dreadful vicious circle threatens that is very familiar from other trouble spots. Acts of sabotage and attacks on relief organizations spread. Soon humanitarian support mutates into a war-friendly propaganda instrument in the eyes of the militarily inferior party. This is not in the interest of the civilian population.

No UN resolution can deactivate the situation in Iraq as long as the US is not prepared to surrender command over the military operation. Therefore the German chancellor was absolutely sickened when the Green chairperson Angelika Beer publically reflected over the conditions for a German military engagement in Iraq. The red-green balancing act of the last months has been grievous and annoying to her.