Friday, April 09, 2004
We interviewed Michael Pan, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress. Pan was the Political Advisor to the Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court in Sierra Leone. He served in the Clinton administration as the Special Assistant for the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues at the Department of State. Presented below are our questions (in bold) and Michael's answers.
What advice would you give the Bush administration as this point in time?
The first thing would be to level with the American people about the situation we're in. The fact that we have all these fine men and women out in Iraq losing their lives, coming home wounded, and yet six months ago he [President Bush] proclaimed quite proudly that major combat operations had ended. What we're seeing today is that is not true. So I think that's the first step.
Of course, then there's all these operational things that they need to be doing right now. Unfortunately they're distracted because they've got all these riots and uprisings happening all across the country. But we need a plan.
We need a plan for the governance of Iraq. We need a plan for getting the international community more engaged. We need a plan for getting a legal agreement to guide our troops which will be there past June 30th. We need a plan for disarming the militias. We need a plan for training the Iraqi security forces and the police. We've seen that they've failed their first tests this past week.
The Bush administration insists that on June 30 sovereignty will be turned over to the Iraqi people. What do you see happening on May 1?
It's a tough question because on one hand you see the need for Iraqis to take back their sovereignty. They have all these expectations because of this timeline. But at the same time, what I don't understand is this Administration's insistence to hold to this arbitrary deadline they came up with more with the November elections in mind than actually a sustainable plan in Iraq.
I think we have to listen to what some of the Senate Republicans are saying. They're saying, it may be time to debate this question, it may be time to consider moving this date and I think if you talk to a lot of the experts out there there are pros and cons of doing it. And I think it's time to start thinking about possibly moving that deadline.
On the international stage the US's reputation has been damaged in a lot of people's minds. What can the United States do to repair this reputation?
It's so tough now because of the situation we're in. There are so many hurt feelings and so much distrust out there with the international community. It's hard to see where the administration can go with this. But what role does the international community want to play? I think that question is out there and it needs to be answered. I think a lot of these discussions will have to happen sometime soon, relatively soon, in New York as we start to negotiate a new UN security council resolution. So that's the forum where the US can actually approach folks and try to get more folks in.
We already have statements from the Spanish government saying that they're going to pull their troops out of Iraq unless the UN comes in after June 30th. Now I'm not sure if that's the answer, but again being willing to entertain the options that a lot of our allies want, which is more UN control, not necessarily handing the entire thing over to the UN because I'm not sure the UN actually wants to take the entire thing, but finding some sort of way to get more countries interested.
That would also include allowing some countries that have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to bid on some of the reconstruction contracts that the US is funding. We hurt a lot of allies a couple of months ago by limiting that number of countries. That's one place we could start.
Can you comment on the Japanese hostage situation?
It's a terribly unfortunate situation we've gotten ourselves into. Quite frankly I would not be surprised if the Japanese government pays a high price for whatever actions they take in the coming days. Not all that surprising that this happened though.
Keep in mind probably around a hundred contractors, maybe more, at least a hundred on the US side have been killed. The press has largely not covered that, but the fact that kidnappings are now happening... I find it sort of interesting that that is getting so much more press.
I don't know what the Japanese government is going to do. I would hope that they remain committed to keeping their troops in Iraq. But that's going to be a very high political cost to pay for this unpopular war in Japan.
How many contractors have been killed?
At least a hundred in the last couple of months, and this has largely been unreported. If you talk to some of the individual contractors they'll tell you the numbers but for instance, Bechtel has had casualties but they have not made those numbers public. I think Halliburton has come out publicly saying that, I don't know the exact numbers, but somewhere around twenty to thirty. It's remarkable that that number is not getting more press play.
We know about the four in Fallujah, but...
Yeah, exactly. Again, it's the manner in which they're being killed and the manner in which they're being kidnapped that is now capturing the attention of the press. I think that has something to do with the insurgents realizing that if you kill a contractor no one pays attention but if they torture and kidnap one, all of a sudden the media is interested.
In Fallujah, a ceasefire declaration just failed. Is there a way for American forces to respond to insurgents without creating more, angry Iraqis?
Well this is the classic problem that the US has confronted over decades. How do you deal with this insurgency? The way you respond to every country is going to be different. But with Iraq you have a couple of things going on here.
One, you have a rotation of the military troops going on right now. You have all these new troops coming in that don't necessarily have the ground troop knowledge that many of our troops had. So there's something lost in that transition as far as knowing the Iraqi people and knowing who's who. Knowing the players, knowing the cultures, knowing the customs.
But then you have the larger issue which is how do you win the hearts and minds of these folks? What we've seen to date is largely a military response to a problem that may not have a military solution. For instance when you see footage of the burning bodies of the contractors you see an old lady taking off her shoe and beating it or a twelve year old boy saying he wants to kill Americans. I'm not sure that has a military solution to it.
What we've seen from the Pentagon is that we're going to kill or capture all these people and what we've seen in the past couple of days is that the more you deal with some of these problems you make mistakes, as in killing civilians. By destroying a mosque you're just going to feed the fire more. I don't know how one step's back from the situation one it's put into motion. This is a problem that we've always had.
There are reports that Sunnis and Shi'ites have started working together against a common enemy, the United States.
Absolutely remarkable, the fact that these two ethnic groups which have for centuries been rivals, now have common cause: to kill Americans. That was in the New York Times this morning. I think the wildcard in all of this is the Kurds. Eventually we're going to have to deal with the issue of thirty to fifty-thousand militia members that they have up in the north.
Again, the transitional administration law calls for no armed forces, other than the new national army, to be in place. That's a question that's going to cause problems too. We could be faced, in a month or two months, where we have the three major ethnic groups opposing the US occupation.
Everyone's unhappy... Everyone's unhappy with the way we've managed the transition. Everyone's been very unhappy with the Constitution that we passed recently and that unhappiness is now manifesting itself on the streets.
What else do we need to know about Iraq that the mainstream media is ignoring?
I think the mainstream media has to understand that we're going to be there for years. Even though the Bush administration is counting on the June 30th timeline, and they're counting on the January 2005 elections which may not even happen. Quite realistically our men and women, because of this war, are going to be there for at least five to seven years. At least. I don't think people understand that.
I don't think people understand the sort of intensity of the fighting that's going on in Iraq right now. It's not, as much as the Administration says it is, it's not a few thugs and a few criminals and few foreign terrorists. What we're seeing is dozens of attacks happening each day on our troops at a very intense level and a very sophisticated sort of insurgency where they're communicating with each other, they're well-funded, they are well-equipped, and we're seeing that all of this has been happening in the last couple of weeks and it's leading to more soldiers being killed.
What can concerned citizens do, I mean, write your Congressmen?
Yeah, you can write your Congressmen. You can put pressure on public officials to explain what our Iraq policy is, what our goals are, what our exit strategy is going to be. We should be pushing back on some of these very simple answers we hear from the Administration. Saying things like, we're in it for the long haul, is not a strategy. They've been deflecting some of the questions by using these soundbites.
Things like, they are killing us because they love terror and they hate freedom. I mean, what does that mean? I think American citizens need to push back a bit more and say, well, is it because they love terror that they're attacking Americans? Or is there something else going on here? And if there is something else going on here, what sort of policy should we demand our public officials come up with to deal with it?
For more information, see the Center for American Progress website especially the Iraq To-Do List for the Administration.
What advice would you give the Bush administration as this point in time?
The first thing would be to level with the American people about the situation we're in. The fact that we have all these fine men and women out in Iraq losing their lives, coming home wounded, and yet six months ago he [President Bush] proclaimed quite proudly that major combat operations had ended. What we're seeing today is that is not true. So I think that's the first step.
Of course, then there's all these operational things that they need to be doing right now. Unfortunately they're distracted because they've got all these riots and uprisings happening all across the country. But we need a plan.
We need a plan for the governance of Iraq. We need a plan for getting the international community more engaged. We need a plan for getting a legal agreement to guide our troops which will be there past June 30th. We need a plan for disarming the militias. We need a plan for training the Iraqi security forces and the police. We've seen that they've failed their first tests this past week.
The Bush administration insists that on June 30 sovereignty will be turned over to the Iraqi people. What do you see happening on May 1?
It's a tough question because on one hand you see the need for Iraqis to take back their sovereignty. They have all these expectations because of this timeline. But at the same time, what I don't understand is this Administration's insistence to hold to this arbitrary deadline they came up with more with the November elections in mind than actually a sustainable plan in Iraq.
I think we have to listen to what some of the Senate Republicans are saying. They're saying, it may be time to debate this question, it may be time to consider moving this date and I think if you talk to a lot of the experts out there there are pros and cons of doing it. And I think it's time to start thinking about possibly moving that deadline.
On the international stage the US's reputation has been damaged in a lot of people's minds. What can the United States do to repair this reputation?
It's so tough now because of the situation we're in. There are so many hurt feelings and so much distrust out there with the international community. It's hard to see where the administration can go with this. But what role does the international community want to play? I think that question is out there and it needs to be answered. I think a lot of these discussions will have to happen sometime soon, relatively soon, in New York as we start to negotiate a new UN security council resolution. So that's the forum where the US can actually approach folks and try to get more folks in.
We already have statements from the Spanish government saying that they're going to pull their troops out of Iraq unless the UN comes in after June 30th. Now I'm not sure if that's the answer, but again being willing to entertain the options that a lot of our allies want, which is more UN control, not necessarily handing the entire thing over to the UN because I'm not sure the UN actually wants to take the entire thing, but finding some sort of way to get more countries interested.
That would also include allowing some countries that have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to bid on some of the reconstruction contracts that the US is funding. We hurt a lot of allies a couple of months ago by limiting that number of countries. That's one place we could start.
Can you comment on the Japanese hostage situation?
It's a terribly unfortunate situation we've gotten ourselves into. Quite frankly I would not be surprised if the Japanese government pays a high price for whatever actions they take in the coming days. Not all that surprising that this happened though.
Keep in mind probably around a hundred contractors, maybe more, at least a hundred on the US side have been killed. The press has largely not covered that, but the fact that kidnappings are now happening... I find it sort of interesting that that is getting so much more press.
I don't know what the Japanese government is going to do. I would hope that they remain committed to keeping their troops in Iraq. But that's going to be a very high political cost to pay for this unpopular war in Japan.
How many contractors have been killed?
At least a hundred in the last couple of months, and this has largely been unreported. If you talk to some of the individual contractors they'll tell you the numbers but for instance, Bechtel has had casualties but they have not made those numbers public. I think Halliburton has come out publicly saying that, I don't know the exact numbers, but somewhere around twenty to thirty. It's remarkable that that number is not getting more press play.
We know about the four in Fallujah, but...
Yeah, exactly. Again, it's the manner in which they're being killed and the manner in which they're being kidnapped that is now capturing the attention of the press. I think that has something to do with the insurgents realizing that if you kill a contractor no one pays attention but if they torture and kidnap one, all of a sudden the media is interested.
In Fallujah, a ceasefire declaration just failed. Is there a way for American forces to respond to insurgents without creating more, angry Iraqis?
Well this is the classic problem that the US has confronted over decades. How do you deal with this insurgency? The way you respond to every country is going to be different. But with Iraq you have a couple of things going on here.
One, you have a rotation of the military troops going on right now. You have all these new troops coming in that don't necessarily have the ground troop knowledge that many of our troops had. So there's something lost in that transition as far as knowing the Iraqi people and knowing who's who. Knowing the players, knowing the cultures, knowing the customs.
But then you have the larger issue which is how do you win the hearts and minds of these folks? What we've seen to date is largely a military response to a problem that may not have a military solution. For instance when you see footage of the burning bodies of the contractors you see an old lady taking off her shoe and beating it or a twelve year old boy saying he wants to kill Americans. I'm not sure that has a military solution to it.
What we've seen from the Pentagon is that we're going to kill or capture all these people and what we've seen in the past couple of days is that the more you deal with some of these problems you make mistakes, as in killing civilians. By destroying a mosque you're just going to feed the fire more. I don't know how one step's back from the situation one it's put into motion. This is a problem that we've always had.
There are reports that Sunnis and Shi'ites have started working together against a common enemy, the United States.
Absolutely remarkable, the fact that these two ethnic groups which have for centuries been rivals, now have common cause: to kill Americans. That was in the New York Times this morning. I think the wildcard in all of this is the Kurds. Eventually we're going to have to deal with the issue of thirty to fifty-thousand militia members that they have up in the north.
Again, the transitional administration law calls for no armed forces, other than the new national army, to be in place. That's a question that's going to cause problems too. We could be faced, in a month or two months, where we have the three major ethnic groups opposing the US occupation.
Everyone's unhappy... Everyone's unhappy with the way we've managed the transition. Everyone's been very unhappy with the Constitution that we passed recently and that unhappiness is now manifesting itself on the streets.
What else do we need to know about Iraq that the mainstream media is ignoring?
I think the mainstream media has to understand that we're going to be there for years. Even though the Bush administration is counting on the June 30th timeline, and they're counting on the January 2005 elections which may not even happen. Quite realistically our men and women, because of this war, are going to be there for at least five to seven years. At least. I don't think people understand that.
I don't think people understand the sort of intensity of the fighting that's going on in Iraq right now. It's not, as much as the Administration says it is, it's not a few thugs and a few criminals and few foreign terrorists. What we're seeing is dozens of attacks happening each day on our troops at a very intense level and a very sophisticated sort of insurgency where they're communicating with each other, they're well-funded, they are well-equipped, and we're seeing that all of this has been happening in the last couple of weeks and it's leading to more soldiers being killed.
What can concerned citizens do, I mean, write your Congressmen?
Yeah, you can write your Congressmen. You can put pressure on public officials to explain what our Iraq policy is, what our goals are, what our exit strategy is going to be. We should be pushing back on some of these very simple answers we hear from the Administration. Saying things like, we're in it for the long haul, is not a strategy. They've been deflecting some of the questions by using these soundbites.
Things like, they are killing us because they love terror and they hate freedom. I mean, what does that mean? I think American citizens need to push back a bit more and say, well, is it because they love terror that they're attacking Americans? Or is there something else going on here? And if there is something else going on here, what sort of policy should we demand our public officials come up with to deal with it?
For more information, see the Center for American Progress website especially the Iraq To-Do List for the Administration.
Well, we're getting ready to launch. But first, we thought we'd answer the question:
Why another blog?
There are lots of great blogs out there (see the blogroll on the right for a short list of some of our favorites). Many blogs are dedicated to providing a running commentary on current news and events. Time Critical's focus is going to be on interviews. We are going to start by focusing on foreign policy, especially Iraq, and branch out from there. Our first interview will be with Michael Pan, the Center for American Progress's senior policy analyst on their international team. Stay tuned!
Why another blog?
There are lots of great blogs out there (see the blogroll on the right for a short list of some of our favorites). Many blogs are dedicated to providing a running commentary on current news and events. Time Critical's focus is going to be on interviews. We are going to start by focusing on foreign policy, especially Iraq, and branch out from there. Our first interview will be with Michael Pan, the Center for American Progress's senior policy analyst on their international team. Stay tuned!
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Welcome. As you might have noticed, there's not much here yet.
These posts are licensed under a Creative Commons License.