Poised for Iraq adventure?

THERE are disturbing signs that the US is planning to go ahead with an attack on Iraq in the near future, aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein from power. A highly confidential Pentagon report, leaked to the New York Times, spells out the military tactics to be adopted if the US decides to attack Iraq. The report is a fairly detailed document, suggesting that the US is in a far greater state of preparedness than was previously believed. The plan envisages a massive three-pronged attack by air, sea and land on Iraq from three directions. As many as 250,000 marines and other soldiers could be deployed and sent into the country from Kuwait, with hundreds of warplanes based in eight neighbouring countries launching massive attacks on vital strategic targets in Iraq. President Bush has repeatedly been accusing Baghdad of developing weapons of mass destruction and threatening a military campaign aimed at eliminating this threat and simultaneously ousting Saddam Hussein from power. Special US forces and CIA operatives would strike at the labs and depots allegedly storing such weapons as well as at the missiles required to launch them. The revelations about this war plan coincided with a breakdown of talks in Vienna between the Iraqi foreign minister and the UN secretary-general, aimed at persuading Baghdad to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq.

Following the Gulf war, the UN had sent a team of weapons inspectors to Iraq to carry out detailed inspections of military installations in order to verify whether Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors, who destroyed a number of suspected facilities, left Iraq acrimoniously in 1998, accusing the government of hindering their work. Iraq, meanwhile, accused some of the inspectors of spying on behalf of CIA. What is amazing is that the US is ready to embark on a large-scale military assault on a country against which it has not produced even a shred of evidence showing that it is in fact engaged in producing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Most independent observers are extremely sceptical about US claims that Iraq is building up stockpiles of such weapons, given the detailed inspections it has gone through and the enormous battering its economy has suffered as a result of 12 years of harsh UN sanctions.

In fact, the talks in Vienna broke down because of a lack of agreement on the question of sanctions. Iraq wanted assurances that if the inspectors were allowed in, the crippling UN sanctions against the country would be removed. The country has suffered immeasurably as a result of the sanctions, which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, particularly children and women, and caused large-scale misery to common people. There are now fears that the breakdown of talks could be used as a pretext by the US to go on the offensive against Iraq. But if Washington seems to be prepared militarily for war, it is far from clear if the move will win any widespread diplomatic support.

Many allies are worried that the war against terror, which they wholeheartedly supported, is becoming far too open-ended and threatens to become a mere extension of narrow US foreign policy aims. There is now a real danger that the world coalition against terrorism could split if the US goes ahead with its plans to attack Iraq. Public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world is also becoming increasingly uneasy about what it perceives to be a distinct anti-Muslim bias of the war against terror. Any military move against Iraq will only serve to fan the flames of extremism in the region and galvanize support for those militant groups that argue that the US is bent on harming the Islamic world under the cover of its war on terror. Indeed, the only way it could remove such an impression is by initiating some significant movement towards a just solution of the Palestinian issue. However, by increasingly backing the Israeli agenda, the US has further alienated opinion in the Arab and Muslim world.

Given the growing anti-American sentiment, most regimes in the region will be extremely hesitant to go along with the Americans on their planned Iraqi adventure. Most European allies too have been trying to restrain the US, fearing that a war against Iraq would cause a major upheaval in the region, and may well spin out of control. President Bush, however, remains oblivious to such warnings and seems obsessed with taking up the unfinished agenda of his father’s presidency. The world community must make urgent and concerted efforts to stop the US from destabilizing the entire region in relentless pursuit of its irrational obsession with toppling or killing Saddam Hussein.

Poor funding for literacy

IF PAKISTAN’S leaders are to be believed, the revised national plan for action for ‘Education for All’ seems to be in jeopardy. The plan which seeks to raise the literacy rate from 50 per cent today to 86 per cent by the year 2015 requires a funding of Rs430 billion. It is said that a gap of Rs253 billion is hampering implementation. The government is expected to mobilize Rs178 billion while the rest is to come from foreign donors. It is a pity that the financial crunch is being felt in the literacy and primary education sector. It is time the government itself made an extraordinary effort to mobilize resources indigenously for its literacy and primary enrolment programme which will, if implemented successfully, make a profound impact on practically every other sector of national life.

The problem appears to be three-dimensional. First, the education sector has never received substantial funds on account of the misplaced priorities of the planners. The situation has not improved under the present government either. Thus, Punjab the largest province announced an education budget for 2002-03 of Rs31.6 billion which was a measly three per cent increase over the budgeted amount for 2001-02. Balochistan, the smallest province in terms of population, actually decreased its education budget by 75 per cent this year.

The second problem has been the new trend to de-emphasize primary education and literacy. With higher education receiving all the attention, no one seems to remember that the base has to be made really strong if education is to be upgraded. We do not have the data to determine the ratio of distribution of the education budget among the various sub-sectors. Keeping in view the number of students at the primary level and the geographical spread of the school network which is necessary if all children are to be enrolled, it is unlikely that this sector receives proportionately the funds that are its due.

Finally, there is a lot of waste, leakage and corruption in the education sector which means that the funds allocated to it are not used cost-effectively. If the political will existed, there is no reason why progress would not have been made so far. When the first Education for All conference was held at Jomtien in 1990 the deadline for universal primary enrolment was set for the year 2000. This was not achieved and the Dakar conference had to move this date to 2015. It would be a pity if Pakistan were to be left behind again.