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UKRAINE HAD TO PULL OUT TROOPS FROM IRAQ

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) - The first major move of Ukraine's new leadership - and at the same time the last one of the previous authorities - was to withdraw their soldiers from Iraq.

This is hardly surprising. Seven Ukrainian servicemen died when destroying an air bomb depot near Es Suweira in the province of Wasit. They included the commanding officer of the 72nd mechanized battalion, the commanding officers of a mechanized company and an engineer platoon, a senior liaison officer, the head of the electrical section of an engineer platoon, a squad leader from the same platoon and a female medic from a mechanized company.

Another wounded Ukrainian soldier died in a US military hospital in Baghdad. This was the 17th death the 1,640-strong Ukrainian troop contingent had suffered since Kiev joined the international peacekeeping coalition in Iraq. The tragic incident near Es Suweira also claimed the life of a soldier from a Kazakh separate engineer detached unit. Six Ukrainians and four Kazakhs were wounded.

Acting commander of Ukraine's Army Land Forces Lieutenant General Vladimir Mozharovsky said at a press conference in Kiev that he had reasons to believe that the explosion in the province of Wasit was a "planned act." Military officials believe that an explosive device was planted in one of the bombs and then detonated by remote control.

Ukrainian prosecutors launched criminal proceedings to investigate the tragedy, while the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, ordered the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry to start preparations for withdrawing Ukrainian peacekeepers from Iraq immediately.

Kiev has already calculated that it will cost the Defense Ministry at least a million dollars and will take at least four months, till the middle of this year. The withdrawal had earlier been scheduled to be completed by the end of 2005.

Washington reacted to Mr. Kuchma's order with open irritation. A USState Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, has already said that the decision should be up to the country's new president and government, not Mr. Kuchma. Agence France Presse quotes the American official as saying that the US hopes that any changes related to the Ukrainian troops will be well considered and made in close consultations with the coalition forces.

Washington's nervous reaction is understandable. The announcement of the withdrawal on the eve of the inauguration of George W. Bush, who despite all the setbacks does not conceal his personal satisfaction from toppling Saddam Hussein and takes pride in the democratic achievements in that country, is hardly a gift for the White House. The decision casts doubt over all the US rhetoric about a quick victory over Iraqi and other international terrorists.

Yet even Ukraine's president-elect, Viktor Yushchenko, insisted on withdrawing Ukrainian troops from Iraq in his campaign program and the country's parliament also approved the move.

However, the withdrawal at the end of 2005, which can yet be canceled, is one thing, and urgent preparations for it is quite another thing. It is as quick as the Spanish government's move to pull its troops out after the train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004. Mr. Bush still cannot forgive Jose Luis Zapatero's government for the "surprise". He is even less likely to forgive Mr. Kuchma. The White House has never liked the outgoing Ukrainian president, accusing him of every thinkable and unthinkable sin, up to support for the Iraqi dictator whom Kiev allegedly supplied with a Kolchuga radar system.

That the radar, like chemical weapons, has not been found in Iraq does not matter. What matters to the Washington administration is that Mr. Kuchma still appears to be a bad guy. His attempts to establish good relations with the US by sending Ukrainian peacekeepers to the Middle East were not duly appreciated, although criticism of him was toned down. It seems, however, that the White House will never forgive Kuchma the attempt to save his soldiers and officers from unjustified deaths in the interests of another state.

Certainly, the bottom line is not Mr. Kuchma or the announcement about the urgent withdrawal preparations, no matter what the reason might be - heavy casualties in the undeclared war against foreign terrorists or the decision taken by parliament and the president. The real problem is that Washington's operation to occupy Iraq is becoming increasingly deadlocked. The White House and its allies have failed to create in Baghdad any capable government, army or law-enforcement bodies. Many observers believe the elections to the legislature scheduled for late January are unlikely to bring peace and stability to the country. Efforts to reconcile and smooth out differences between Iraq's largest Muslim communities, the Sunnis and Shi'ites, have failed, as have attempts to solve the Kurd problem. Efforts to involve leading financial groups from the Arab East in Iraq's economic life and restoration of its industrial potential, the oil and oil refining sectors, have also failed. Yet even American firms have not managed to establish complete control over the country's mineral resources. Moreover, regular explosions on oil pipelines and acts of sabotage on refineries cast doubt on the efficacy and real quick return of investment in the business.

However, the most important point is that more and more American soldiers and officers are dying in Iraq with every passing day. On January 1, 2004 the official statistics reported 463 servicemen dead and 2,687 wounded. Accidents were responsible for 370 out of the deaths. Now the death toll has exceeded 1,350. It may be time to ask: what were these huge sacrifices made for? To export democracy? It sounds good, but has little in common with reality. Democracy as Europe and America understand it will not come to the Middle East for at least another hundred years, even if 150,000 US servicemen remain there throughout. Even if we suppose that everything was planned to obtain the Middle East's oil and control prices (and there are reasons to think this), a barrel will still cost too much, because it will have to be measured in new human losses.

Unlike monetary terms, there is always a limit to this price. The US had to leave Korea, Vietnam and Somalia without securing victory.

Yet the main problem is that the US cannot leave Iraq now or in the remote future. This would mean not just a collapse of Washington's whole Middle East and Central Asian policy, but also a capitulation to international terrorism, which, whether one wants to admit it or not, launched a large-scale offensive on the coalition troops in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled. It would be impossible to retreat, yielding to the victor's mercy. This would only inspire new life in all kinds of terrorists. Then the apartment block explosions in Moscow, the train bombings in Madrid, the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington would seem just a child's play.

So, unlike Kiev, Madrid and Amsterdam, as well as Warsaw, Budapest and Sofia, which are also talking about withdrawing their troops, Washington cannot make the move. This is why the White House is so irritated by any country deciding to leave Iraq. However, nerves are seldom of any help.