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Us bribes coalition partners Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-24-unwilling-cover_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-24-unwilling-cover_x.htm
Posted 2/24/2003 7:36 PM
U.S. builds war coalition with favors — and money
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Bush keeps warning that if the United Nations Security Council will not back a war in Iraq, he will assemble a "coalition of the willing" to depose Saddam Hussein. But the more than two dozen countries that have offered some measure of backing to the United States have complex motives that in many cases have more to do with placating the world's only superpower — or trading their support for huge sums in U.S. aid — than with a desire to rid the world of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction.
It's largely a coalition of the "unwilling," says Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Cordesman says, is among the few members acting out of conviction, not just "a desire to preserve a special relationship with the United States."
Key coalition members, such as Turkey, are demanding $30 billion or more in U.S. aid as the price for supporting the United States. Others in Eastern and Central Europe are grateful to the United States for helping to liberate them from communism and want to ensure membership in NATO. Small Persian Gulf states joined the coalition to protect U.S. security guarantees. And some Middle Eastern countries, such as Jordan, are in need of U.S. aid, trade and protection. (Related link: What allies are offering and getting in return)
"It's a coalition of the convinced, the concerned and the co-opted," says Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Bush administration officials bristle at such talk. "It's unfair to say that there was anything like bribery involved," a senior State Department official says. "Most countries have come forward and done the right thing without any hint of economic compensation."
Even so, analysts wonder about the value of a coalition if key members appear to be bought. Will members stick together if the war is longer and messier than the short campaign most expect? And what about the aftermath, when the United States could be on the hook for billions in costs for the reconstruction of Iraq? Most troubling to some critics is that the Bush administration has failed to assemble the broad coalition of traditional allies that came together to back the 1990-91 campaign against Iraq.
"It's a mixed bag," says Madeleine Albright, secretary of State during the Clinton administration. "What is really very unfortunate is that the Bush administration's policy on Iraq has managed to re-divide Europe when one of the big things we tried to build on was the first Bush administration's desire to have a Europe whole and free."
France and Germany have led opposition to a war in Iraq. Opinion polls in those countries and throughout the world show significant and growing anti-war sentiment. Even in Britain, the only nation to offer substantial numbers of troops for an anti-Saddam campaign, a majority now opposes military action.
The situation is far different than in 1990, when many countries were eager to join the United States in reversing Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
Then, 34 nations joined up, including Britain, France and key Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, all of which contributed military forces. Together, nations other than the United States deployed 160,000 troops, 24% of the total, and paid 88% of the war's $90 billion price tag.
This time, even if there is another U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force, most of the fighting will probably be done by U.S. troops, and most of the funding will come from U.S. taxpayers.
Turkey, for example, is likely to receive at least $15 billion in grants and loan guarantees in exchange for allowing U.S. troops to attack from its soil. Israel is seeking $12 billion on top of the $3 billion it receives annually. Egypt and Jordan are also hoping for major additions to already substantial U.S. aid.
In many cases, countries are seeking U.S. aid to offset fallout from a war that will disrupt the trade and tourism crucial to the region's economies. Economic worries, public opinion, misgivings about the idea of a preventive war and resentment of the United States have all combined to make it hard to pull allies into line.
The war is so controversial that it took NATO 11 days of acrimonious debate to approve defensive aid to Turkey, a NATO member. Approval came only after Lord George Robertson, NATO's secretary-general, executed a maneuver that left France out of the final vote. Robertson noted in an interview last week that NATO squabbled, too, in the lead-up to the 1991 Gulf War. But he agreed that this is different: "Emotions are very high at the moment," he said.
What is the Bush administration getting for the trouble it has taken to pull together a coalition? Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 11 that 26 countries had agreed to provide the United States with some sort of support, and 19 were "involved now in direct military planning for military assets. So if this has to be done, I think it's important for you and for people to recognize there will be people with us."
The State Department declined to list supporters or specify the nature of their contributions. "It's up to them to talk about themselves," a senior State Department official says. "We don't 'out' people who don't want to be outed."
Among those offering support:
Former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary remain grateful to the United States for winning the Cold War and for backing their admission to NATO, which they regard as safeguarding their independence and security. Ten other former East bloc states, all NATO aspirants, are also offering verbal support and limited military aid: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
"This is a critical time of restructuring the whole concept of security," says Elena Poptodorova, Bulgarian ambassador to the United States. Bulgaria was invited to join NATO last year but still needs approval by the U.S. Senate and other NATO member parliaments. Poptodorova calls countries supporting the United States on Iraq "a coalition of the future."
Albright says former East bloc nations support a potential war in Iraq because as former victims of dictatorial regimes, "they truly do believe that this is standing up to evil."
Conservative western European nations. Countries such as Spain, Italy and Portugal have conservative governments politically sympathetic with the Bush administration.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, for example, is a neoconservative who shares President Bush's stark, right-vs.-wrong view of the world, European analysts say. The Sept. 11 attacks in the USA struck a chord with Aznar, who is battling Spain's own problem with attacks by Basque separatists.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has also been a staunch U.S. ally despite opposition to an Iraq war. A controversial figure who has fought charges of questionable business dealings, Berlusconi sees his closeness to Bush as part of an effort to portray himself as a global power broker, Italians say.
Spain joined Italy, Portugal, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary and Poland in signing a letter, published in The Wall Street Journalon Jan. 30, that affirmed "the real bond between the U.S. and Europe" and asserted that Iraq and its weapons "represent a clear threat to world security."
Iraq's northern neighbors. For countries such as Turkey and Jordan, economic interests trump everything else. Currently in a financial slump, Turkey lost billions of dollars in trade and debt repayments from Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and can't afford more losses. Turkey also wants to have a say in the future of Iraq's Kurdish north to prevent its own Kurdish minority from escalating a struggle for greater autonomy. Though Turkish and U.S. officials have agreed to a deal, it must still be approved by the Turkish parliament.
Small states in the Persian Gulf. Countries such as Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar see the United States as a guarantor of their security against big neighbors: not only Iraq, but also Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Tiny Qatar courted the United States by building a 15,000-foot runway, the longest in the region and far more than its 12-fighter air force would ever need. When the Saudis seemed to balk at allowing U.S. forces to run a war against Iraq from their soil, the Pentagon quickly accepted an offer to shift its Central Command headquarters to Camp As Sayliyah, outside Qatar's capital city of Doha.
The most eager supporters include the Kuwaiti government, which has not forgotten how Iraq ravaged its country in 1990-91; Israel, which sees Iraq as a strategic threat; and Britain's Blair.
Blair, who has committed a fourth of his country's army to a possible war, has seen his approval ratings plummet. British opponents derisively call him Bush's "poodle," and 1 million Britons protested the war earlier this month in the largest such demonstration the country has seen.
"This is what I believe and this is what I think is right," Blair told a recent news conference. "There are situations in politics where you have to maneuver your way around, and that's just politics. But there are situations where you have to do what you believe."
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