Rumsfeld sets out ‘principles’ to lead Iraq to democracy

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday set out 13 U.S. principles for turning Iraq from a Ba’athist tyranny into a free-market democracy.

With the American occupation in a bumpy second month, the defense secretary also sent a clear warning to Iran’s Islamist regime, saying the military coalition will stamp out any sign of a Tehran-style theocracy taking hold in Baghdad.

“Iran should be on notice that efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran’s image will be aggressively put down,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in a major policy speech before members of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Iran, one of President Bush’s “axis of evil” states, has sent agents into Iraq to stir up Iraqi Shi’ite resentment in the south against the American occupiers. Tehran is also a U.S.-designated sponsor of terrorism and is suspected of supporting al Qaeda’s deadly May 12 bombings in Riyadh.

Mr. Rumsfeld seemed to be preparing the American public for a long military stay in Iraq. Instead of playing down lawlessness and looting, as he did after Baghdad fell April 9, he acknowledged that the disorder is problematic but not unexpected.

“The transition to democracy will take time,” he told the influential group of government and business leaders. “It will not be a smooth road.”

He said one of the Bush administration’s 13 principles is that “the coalition will maintain as many security forces in Iraq as is necessary and will keep them there for as long as is necessary.”

There are about 150,000 American ground forces in Iraq, with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad, the 4th Infantry Division in northern Iraq and 40,000 Marines in the south. The Marines are leaving in stages and should be out of the Persian Gulf region by August. Meanwhile, the 1st Armored Division in Germany is moving units into Iraq as extra military police arrive.

Mr. Rumsfeld said some Iraqi soldiers who quit the battlefield rather than fight are engaged in guerrilla attacks on American soldiers. “Many of the regime’s enforcers are still at large,” he said.

Among the key components of the principles for Iraqi home rule:

• For now, U.S. diplomat L. Paul Bremer and his provisional authority will run Iraq.

• U.S. forces will impose security and restore water, electricity and other basic services. Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged that an errant allied bomb or bombs might have damaged Baghdad’s electrical grid. Military and Bechtel Corp. engineers are “having trouble getting back to a circumstance that would be considered better than prior to this most recent conflict,” he said.

cGovernment ministries will be staffed by Iraqis, excluding senior officials from Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. Of the 55 wanted Iraqis, 26 are in allied custody and being interrogated by the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other authorities. About 200 senior members of Saddam’s regime have been captured.

cMr. Bremer will nurture a market economy by rebuilding Iraq’s lucrative oil industry and shifting state-owned businesses to the private sector.

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