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Cato Daily Dispatch for December 2, 2004

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Pentagon Will Send More Troops to Iraq
Local Governments Consider Providing Internet Access
Iraq Seeks Debt Relief from Arab Lenders

Pentagon Will Send More Troops to Iraq

The Pentagon said yesterday that it will boost the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 150,000, the highest level since the U.S. occupation began 19 months ago," the Washington Post reports.

"Most of the increase in the troop count -- which now stands at about 138,000 -- will come from the extended deployment of units already there as others arrive. That will keep some troops in Iraq for combat tours of 14 months, beyond the year-long mission that most service members are told to expect, Pentagon officials said."

Christopher Preble, Cato's director of foreign policy studies, recommends that the United States withdraw its troops from Iraq. In "Wisest Move: Leave Soon," Preble writes: "By withdrawing from Iraq, the United States would be broadcasting to the world, in particular Arab and Muslim populations, that America has no plans to seize control of Middle East oil or to suppress the peaceful aspirations of the region's population. Withdrawal would undermine the credibility of anti-American propaganda that characterizes the occupation as a vehicle for U.S. dominance in the region. In other words, the United States should leave Iraq precisely because it is what the Iraqis want and what the terrorists fear.

"At the same time, the Bush administration must communicate to the people of Iraq: 'We have withdrawn militarily from your country, but that does not mean that we will ignore what you do. Do not harbor al-Qaeda or other anti-American terrorist groups, or we will be back.'"

Preble is the director of the task force behind the Cato book Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda.

Local Governments Consider Providing Internet Access

"For the millions of people who cannot afford high-speed Internet access, some local officials think they've hit on the answer: Build government-owned networks to provide service at rates below what big telecommunications companies charge," according to the Washington Post.

"From San Francisco to St. Cloud, Fla., an estimated 200 communities are toying with community-owned networks, sparking a battle with cable and telephone companies over how public, or private, access to the Internet should be."

In "Howard Dean's Plan for the Internet: Collectivism In, Property Rights Out," Adam Thierer, Cato's director of telecommunications studies, writes: "Certainly there is a place for some commons within our society, but that society should be structured and governed by property rights. The commons crowd seems to reverse that equation by suggesting we need to carve out a little room for property rights in a world of collective rule. And that sort of thinking is downright dangerous, for if we allow ourselves to believe that collectivism is the central organizing principle of cyberspace, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Treating the Internet, broadband networks, spectrum, and IP like socialized property will not lead to a cyber-nirvana but to a scarcity of those very things."

Iraq Seeks Debt Relief from Arab Lenders

"Iraq plans to push its Arab neighbors for a debt-relief deal at least as generous as the landmark reduction agreed by Paris Club countries earlier this month," the Financial Times reports. "The country's finance minister said on Wednesday that Iraq would push its creditors in the Middle East, led by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for debt reduction in excess of the 80 percent already agreed last month by the Paris Club of creditor nations."

In "Iraq's Odious Debts," Patricia Adams, executive director of Probe International, writes: "Most debts created by Saddam Hussein in the name of the Iraqi people would qualify as 'odious' according to the international Doctrine of Odious Debts. This legal doctrine holds that debts not used in the public interest are not legally enforceable."

Iraq's debt was created by former dictator Saddam Hussein and the funds were used to oppress the Iraqi people or were otherwise not used in the public interest, Adams argues. "Deciding the disposition of Iraq's debts by the rule of law, through a public judicial process that allows Iraqis, the domestic and international press, and anyone else to understand who lent how much to whom and for what purpose, would give Iraqis confidence that government can work in their interest," she concludes.

Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org