Iraq Policy

IRAQ Policy

Iraq's Occuaption will formally end as a legal status June 30 2004. That date restores Iraqi legal sovereignty - ie self-governance. It is not an instance of power vacuum comparable to 1947 Palestine's partition. An international force will remain in Iraq-composed of the Coalition which liberated it, and Iraqi froces as they are established. Iraq can prepare to weather what is styled a 'Tet' offensive by guerillas which are hosted in some Sunni Triangle quarters (ie Falluja) - mainly gangish and the opposition of Muqtada Al Sadr's overgrown security force (now a militia). The judgement of foreign force maintenance will be Iraq's -as it measures the targeting cost versus the maintenance of internal order until its self-defense forces have readied. Those groups with the Sunni Al Zawqawi Faction will aim to destabilize by crime and alternate miitary power enablement. Unlike the Viet Cong/Minh they do not have the strength for a systemic disabling attack on Iraqi Government Centers and personnel. They will instead seek terror: assassination, kidnapping, public event or center attack by stealth, and public intimidation by kidnapping of foreigners to break the coalition's resolve. Other criminal motifs like an OAS [Organization de l'Armee Secret -France 1956-9] format would sustain underground resources. Iraq cannot be confused with Haiti where an armed veterans group knocked out pillars of state control. Haiti had a limited police force and no army. The post June 30 Iraq will govern; have police and internal defense forces, and the assistance, as in Afgahanistan, of a coalition for its survival. Its national infancy will be protected. The psychologcal war of terrorism will be addressed politically and mlitarily and by expansve open communication. Al Sadr will surrender or be apprehended accounting to the Iraqi Governemnt and the governments of the defensive coalition - unless amnestied. No other policy will replace that - other than international broadening - after June 30 - through January 20 2005. International broadening can expand once the new Iraq is established - making assistance - peaceful defensive assistance possible, conceivably even by the Arab league and other regional nations -by addressing Iraq directly. The USA and its allies will recede but continue to be a target by visibility until the new Iraq government and international governments convert that guerilla/insurgent energy to an address of nationhood by political participation instead of insurrection. June 30 2004 wil be the rebirth of an Iraqi Republic - and a date kept.