Global Policy Forum

By Mark Perry

The telephone call to the headquarters of InterAction - the political arm for more than 160 US-based nongovernmental relief organizations--on the early afternoon of April 17 was not unexpected. InterAction had been told just days before that George W. Bush had made a final decision on which government agency would be coordinating US relief work and distribution of federal aid funds in Iraq. The debate over that question had caused months of consternation among InterAction's "big five" (CARE, MERCY CORPS, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and World Vision), which had strenuously argued that the State Department, not the Pentagon, be charged with overseeing the Iraq relief effort. On April 3, in a last-ditch attempt to influence Bush, InterAction's members issued a statement saying that the Administration's efforts to "marginalize the State Department and force nongovernmental organizations to operate under DoD jurisdiction complicates our ability to help the Iraqi people and multiplies the dangers faced by relief workers in the field."

According to InterAction officials, the April 3 statement drew "a line in the sand": If the President wanted to make the Pentagon the final arbiter of NGO initiatives, InterActions' members would be forced to withdraw from the US-led relief effort.

Their reasons were clear--US military coordination of relief efforts would undermine the impartiality and neutrality of international organizations, placing their workers under suspicion of being an arm of the military. It could cost lives. Aid workers were already under pressure to provide relief in a society that was not yet adequately policed. In early April a relief worker in Afghanistan was murdered. So the big five were adamant. Anything that undermined their independence would be rejected. Then came the April 17 phone call. "We were told that the government disaster and response teams would answer to the US military and not to the State Department," an InterAction staffer says,"and that was that." The big five have to decide whether they should work under the military.

The NGOs decided to acquiesce in US military coordination, take US money and, in the words of this same InterAction official, "just hope for the best." That decision will have enormous consequences--it marks the first time in US history that the military has intervened in civilian relief efforts. "This was a coup, a military coup against civilian control over civilian operations, "a leading advocate for a Washington, DC-based human rights organization says. "It is a disastrous decision. It sets a precedent that no one wants to set. These guys (the NGOs) got rolled, and they know it." Joel Charney, a vice president of Refugees International, agrees. "We don't have to worry about that, because we don't take US funding, "he says of his organization. "But the big US NGOs with international roots are in a bit of a spot. What this means is that General (Jay) Garner (who heads the Pentagon's Iraq Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance) can decide who gets food and who doesn't. Instead of an objective assesment , which is best done by the State Department or the United Nations, we have a person in charge who has a political past. Even if he is objective, there will inevitably be questions. The NGO community is in real danger of being militarized."

Officials in the big five admit that the Bush Administration's decision to put the Pentagon in charge of international relief efforts causes problems. But faced with an imminent humanitarian crisis in Iraq, each organization has chosen to emphasize its continued adherence to neutrality and impartiality and hopes that, as one of them said, "the US realizes that the decision they have made has to be reversed." As another big-five official notes, "We had a choice of providing relief under the conditions set for us or letting people get by on their own hook. We decided that our first responsibility was to help people. "Charney is skeptical: "A lot of these organizations have international offices that will disagree with the heads of the US divisions. It is one thing to take money from the European Union: it is another thing to operate under the control of a European military force. "Peter Gubser, the Washington head of American Near East Refugee Aid says, "You can't go into a country wearing the badge of the US military or any other similar force. It is a bad precedent."

Andy Pugh, the director for policy and advocacy for CARE, disagrees. "We have been upfront and transparent, and we continue to be concerned," he says. "We have always said and we continue to maintain that relief efforts should be coordinated by the US Agency for International Development. And we have been clear about maintaining our principle of independence and impartiality. We are writing programs that will test the Pentagon's good-faith statements that confirm these principles. How has this been working so far? "We are hearing the right messages," Pugh maintains. "But the critics are right about one thing: This is a huge discussion right now in CARE and other humanitarian organizations. We talk and debate about this every day. We are optimistic. But there are tripwires."

The tripwires will be reached very soon. Within weeks relief organizations will be handing over their assessments of who should get aid and why--and they will develop implementation programs to make certain that happens. If any of these are vetoed by Garner or his aides, one big-five official claims, "There will be a big debate about whether we can continue to work with the military. If they have veto power, then we may have to come home."

Bush's decision that the Pentagon would coordinate Iraqi relief efforts is another chapter in the ongoing debate within the Administration over who runs foreign policy. "Colin Powell argued long and hard about this with Rumsfeld," a senior leader of a US relief operation notes. "He lost the battle--but at least the battle was fought." However, according to a former US commander who oversaw security efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo, where State was in charge of relief efforts, the President's decision was "foreordained." He describes the Bosnia and Kosovo relief initiatives as "complete disasters. There was no coordinating body, no one in charge saying, 'Forget about rehabilitation for now, we need water first.' We had relief supplies we didn't need. We had people building houses for people with no food. There was no prioritization. You need someone on the ground who's in charge. And because there wasn't anyone, the people of Bosnia and Kosovo are still suffering--and all of this gaggle of NGOs are now gone."

NGO officials agree with this assessment, but only partially. "It is true that NGOs go where the action is, but that's what we're supposed to do," Wendy Batson, the head of humanitarian programs for the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, points out. "But to just sit back and assume that relief organizations will take orders from the US military is a bit naive. We know a lot more about how to provide relief services than anyone in uniform. I can tell you this, long after the military is gone from Iraq international relief organizations will still be on the ground trying to resolve the problems that it caused."

It is not only the NGO community that questions the military's new postwar responsibilities. Privately, but firmly, some military officers are beginning to speak out. "The military has not changed its mind about not getting involved in nation-building, it just looks that way," a senior Pentagon colonel notes bitterly "this is all Rumsfeld. If he says the UN should be in charge of this, it makes them relevant. If he says the State Department should do this, it makes them relevant that is just too much for him to swallow."

The war in Iraq cost around 135 American lives. But thousands of Iraqis are dead and thousands more wounded. The nation is a shambles. Its hospitals are understaffed, medicines are in short supply or nonexistent, thousands of children are suffering the consequences of twelve years of sanctions, the landscape is littered with unexploded bombs and looting has emptied the nation's larder. "We have a long way to go, years to go," says Joel Charny. "This thing is not nearly over. The final victory will depend not just on whether we can appeal to the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people but whether we can fill their stomachs. And that battle is just getting under way."

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