1. The traditional style of Dutch MidEast diplomacy
Since 1956, Holland contributed around 500 army officers from the ground,
air and naval forces to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in
the Middle East (UNTSO), which was established in 1948. In resolution 50
(1948), the UN Security Council had called for a cessation of hostilities in
Palestine and decided that the truce should be supervised by UNTSO. In 1949,
UNTSO military observers remained to supervise the Armistice. After 1956,
Israel recruited a number of Dutch UN officers to spy in Syria, Jordan and
Lebanon, regularly using blackmail. After the 1967 War, the UNTSO
headquarters in East Jerusalem was looted by Israeli soldiers. Boxes with
personal properties of the Dutch officers disappeared. Also appartments
from which a number of UN observers were evacuated were looted.
Arthur ten Cate, a researcher affiliated with the Dutch Institute for
Military History in The Hague, names two Dutch officers who were involved in
intelligence gathering for Israel is his book "Waarnemers op heilige grond"
[lit. 'Observers on holy ground'], Dutch officers with UNTSO 1956-2003".
One of the Dutch UN officers was Major G.J. Schüssler, commander of the
headquarters of UNTSO in Tiberias. Schüssler provided Israel with
intelligence on locations of anti-aircraft artillery in Syria and on
Palestinian fedayeen in Jordan. The other one was Major IJsbrand Smit, a
Dutch airforce officer who married a Mossad spy and continued to spy for
Israel working at the NATO headquarters in Bergen and at the Foreign
Intelligence Service in The Hague, In 1983 he was exposed. He appeared
before the military council behind closed doors .
Ten Cate mentions his visit to a Jordanian village, where in November 1966,
Israeli forces blew up homes and killed civilians and Jordanian soldiers.
The publication was prohibited by the Dutch Ministry of Defense. He was told
that "the higher echelons felt that the article did not match with the
feelings of the Dutch people about Israel." Ten Cate concludes his study
reflecting that "much earlier than the rest of the Dutch people, the Dutch
officers learned that the Israeli-Arab conflict has two sides instead of
one."
2. Weapons sales to Iraq
According to an official Iraqi report to the UN, military equipment was sold
to Saddam Hussein's regime by enterprises from Germany, USA, Britain,
France, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. As regards the
Dutch companies,
Delft Instruments N.V., via its Belgian subsidiary OIP, pleaded guilty in
1990 to a U.S. indictment and agreed to pay $2.5
million in criminal fines and $800,000 in penalties, for illegally supplying
military thermal-imaging equipment with U.S. components and developing two
prototypes of thermal-imaging systems for Iraq as part of a $35 million deal
financed by the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL);
the prototype development began in 1988 and was believed by U.S. prosecutors
to have been prepared to begin production in Iraq.
KBS Holland B.V. at Terneuzen in 1983 brokered the sale of 500 tons of
thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, from Belgian firm Phillips Petroleum
to the Iraqi State Enterprise for the Production of Pesticides (SEPP), an
Iraqi chemical weapon front company. Melchemie B.V. in1984-1985 sold over
1,200 tons of dimethylamine and thiodiglycol and 20,000 kg of phosphorous
trichloride (all mustard or nerve gas precursors) to Iraq, and was fined
$50,000 in 1986 in Arnhem and threatened with a one-year shut-down if caught
making such deals again. Poison gas was used in the war against Iran and
against Iraqi Kurds in 1987 and 1988. An unknown Dutch firm which was a
licensee of Survival Technology, Inc., of Bethesda, MD, in 1988 sold
injectors of atropine (nerve gas antidote) to Iraq.
The last known military supplies by the Netherlands to Iraq came from Delft
Electronic Products at Roden, a daughter company of Delft Instruments, but
it turned out that they were designed to obtain intelligence about the Iraqi
army, and were part of a covert operation by the CIA and the Dutch IDB.
3. The Shell connection
Royal Dutch Shell, which employs 90,000 people in Holland, today is among
the richest, largest and best-positioned corporations on earth. In the USA,
Shell owns one of the largest gasoline chains in the country, and holds
about 15% of the US gasoline market. It does business in over 140 countries,
and the oil and gas exploration arm operates in more than 40 countries.
Four-fifths of Shell's revenue comes from oil and gas in one form or
another, more than half in Europe and the USA. It participates in, or owns,
more that 50 oil refineries and chemical plants, hundreds of terminals and
storage yards, it operates 46,000 retail service stations, and thousands of
miles of production and product pipelines in various parts of the world.
Shell was previously a major shareholder in the Iraq Petroleum Company.
After its abortive charm offensive toward Baghdad in 1998, Shell reactivated
its networks. In fact, some months prior to the invasion of Iraq, Philip
Carroll, former head of Shell Oil, the US arm of Royal Dutch Shell (based in
Houston) began working for the Pentagon to develop contingency plans for
Iraq's oil sector in the event of war. After the invasion, Rumsfeld
appointed him as senior adviser to the Iraqi oil ministry. Carrold said,
"My response was, `Well, this is not high on my hit parade list right now -
but under the circumstances, you just can't say no." He is not actually
known as an Iraq oil specialist and never went there previously, but as an
"elder statesman" in the oil industry, he is a non-controversial, "low-key"
figure.
Carroll served as president and CEO of US Shell from 1993 until 1998. He
began his career with Shell in 1961 as petroleum engineer, and held various
posts with Shell's exploration and production business, becoming managing
director of Shell International Gas/International Petroleum in London in the
mid-1980s. In the early 1970s, Carroll served as director of the US Commerce
Department's Energy Conservation Division, and as executive director of the
National Industrial Energy Council. After retiring from Shell in 1998, he
became chairman and CEO of Fluor, a large California-based engineering and
construction firm that vyed for a large government contract for
reconstruction work in Iraq. While at Fluor, Carroll oversaw construction of
large petrochemical projects in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Carroll is paid more than $1 million a year by Fluor Corp. in retirement
benefits and bonuses, and owns about 1 million Fluor shares, as well as
substantial stock in Shell. He acknowledged in advance he faced "potential
conflicts of interest" because of his financial holdings in American
companies planning to bid on Iraqi oil contracts, but said any conflicts
could be avoided by "distancing" himself from the oil contracting process,
and that he had declared to the US Defense Department all of his financial
holdings in companies seeking roles in rebuilding Iraq.
At the end of September 2003, Shell was among a select group of oil
corporations invited by Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, Iraq's newly appointed oil
minister, to invest in redeveloping the war-torn country's oilfields. On 16
October, Royal Dutch/Shell announced they had won the right to buy two
million barrels of Iraqi crude oil. Oil companies have been asked to come up
with detailed plans for investing in the oilfields. The corporations are
keen to join in the opening-up of the Iraqi oilfields, but they seek a
government that is internationally recognised, and has the support of the
Iraqi people. Sir Philip Watts, chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell previously
commented that, "There has to be proper security, legitimate authority and a
legitimate process by which we will be able to negotiate agreements that
would be longstanding for decades. When the legitimate authority is there on
behalf of the people of Iraq, we will know and recognize it." (Financial
Times, July 24, 2003).
4. Sending in SFIR troops
After the fall of Baghdad, the Security Council on 22 May adopted
resolution1483, establishing Stabilisation Force Iraq (SFIR) comprising
military personnel from about various pro-USA countries, and dividing Iraq
into three sectors. Poland gained central command over Northern coalition
troops, the USA the middle-part as well as part of the North, and the
British the South. The Netherlands was invited to participate with a
batallion under the British division, although, at Polish request, some
Dutch military were to be stationed at the Polish headquarters.
The Dutch Government wasn't actually well prepared for the Iraq war however.
In May 2002, the "Purple" lib-lab coalition government had been defeated in
an election, shortly after the murder of immigrant-basher Pim Fortuyn. This
led to the formation of a new right-wing cabinet headed by christian
democrats ("Balkenende I") which soon became bogged down in squabbling and
fell apart. New elections were held in January 2003, and while the Labor
Party recouped a lot of votes, it fell short of gaining a majority. It took
four months of negotiations before the christian democrats and liberals
formed a reshuffled cabinet ("Balkenende II").
The main objective of the new rightwing cabinet is to implement savage cuts
in social spending and restrict immigration, in the context of fast-rising
unemployment, causing a mass protest on September 20 this year under the
slogan "Turn the Tide," which was supported by unions, the Labor Party, the
SP, Green Left and the far left. A big majority of the Dutch population
oppose the US-led war against Iraq, and there was strong opposition to large
Government subsidy for developing the Joint Strike Fighter (the Dutch
weapons industry is currently in decline; exports of weapons and weapons
systems, the bulk of which goes to the USA and other European countries,
declined from about 1.1 billion euro in 1997 to about 450 million euro in
2002).
At the beginning of June, the Dutch Government agreed to send a peacekeeping
force to the Al-Muthanna province (population about 450,000), a desert area
which is a little larger than Holland, and according to Defence Minister
Kamp "relatively and actually quiet". The population there is mainly Shiite.
The capital city of Al-Muthanna, As-Samawah (population130,000) suffers from
smallscale crime involving robberies, car thefts and weapons trade, but
there are no big threats. However, Socialist Party foreign policy spokesman
van Bommel raised an objection on June 4 about the danger to the Dutch
troops of exposure to depleted uranium shells with which US troops have
irradiated Iraq. On 19 June experts also warned in a parliamentary hearing
against other possible risks, and concerns were expressed about the safety
of the soldiers. More to the point, Professor Schrijver stated the juridical
basis for a military presence was very weak, being based only on a few
sentences of resolution 1483. Nevertheless Kamp persuaded parliament,
calling the risks ""acceptable".
The Dutch Government decided to commit about 1160 troops (SFIR 1) for an
initial six months, including a infantry batallion of 650 marines, a
230-strong genie company, about 150 air force personnel with three CH-47
Chinook helicopters (led by Major Rob Gouders), a logistics support unit, a
field hospital with surgery and field dressing station, a contingent
command, military police (about 38), a liasion unit at the British HQ, staff
officer at Baghdad HQ and the Polish HQ, Civil Military Cooperation (CIMIC)
staff led by commander leieutenant-colonel Dick Swijgman, and about 50
genies for setting up base. Supplies were delivered by KDC10 via Basra. The
total cost of the operation over a year was estimated at about 65 million
euro, paid out of the peacekeeping operations budget, about two-thirds being
spent in 2003. Continuing operations after six months require approval of
the Ministerial Council, and consultation with Parliament.
The first 25 soldiers left on 2 July, and on 10 July 300 followed, including
60 staff from the airbase Soesterberg. Another 90 air force personnel left
on 19 July. The troops first spent two weeks in Kuwait to acclimatise, and
the helicopters were stationed at Tallil airbase in Dhi Qar with the
function of supporting the marines with tactical air transport. From 31
July, the Dutch force became operational, guarding the 300km long border
with Saoudi Arabia and ensuring public safety in the province. In August, 25
military police began training Iraqi police at Al Khidr, Ar Rumaythah and As
Samawah, at a rate of fifty per week for four weeks. Marine patrols
collected information from village elders in the province using a
´measurement of effectivness´ questionnaire, which asks Iraqis about their
opinions and perspectives using a translator. A pontoon bridge over the
river Euphrates near Al Darraji was renovated by CIMIC staff. The Al-Khinsa
school girls school, featuring 16 classrooms for 500 girls aged 12-18 years
was rebuilt and opened at Al Rumaithah. However, because of the heat, heavy
workloads and lack of sufficient staff, the tour of duty was reduced from a
6 month period to 4 months ending in November (a similar norm was adopted by
British, Italian and Danish forces). Soldiers thereby forfeited R&R leave.
A delegation of 11 parliamentarians very recently visited Dutch soldiers in
Iraq, and reported there was "little danger" to the soldiers. The local
population, they said, was apparently satisfied. However it is not yet clear
if more troops will be sent to Iraq. The liberal MP Wilders said he "wanted
to ask some questions of the Cabinet first", since he heard in Iraq the
Americans leading the mission witheld information, through which the Dutch
forces could not do their work properly.
Jurriaan
