Clare Short: The U.S. needs the world's help -- now

The former British cabinet member blasts the "arrogant" Pentagon for its bungled postwar planning and calls Tony Blair's decision to prop up Bush's war "tragic."

By Michelle Goldberg

Oct 9, 2003 | On a day when the Bush administration was talking about dropping its halfhearted attempt to enlist the United Nations to help create order in Iraq, Clare Short, a former member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet and one of Britain's most popular politicians, was in Washington to implore America to work with the world.

"The Middle East is more unstable and dangerous than ever it was," says Short, who resigned her job as Britain's secretary of international development in May, furious at the way America and Britain had let civil society in Iraq implode after the war. "There's a deeper sense of anger, injustice and the likelihood that young people in that region are joining terrorist organizations in bigger numbers than ever before."

The region can only be saved with international cooperation, she says. That's unlikely to happen anytime soon: As the New York Times reported Wednesday, "The Bush administration has run into such stiff opposition at the United Nations Security Council to its plan for the future government of Iraq that it has pulled back from seeking a quick vote endorsing the proposal and may shelve it altogether."

This news is especially painful to Short, who says that Blair promised that he'd ensure that America turned over Iraq's postwar resurrection to the U.N., which she believes is the only agency that can help Iraqis create decent lives for themselves. Indeed, it was that promise which kept her in Blair's cabinet throughout the war, despite her opposition to attacking Iraq without U.N. authorization. Although she called Blair "reckless" and threatened to quit during the run-up to the invasion, she chose to remain in the hope of helping the international community rebuild Iraq.

Short has extensive experience aiding war-shattered countries, having worked on the reconstruction of Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Afghanistan. She's a lefty who, as a member of Blair's cabinet since 1997, has proved pugilistic when humanitarian ideals are at stake -- her hawkishness on Kosovo led some to dub her "bomber Short." In England, she's famed for both her obstreperous candor and, in the words of the Independent on Sunday's Emma Soames, "a heart that is not so much bleeding as haemorrhaging for her fellow men and women, combined with an intellect guided by deeply held opinions." Though she opposed the way the Iraq war was launched, she clearly wants Iraq to succeed.

Yet when Blair proved either unwilling or unable to force the United States to be any more multilateralist after the war than before it, she quit. In her resignation letter to Blair, she wrote, "As you know, I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the Government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a U.N. mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached."

Though she's no longer in Blair's cabinet, she's continuing her campaign to try to secure U.N. authority over Iraq's rebuilding. This week, she's in the United States to brief Congress about the reconstruction of Iraq and the need for internationalization. Her message is that money alone can't fix Iraq -- to do that, she says, America needs to learn that it needs other countries. She spoke to Salon by phone from Washington, D.C.

What are you going to say when you testify before Congress?

I've been invited to come and talk about the situation in Iraq. My view is that the situation is very dangerous for all concerned. Leaving aside the differences we've all had about how we got to war and the negligence of the failure to provide for Iraq afterwards, people shouldn't be divided. The people of Iraq are suffering. American troops are losing their lives. America is spending an enormous amount of money and yet Iraq is doing less well than it could do if it could get enough stability to restore its own industry and develop itself.

Right now, it's in danger of getting worse, and we all need to unite to get out of this mess. The only way to do it is to give the United Nations the roll of helping Iraqis form a government -- first an interim government, and then a constitutional process leading to elections. I'm not saying you should scrap the Coalition Provisional Authority, but the authority should be handed over to the United Nations to build on. Then America would have more in the international community coming in to help.

If not, I see years of America being bogged down with lots of costs, lots of loss of life and an even more unstable Middle East, which is bad for everybody.

Are you going to give Congress any advice about the president's request for $87 billion to finance reconstruction? Should the release of any of that money be made contingent on America seeking United Nations cooperation?

I don't think it's for me to tell Congress how it should vote, but for the U.S. and the world, we're in a very dangerous situation. If the $87 billion goes through, it will be even more the following year and even more after that, with the danger of continuing loss of life. under the current arrangement, there might be bits and pieces of support from other countries, but it won't be much at all. America will be carrying the major burden in a way that is worrying for America and for the stability of the Middle East and the people of Iraq.

But isn't there also a danger that America won't be willing to contribute enough? After all, there's already talk on both the left and the right about bringing the troops home, and complaints about funding Iraqi schools and roads instead of American ones. Are you worried that America will refuse to meet its obligations toward Iraq?

If America was to just pull out it would humiliate itself. I don't think it would just pull out and leave chaos. It wants an exit strategy. The right exit strategy is international cooperation in helping Iraq as quickly as possible to take care of its own future. In order for an exit strategy to work, America needs to ask the U.N. to help it. Walking away is not an option, but I'm sure pressures will grow if costs grow and loss of life grows.

What about Britain? The British people never supported the war, and they feel that Blair betrayed them by getting them involved. How long are they going to support keeping their troops there?

We've got less troops in Iraq, about 10,000, and they're in the south where there's not as much conflict. We've lost some troops, but not as many, and although it's costing us money, it's nothing like the massive costs the U.S. is paying.

In Britain, the feeling is that the prime minister should have insisted on acting internationally, and that he deceived the country. Troops and costs aren't as big issues to us as they are to the U.S.

Given that he didn't believe Iraq was an imminent threat, why did Blair go to war, anyway?

There are six points that he supposedly wrote down and was working with throughout the crisis. He never shared them with the Parliament or his cabinet. But one of them, apparently, was that after Sept. 11 it was inevitable that America would go to war in Iraq. It would be better if they went through the U.N., but it would be very dangerous if they went alone, so Britain would have to go with them. I don't understand this logic. I don't understand why if America makes a mistake Britain doing it with them would make it any better.

He has said that the danger of America is that it becomes isolationist, so we have to remain engaged with America. But then his logic fails completely, because by that logic, to stop America from being isolationist, Britain will always do whatever America says.

Britain's role should have been to say that if you do this right and go with the United Nations and keep the international community involved, we will be your strong supporter, and this time we will deal with Iraq and not let pass another 12 years of sanctions and suffering for the Iraqi people.

If America had had no allies, the American people would have had more doubt, and they might have taken more time and done it right. We didn't have any leverage to correct mistakes. That was Blair's error, and he lost the support of his country. It's a tragedy for everybody.

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