Sunday, September 22, 2002

What Does 'Regime Change' Mean Anyway?
THE UNITED STATES did not declare war on Iraq last week, but in Washington it was sometimes hard to tell.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld announced on Monday that American and British warplanes had begun bombing major air defense sites in Iraq, a move that could prepare the way for an invasion. Then Senator Tom Daschle, the majority leader, pledged that Congress would vote within weeks on a resolution to authorize an attack, with its passage all but assured. On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged Congress to give the president broad latitude to use force, saying, "The threat of war has to be there."

But if a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein seems on track, the discussion of what happens if it succeeds is still in its early stages. For some time now, Iraq experts have wondered just what kind of government, led by whom, would the Bush administration have replace Mr. Hussein. How much of Iraq's military, the police force, the judiciary, the government bureaucracy, the economy itself must be excised to create a democratic state? And who will do the excising?

Those are questions Congress has just begun asking, and that the Bush administration has yet to answer in public, although it has begun to gather analyses from experts and from Iraqi opposition figures.

Analysts who study Iraq say they are concerned that the focus on ousting Mr. Hussein has masked the complexity of organizing the system that would replace him. "Figuring out who should go is only the beginning," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy group. "When you talk about just getting rid of Saddam and then a miracle will occur, this is infantile and can do nothing but breed trouble."

During more than two decades of iron-fisted rule, Mr. Hussein has installed loyal members of his immediate family, his extended clan and his home region into top positions throughout the government. He has brutally purged all but the most loyal officers from senior military positions. He has enriched the entrenched leaders of his ruling Baath Party. He has created a governing universe that revolves around his sun.

If that sun is extinguished, many experts warn, its universe could implode into civil unrest, even civil war, unless a new government — probably one backed by American military might — asserts its authority immediately.

But those experts also contend that the raw material for a new government — an educated, technically competent civil bureaucracy — also exists in Iraq, and a great deal will depend on how easily and quickly it can be converted to the service of a different government at the top. Freeing it from the tentacles of Mr. Hussein's ruling Baath Party, those experts say, would be the key to keeping Iraq from fraying at the seams.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/weekinreview/22JDAO.html

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