Reacting to the Indian decision, a spokesman of the US embassy at Delhi said that though the US had hoped for a different decision it would not affect the transformation of US-India relations to a strategic one and India would remain an important strategic partner for the US.

Indian negative decision on troops deployment in Iraq was partly dictated by assembly elections to be held this year and parliamentary elections slated next year. Not only opposition Congress party but also some elements of the BJP and ruling National Democratic Alliance were opposed to the American request. Images of body bags arriving from Iraq had perhaps weighed heavily against the decision. Some Indian political analysts have criticized the Indian government decision on the ground that while the UN mandate would have enhanced the legitimacy of troops deployment, India, they feel, should not have circumscribed the service of her broader national interest and the opportunity to project herself as a major power on the plea of lack of UN mandate. It has been reported that Deputy Prime Minister Advani, Defense Minister Fernandez, Foreign Minister Sinha and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra opposed troops deployment while Finance Minister Jaswant Singh favoured sending troops without UN mandate.

The fact which possibly swung the decision against deployment was the distinct possibility of Indian troops trading fire with Iraqis opposing occupation thereby causing casualties on both sides and the stabilization operation slipping into counter insurgency. Such conflict, it was feared, would create ill will and hatred among a large part of the Iraqi people.

Indian reluctance as by some others to send troops to Iraq is mainly due to lack of UN mandate which raise questions about military actions by the troops, their chain of command, and accountability of such actions. The principles followed by the UN Peace Keeping Force are well known which interalia, provide for obtaining agreement from the country concerned beforehand, strict observance of neutrality, and prohibiting the use of force except for self-defense. China, a permanent member of the security council and a participant in peace keeping force insists on strict adherence to respect of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs and opposes imposition of views of a state or a small group of states on the UNSC under the guise of the UN peace keeping operations. UN peace keeping operations evolved essentially to stop hostilities and to prevent conflicts from flaring into broader conflagration. While UN peace keeping operations are not based on any particular theory or doctrine and initially questions were raised about the legality of the use by UN of military personnel in a manner not specifically provided for in the UN charter; over time something close to consensus emerged that these operations can be considered as having a basis, apart from the principle of consent, in the broad powers conferred on the UN and especially on the UNSC by the UN charter( UN Peace Keeping -- Theory and Practice -- Mohammad Arif).

UN peace keeping operations have some essential features: - (a) consent of the parties in the conflict in question; (b) requirement of impartiality not only on the ground of principle but also to ensure effective operations; (c) mandate given to UNSC must be clear and unambiguous; (d) military personnel is given by members on voluntary basis and they serve under the command of the UN Secretary General in all operational matters.

The US claim of operation Iraqi freedom to which forty eight countries have publicly committed their support to enforce seventeen UNSC resolutions is debatable. If one were to go through the list of the forty eight countries one would find only a few significant contributors namely Australia, Denmark, Italy, Japan. Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK and the US. The rest are small island states (Marshall Island, Micronesia, Palau) or troubled states militarily or financially dependent on the US (Albania, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Dominican Republic. El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Panama) or NATO aspirants (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania etc). In short, most of the coalition partners have only lent their names and their effective participation being extremely doubtful.

American problem in harnessing greater international support can easily be understood if one glances into the history of NATO led stabilization force in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the UN peace keeping force in Afghanistan. It may be recalled that based on UNSC resolution 1031 NATO was given the mandate to implement the military aspect of the Dayton Agreement. Consequently a NATO led military force called Implementation Force (IFOR) started its mission in December 1995.

With the completion of IFOR's mandate a Stabilization Force (SFOR) was set up under the UNSC resolution 1088(1996) as a legal successor to IFOR. Like its predecessor SFOR operates under chapter VII of the UN charter. The Stabilization Force has a unified command and is NATO-led under the overall military authority of the NATO Supreme Commander. Non-NATO forces (Austria, Ireland, Morocco, Russia, Sweden etc) have been incorporated into the operation on the same basis as the NATO forces taking orders from the SFOR commander. Non-NATO countries are represented and consulted through the so-called NAC+N(North Atlantic Council meeting with non NATO contributors). The point to be noted here is that both IFOR and SFOR were blessed by the UNSC which make them completely different from operation Iraqi freedom. In the case of Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the peace mission in Afghanistan, was sanctioned by the UNSC resolution no. 1386(2001).

The ISAF which works closely with the UN and the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has three principal tasks: - (a) aid the interim government in developing national security structures; (b) assist the country's reconstruction; and (c) assist in developing and training future Afghan security forces. ISAF has complete and unimpeded freedom of movement throughout the territory and air space of Afghanistan. It may be recalled that in December 2001 in an unprecedented move all fifteen EU countries agreed to take part in the UN plan for an Afghanistan peace keeping force.

Iraq as has already been stated is an entirely different case. Anglo-US intervention in the teeth of opposition of most of the members of the UNSC has been almost universally condemned. US search for peace keeping force is far from altruistic. With more than half the army's deployable troops now engaged in peace keeping and stabilization operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq Pentagon believes its purely military capabilities are stretched to their limits. Bush administration is now considering the idea of creating a standing force made up of troops from a range of countries but led and trained by the US. Last month Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a group of defense industry leaders that it would be a good idea if the US "provided some leadership in training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peace keeping so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organized and have communications that they can work with each other". Rumsfeld had not indicated how many US troops would be involved or the size of the international force or who would pay for their services. It is more or less certain that after the bitter experience of the US in failing to get its way through in the UNSC for Anglo-US military intervention in Iraq that UN would not be asked to lead the force.

By skirting UN the US would be able to retain greater control over the force and avoid the kind of international debate and rejection of a potential deployment as had happened in the past. The proposal is also consistent with limiting overseas US deployment of troops and would have the advantage of being cost effective. Rumsfeld told the congress that the monthly bill for Iraq operation was costing around four billion dollars. Therefore outsourcing peace keeping operations to poor countries or even to private enterprises would save the American tax payers huge amount of money. Such outsourcing, however, would inevitably raise the questions of accountability and allegiance i.e. to whom will the troops be accountable and to whom will they owe allegiance?

Concurrent with this strand of thought of trying to find coalition partners and possible establishing of a cadre of peace keepers the US has started discussions with other governments about the possibility of a new UN mandate on Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed this issue with Kofi Anan when the UNSG called on President Bush a few days back. A new UN mandate, probably giving the UN a more central role in running Iraq could persuade some of Washington's allies to contribute troops. Pressed by the loss of 147 soldiers in Iraq until now Bush administration may change its "going it alone" policy. Andrew Bennett of Georgetown University and Leonard Steinhorn of American University are of the opinion that the "constant drip" of casualties is likely to have an impact on American public opinion. Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University who studied public opinion in the Gulf war and in the Korean and Vietnam wars thought that the US public opinion would sooner or later demand to know about the location of WMD which Saddam Hussein was supposedly possessed and which was the raison d'etre of the Iraq war. He also thought that the public would be less tolerant of daily post-war casualties.

Iraq war was basically a war on terrorism. Interestingly in a pre nine-eleven study Ivan Eland of Cato Institute had empirically established a correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase of terrorist attacks on US interests. He cites Richard Betts, an influential authority on American foreign policy at the Council of Foreign Relations to the effect that American activism to guarantee international stability was paradoxically the prime source of American vulnerability. President Clinton had at one time saw a linkage (which he later rejected) between terrorist activities and the wealth, military power and world wide presence of the US coupled with western values and civilization which inevitably clashed with Islamic civilization and values. When it was pointed out that other western nations with comparable values and wealth were not targets of terrorists Ivan Eland concluded that all terrorist attacks on US interests could be explained as retaliation of US interventions abroad. He advised that in the benign post-cold war political situation US could consider to adopt a new policy that would use military might only as a last resort in the defense of truly vital national interest.

Since the war on Iraq was basically a pre-emptive action to thwart what was then believed to be Saddam Hussein's capability of launching WMD on western targets in a very short time without giving the west sufficient reaction time to retaliate, the present search by the US for coalition partners for occupation of Iraq is unlikely to yield fruitful result. Anglo-US combine could consider getting under a UN umbrella which will not only confer legitimacy to their "stabilization force" and help it to be transformed from "occupation force", but may also encourage many other nations to participate both militarily and otherwise in the reconstruction of Iraq. Alternately the path of obduracy if elected to be followed would not only be rejected by the large part of international community but would also be aggressively investigated by the percipient public at home.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and ambassador