June
25, 2003
India
Must Resist US Pressure to Send Troops to Iraq
India,
which criticised the United States-led invasion of Iraq, is under
intense pressure from Washington to despatch a division (about 17,000
troops) or more of its soldiers to that country to help the Anglo-American
occupation forces and legitimise the occupation.
India's government is strongly inclined to pull the US's chestnuts
out of the fire in Iraq and to play in the international "Big
League" and seal a long-term "strategic partnership"
with Washington. But it has run up against three obstacles.
The first is domestic public opinion which opposes sending troops
to Iraq and bestowing legitimacy on what it regards as the illegal
and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. Second, there is a
unanimous resolution of Parliament passed on April 8, calling for
the cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of the invading forces.
All Opposition parties still stand by it.
And third, it would be both unprecedented, and unacceptable to most
Indian people and politicians, that their sovereign army's soldiers
should salute the American flag or fight under the overall command
of the US.
It is not just India's Opposition parties which are against sending
troops to Iraq. Some coalition partners of the ruling Hindu-chauvinist
Bharatiya Janata Party too are opposed to the proposal. They include
Defence Minister (and former Socialist leader) George Fernandes'
Samata Party, and the Shiv Sena to the BJP's right.
The Americans have been pressing New Delhi hard on this issue for
more than two months. According to the Indian Express newspaper,
two US embassy officials met Indian defence personnel as early as
May 6 to discuss troops for Iraq. Such meetings cannot take place
without the permission of the Indian Foreign Ministry. Numerous
US officials all the way up to President Bush have discussed the
subject repeatedly with Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy Prime
Minister Advani in recent weeks.
In return for troops, Washington is offering India the carrot of
"sensitive" military technology and hardware and lucrative
contracts in Iraq's "reconstruction".
Caught between these pressures, the Indian government is desperately
looking for a figleaf such as authorisation from United Nations.
It can then present the despatch of Indian troops for Iraq's "stabilisation"
as something which has multilateral sanction and which is akin to
the "peacekeeping" operations India has undertaken under
UN auspices for decades.
In reality, Indian troops will "stabilise" nothing other
than the occupation of Iraq by the invading powers, by enforcing
order on their behalf. They will not play a "peacekeeping"
role by placing themselves between two groups which may stop fighting.
Yet, even such a UN figleaf is proving virtually impossible to procure.
Security Council Resolution 1483 recognises the US as an "occupation"
power (until an Iraqi-run government can be formed). But it does
not ask UN member-states to lend military support to the occupation as
distinct from humanitarian and economic assistance. It does not
allow a significant role to multilateral agencies.
India's foreign minister Yashwant Sinha recently sounded out UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan on the possibility of his writing a
letter inviting India to participate in Iraq's "stabilisation".
Such a letter unusual and strange as it might be could help New
Delhi cite some kind of multilateral "request" or authorisation.
But Annan poured cold water on the idea, further reducing the space
for disingenuous diplomatic fancy footwork on the Indian government's
part.
If, despite this, New Delhi proceeds to collaborate militarily with
the US in Iraq, that would only show that it has failed a crucial
test that of the independence of its foreign and strategic policy
and of responsiveness to domestic public opinion. It would seem
obsessed with consolidating a close, unequal, relationship with
the US.
If this sounds excessive, consider the following:
India is being asked to despatch more troops than the number
of British soldiers who fought in the war (15,000). (The UK is far
and away the US's closest military ally.) Indeed, their number would
be almost six times higher than the troops committed by any
other American allies, such as Italy (3,000), and Spain or Poland
(2,300 each), which supported the war (which India did not).
The Indian army complains it is short of 12,000 officers, and has
no troops to spare. It would like reinforcements in Jammu and Kashmir
to get a better combat-ratio vis-à-vis Pakistan.
The expense of transporting and stationing 20,000 troops will be
extremely high. Politically, it will be impossible for the Indian
government to accept payment from the US without attracting the
embarrassing charge that its soldiers are acting like mercenaries.
The UN cannot be involved in paying for Indian troops. India that
is, its people will have to bear the expense, sacrificing minimum
needs programmes and public services.
By contrast, the US stands to save billions of dollars by
reducing its troops (from 145,000 today to 30-40,000 eventually).
Going by the Bosnian experience, it costs the US $250,000 to station
one soldier abroad, including expenses on weaponry, transportation,
etc.
There are other, secondary, issues too: Precisely what kind of operations
will Indian troops have to perform? Where in Iraq? What is the likely
length of their stay in relation to the US' plans for eventually
transferring power to Iraqis?
Indian leaders have been raising these questions with their American
interlocutors but as a substitute for the primary
question: should troops at all be sent to Iraq in support of an
occupation following an invasion which the Indian Parliament unanimously
declared to be unwarranted, unjust and illegal?
The Americans cannot be assumed to have much clarity on these issues,
especially the political ones. They are getting bogged down in Iraq.
All their plans and calculations have come a cropper. America's
first pro-consul, Lt Gen Jay Garner, quit in disgrace. His successor
Paul Bremer has had no success in establishing a nominally viable
government.
There is growing resistance to Anglo-American troops. They are overstretched
and forced to stay on longer than planned. The US is losing one
soldier every other day. Casualties will rise as "Operation
Desert Scorpion" gets going and resistance mounts, as in Balad.
The US is keen to get India involved in Iraq for a number of reasons.
It wants to alter the image of the occupation forces and present
a broad-based appearance with Third World faces thrown in.
America will use Indian troops as cheap cannon fodder. Even
if it "compensates" them (eventually and indirectly) at
the same rate as United Nations peacekeepers (about $1,000 p.m.
per head), that'll only cost America one-twentieth of what it spends
on every US soldier posted abroad.
India is politically useful because it enjoys a fair amount
of goodwill in the Arab world thanks to its past as a Non-Aligned
Movement leader and supporter of Arab nationalism. India's military
presence in Iraq as America's partner will help "soften"
the blow from the occupation to an extent.
The US is also anxious to obfuscate and obliterate the circumstances
in which the Iraq war was waged, without a casus belli or
rationale. The best way to do this is to stress "stability"
and "reconstruction", including lucrative contracts.
However, not a single Indian soldier should shed blood in
support of America in Iraq. Indian troops are being asked to impose
law and order on behalf of the occupation powers in ways that suit
those powers' interests. This will bring them into hostile confrontation
with Iraqi civilians who resist what they regard as their country's
unjust occupation.
The troops will also be exposed to highly toxic materials like depleted
uranium, which is believed to have caused the "Gulf War
syndrome" among US troops since 1991.
A military occupation, which is itself the result of an unwarranted,
unjust and illegal war, cannot be just and legal. The rationale
of the Indian Parliament resolution was that there was no conclusive
evidence that Iraq had operational, deliverable, weapons of mass
destruction. Its WMD programme didn't pose a credible threat to
its neighbours, leave alone to the US. Further UN inspections could
have detected and dismantled it.
The invasion breached every criterion of "just war", including
military necessity, non-combatant immunity, proportionality in the
use of force, etc.
The reason why the Indian government wants to throw this logic overboard
and collaborate with the US in Iraq has to do with its eagerness
to seal a long-term military alliance with Washington and outflank
Pakistan. India is also keen to buy top-of-the-line US and Israeli
military equipment, including missile-defence systems and the "Patriot"
missile.
The US is keen to hold joint military exercises with India and establish
access to military bases. According to a Pentagon report, quoted
by US defence specialist John E. Carbaugh who advises the US defence
industry and policymakers: "American military officers are
candid in their plans to eventually seek access to Indian bases
and military infrastructure." The report is based on interviews
with senior US and Indian military personnel. Says Carbaugh: "India's
strategic location in the centre of Asia, astride the frequently
travelled sea lanes of communication linking West Asia and East
Asia, makes India particularly attractive…"
The issue of sending Indian troops to Iraq thus goes well beyond
that country's particular circumstances. It directly relates to
India's potentially long-term collusion with American plans for
a global Empire.
Supporters of the view that India should send troops to Iraq fall
into three groups. The first group holds that in today's unipolar
world, Indian and US interests largely coincide, necessitating close
military collaboration and a special alliance, including sharing
of military bases. Sending troops to Iraq is a "test":
rather than whine about hegemonism, and plead for multilateralism,
India must "daringly" show that it is a major US ally
and a Great Power.
The second group is obsessed with business. It believes that sending
troops to Iraq is fine so long as the US doles out generous reconstruction
contracts. It bandies about spectacular reconstruction budgets like
$200 billion, even $500 billion, with big individual deals in the
tens of billions.
This is grossly hyperbolic. The highest non-oil contract awarded
so far is $680 million (Bechtel). Huge contracts won't materialise
unless America can pump much more oil out of Iraq. This seems near-impossible
for a couple of years, and dicey even later.
According to the "Middle East Economic Survey" and other
estimates, if all goes well, Iraq would earn about $100 billion
over the next five years by exporting oil. At least half the amount
will probably be spent on food and other essentials and to restore
the oil industry. That will leave only a fraction of the total for
reconstruction after the occupation troops extract their share.
In any case, big contracts will be first given to US giants like
Halliburton and Bechtel, and then to British firms, leaving small
crumbs for bit players like India.
The third group believes in what may be called the Advani Line (so
named after India's hawkish Deputy Prime Minister): Despatch troops
in exchange for a US promise to pressure Pakistan to end support
to "cross-border terrorism". This ignores US priorities.
To smash Al-Qaeda, America needs Pakistan as an ally. This limits
the pressure it can put on Islamabad. Besides, it poses ticklish
issues of verification.
And what if Pakistan too offers to send troops to Iraq as Gen Musharraf
declared he would like to do, on June 12? This will completely neutralise
India's diplomatic "advantage".
The Advani Line too is based on trading India's policy independence
for US favours an idea repugnant to any self-respecting democracy.
This means India won't play an independent future role vis-à-vis
an imperial US.
Praful Bidwai
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