Just as in Afghanistan, US will bomb Iraq and then offer aid to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. A bit like how you might train a dog I suppose. Use a choke chain for a disobedient pup and then give it a treat when it behaves.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-565573,00.html
February 04, 2003
Multibillion aid plan for West to win the peace
By Richard Beeston, James Bone and Elaine Monaghan
THE United States and Britain are determined to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people with a multibillion-pound aid and reconstruction operation aimed at improving their lives as soon as a military campaign is over.
According to sources in Washington and London, detailed contingency plans are well advanced to flood a post-Saddam Iraq with food and medicines, to provide security and rebuild quickly the country’s shattered infrastructure.
Although nothing has been finalised, the plans draw heavily on military interventions ranging from Kosovo to Afghanistan and as far back as postwar Japan. They envisage a US military commander, in charge of security, working alongside a civilian leader, approved by the UN, to administer the country until a local leadership can be put in place, possibly within 18 months.
The Times has learnt that Louis Frechette, the UN’s Deputy Secretary-General, is already working on various contingencies and several figures are being considered as possible UN administrators. The list includes Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand’s Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2001, who helped to negotiate a peace deal between Indonesia and separatists in the province of Aceh. Another name is that of Bernard Kouchner, the former French Health Minister, who founded Médecins sans Frontières and who headed the UN operation in Kosovo. Two Americans with broad international experience — Jacques Klein and Robert Gelbard — both of whom worked for the UN in the Balkans, are also said to be under consideration.
“The Americans will have to handle security Iraq-wide for quite a while with peacekeeping help from the usual suspects — the European countries and Canada. But the civilian management of Iraq is something they may not want to take on,” David Malone, head of the International Peace Academy, a New York think-tank, said.
Most of the detailed planning is being co-ordinated at the White House in weekly inter-agency meetings chaired by Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, with the participation of key allies such as Britain.
Some of the proposals will be tried in Iraq for the first time. The Western allies could use £500 million being held by the UN on behalf of Iraq as part of its oil-for-food programme to help to subsidise the humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. The same mechanism could govern the sale of Iraqi oil and the destination of the proceeds.
According to Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the UN Development Programme, the total reconstruction costs for the first 2½ years could reach £20 billion.
“That money is intended for the people of Iraq for food and medicines and that is exactly where it will go,” David Phillips, a consultant on Iraq for the US State Department at the Council on Foreign Relations, said. “Getting access to those funds means that we could begin the humanitarian assistance immediately.”
Although the Bush Administration’s goal is to remove President Saddam Hussein and his regime, some aspects of the existing Iraqi Government could be kept in place. The present food distribution system, which supplies basic goods to the neediest people across the country, has been praised by the UN. President Bush has also created a Pentagon-based office to help the civilian reconstruction effort.
“The US will be committed to stay as long as necessary to help the Iraqi people to get a good start in rebuilding their country and will be equally committed to leave as soon as this objective has been achieved,” Sean McCormack, the National Security Council spokesman, said last month.