|
The Fund for Peace is pleased to release its third report in the
series on Iraq as a Failed State. The
initial report,
covering the first six months of the post-war period from April to
September 2003, concluded that the U.S.-led invasion
precipitated the collapse of the Iraqi state, which had
been deteriorating for years. The
second report
concluded that Iraq descended into what may be described as a failed
state syndrome, a condition in which a number of trends
reinforced each other to produce spiraling conflict that the
country has little or no independent capacity to stop.
The current report, covering the period from April through
September 2004, concludes that this forecast has been fulfilled
even more quickly than anticipated as violence grows
significantly worse throughout the country. By the end of
the period, all indicators were in "high alert" and the
country was closer to civil conflict, like Lebanon in
the 1980s, than ever before. The high conflict risk does
not merely reflect the increased violence, but rather deeper
trends that show the impact of that violence on society as a whole.
The report calls for postponement of the elections scheduled
for January 2005. Other crises have shown that bad elections can
be worse than no elections. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
observed, legitimate elections cannot be held if current
security conditions persist. Postponement of elections would
give coalition forces more time to train and test Iraqi security
forces, provide the interim government and the UN with more
time to prepare for elections, and allow more political
parties to form. The report also calls for NATO to speed up
implementation of its training programs and for the U.S. Congress
to authorize fast-track disbursement of appropriated funds
to accelerate reconstruction and create jobs.
"As this and other recent reports have shown, the coalition
forces invaded a 'paper tiger,'" said Dr. Baker. "Now we are
riding that tiger, whose wounded fury is turning on itself and on us."
|
