Report urges new Iraq plan

WASHINGTON -- The United States should immediately cede control of the security mission in Iraq to a NATO military command, ask the United Nations to appoint an official to oversee the political framework, and establish a new international reconstruction effort for the country, according to an alternative strategy for stabilizing Iraq proposed yesterday by former government officials.

''The United States can still succeed in Iraq and fulfill its commitments to the Iraqi people, but it will require a plan -- one that provides for new international arrangements to manage the political, security, and economic aspects of Iraq's transition," said the report, ''Iraq: Strategy for Progress," published by the liberal Center for American Progress.

The report is highly critical of President Bush's handling of the postwar situation in Iraq. But it says the United States must finish what it started, with additional US and foreign troops and a decidedly more international approach to increase the chances for success.

''The record is all too clear," the proposal said. ''The Bush administration's intolerance of dissent has left America without enough allies to share the burden of funds and forces. The White House and Pentagon willfully ignored the recent history of post-conflict experience and the specific warnings of the State Department. The administration invested authority in a group of exiles and gave American companies a monopoly on contracts to rebuild Iraq. And it has insisted on absolute control, leaving the United States unaided by the wisdom, insights, and engagement of the Iraqi people and the international community."

The Bush administration has said it is on the right course in Iraq, but a senior Pentagon official acknowledged Tuesday that new thinking might be in order.

''The situation in Iraq isn't easy," Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy and a key planner of the war, told the American Enterprise Institute. ''There's value in thinking calmly and comprehensively about our strategy; assessing the facts, updating assumptions, reviewing the formulation of our objectives, and deciding the ways to achieve them."

The center's alternative strategy was compiled by Lawrence J. Korb, a senior Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, as well as Ivo Daalder, director of global affairs on the National Security Council for President Clinton, and Gayle Smith, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council in the Clinton administration.

The strategy calls for major course corrections in the areas of security, Iraq's political transition, and reconstruction.

First, America should request that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization assume control of security and stabilization operations in Iraq, the report said, noting that the US force currently in Iraq, along with allied troops from Italy, Poland, Great Britain and other countries, could serve as the core of such a command.

''Establishing a formal mission could make larger and more sustainable contributions by both NATO and non-NATO countries possible," the report said.

Indeed, it said that more troops are needed than the roughly 160,000 US and allied forces now in Iraq, specifying that ''at least 200,000" are required. It said the United States should increase its contingent to 150,000 from 135,000, while more than doubling international contributions to 50,000 troops from the current 24,000 -- ''with particular emphasis on contributions from Muslim countries."

On the political front, the proposal called for the UN Security Council to name a high representative for Iraq who would work with the interim Iraqi government proposed by UN special representative Lakhdar Brahimi and set to take power June 30.

''While the Iraqi caretaker government would assume significant authority over the state of affairs in Iraq, the high representative would possess emergency powers to veto controversial laws, policies, budgetary items, and government appointments," the report said. ''On a day-to-day basis, a Governing Authority -- consisting of the prime minister of the Iraqi caretaker government, the high representative, and the military commander in charge of security operations -- would be responsible for strategic decisions."

Lastly, the report recommended that the UN Security Council establish a Transition and Reconstruction Fund to take over the Development Fund for Iraq from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com