WASHINGTON, May 3: Washington is formulating a stabilization plan for Iraq that would carve the country into three sectors, each controlled by a “coalition partner” to the exclusion of the UN and of those nations that most vociferously opposed the invasion, a US official said on Friday night.
The official said the initial plan was that the three zones would be controlled by the United States, Britain and Poland.
Groundwork for the plan was set out by British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon in London on Wednesday at a meeting of 16 countries -_ Britain, the United States, 10 other NATO members and four non-members.
France, Germany and Russia were not invited to the "Initial Coalition Stabilization Operations Conference."
"The thought is the (stabilization) force would be generated by a coalition of the willing on a bilateral basis," the US official, who accompanied Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the London meeting, told reporters on his return here.
Initial discussions of the plan have made clear it would give transitional control to the United States, Britain and Poland, without consulting the United Nations, and would entirely bypass France, Germany, Russia and other nations that opposed armed intervention.
The plan would, according to the New York Times, proceed in tandem with one for cutting US troop strength in Iraq from the current 132,000 to about 30,000 by late this year.
The UN role in Iraq, in the US view, would be limited to humanitarian relief and reconstruction assistance.
Washington does, on the other hand, foresee a possible "umbrella" role for NATO, with a proviso that in case of opposition from France, decisions be shifted to the alliance's 18-member Defence Planning Committee, of which France is not a member.
US officials say NATO hardliners would like to see France sidelined within the 19-member alliance, in particular by using military structures in which Paris has not participated since it pulled out of NATO's integrated military command in 1966.
Asked whether France, Germany and Russia were being excluded as punishment for their opposition to the invasion, the official said, "That's one view."
"Another explanation," he said, "is that they just didn't offer anything."
US General Tommy Franks, who as US President George Bush has said, "ran the war" in Iraq, would remain supreme commander of all allied troops there, including the stabilization force.
Washington would thus retain control of the military phase of transition, even given the sharp reduction in its troop strength and its portion of the overall burden.
The United States already controls the political aspects of transition, with an American civilian administration in place and the constitution, under US auspices, of a future "Iraqi temporary authority".
The British Department of Defence has said it expects to be assigned control of a zone in southeastern Iraq where British troops are already concentrated.
EUROPEANS PLAY DOWN DISCORD: Europeans, concerned with re-establishing their unity after having seen themselves torn by discord over Iraq, on Saturday strove to minimize differences over the stabilization plan.
Greek Foreign Minister Yeoryios Papandreou, whose country holds the current European Union presidency, told an informal EU foreign ministers meeting that concluded on the Greek island of Kastellorizo on Saturday, that Iraq "should not divide Europeans".-—-AFP