U.S. Senate To Dismember Iraq

Senate To Vote On Iraq Division Plan

By Stephen Collinson,
Agence France-Presse
Mon Sep 24, 4:11 PM ET
Yahoo

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on a Bosnia-style plan to subdivide Iraq on ethnic lines...

...A loose autonomous federation of Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities might look good on paper, but critics charge it ignores Iraq's ethnic stew, such as cities where ethnic groups live side-by-side and inter-marry, and are not divided by lines on a map.

...The plan, drawn up with former Carter administration foreign policy expert Leslie Gelb, would provide for a federal system as permitted by Iraq's constitution, stop Iraq from becoming a failed state and:

- Separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad in charge of border security and oil revenues.

- Aim to defuse sectarian violence by offering Sunnis a share of oil revenues.

- Boost reconstruction aid and debt relief.

- Launch an international diplomatic effort to rally the world's great powers and Iraq's neighbors to the new federation's cause.

The plan, offered as an amendment to a defense policy bill, already has achieved what many other Iraq war measures have failed to do: attract support from across the political chasm carved in Washington by the war.

...Critics, who have included the White House, have argued Biden plan is a recipe for more chaos in Iraq.

US ally Turkey would oppose such an initiative, fearful of unrest among its Kurdish population, they say, adding that a partitioned Iraq would lead outside powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia to bolster rival ethnic militia.

Other critics say frontier drawing in the Middle East by western powers has caused enough historical heartache, and it should be up to Iraqis to shape their future.

Some also say that partitioning Iraq, even if Baghdad remains whole, could encourage ethnic cleansing.

...The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which delivered recommendations in December warned partition could trigger mass population flows, the collapse of the fragile Iraqi security forces and ethnic cleansing by strengthened militias.