WASHINGTON: The fall of Saddam Hussein could trigger Iraq’s collapse into anarchy unless the United States is prepared to follow any military campaign with a commitment to democracy, tens of thousands of peacekeeping troops, and substantial economic support, Congress was told on Thursday.

Showing further evidence of deep misgivings about the outcome of a US invasion, King Abdullah of Jordan said that even Tony Blair, Bush’s only significant supporter for a campaign against President Saddam, was uneasy about the venture.

“Blair has tremendous concerns about how this would unravel,” he told the Washington Post.

In the second day of Senate hearings described as the beginning of a national dialogue on whether and how to go to war against President Saddam, Iraqis and US experts on Iraq offered a stark assessment of what might happen the day after the Iraqi dictator’s fall.

They were unanimous in warning that if the administration wanted to prevent Iraq falling apart, it would have to do more than it had done in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s collapse.

Several expert witnesses told the Senate foreign relations committee that it was unlikely that post-Saddam Iraq would divide into three defined mini-states: a Kurdish north, a Shia south and a Sunni-dominated centre. Internal divisions in the ethnic and religious groups and a general sense of Iraqi nationhood would prevent such a neat split.

Rend Rahim Francke, director of the Iraq Foundation, which favours democracy, said: “The system of law and order will break down, endangering public safety and putting people at risk of personal reprisals.

“There will be no police force, no justice system, no civil service and no accountability. In this confusion, people will be inclined to take justice into their own hands.”

Phebe Marr, a former professor at the National Defence University,said: “Iraq could slip into the category of a failed state, unable to maintain control over its territory and its borders.”

Such a collapse would occur, Francke said, if after deposing President Saddam the US should chose “the easy and quick way out of Iraq by installing in power a group of generals, and consider its task done, more or less ...

“A military government will be divisive for the country and lead to conflict, even to raising the spectre of Iraq’s dismemberment.

“Regime change in Iraq has to be change to democracy, and a transitional government supported by the United States has to demonstrate that it represents the new Iraq,” he added, calling for work to begin immediately on assembling a national unity government.

Although the Pentagon has been drawing up plans for invading Iraq for most of this year, there has been little progress in Washington in bringing together opposition groups to discuss the future, due to divisions in the administration and the Iraqi groups.

The main rebel leaders have been called to a meeting in Washington later this month.

Scott Feil, a retired US colonel and co-director of a project studying post-conflict resolution, told the Senate that post-Saddam Iraq would need a security force of 75,000-costing an estimated $16.2 billion a year.

It would be needed for at least one year, but the US would have to maintain a significant military presence, more than 5,000 strong, for up to ten years, “if the reconstruction effort is to succeed”.

Committing such a force would conflict with the administration’s stated aversion to using US troops for “nation-building” — almost a dirty word in government policy-making circles — which underlies its refusal to contribute soldiers to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Francke said that the US performance in Afghanistan offered little encouragement to Iraqi democracy. “In some respects Afghanistan is a case study in what not to do,” he said.

Writing in the Washington Post, Samuel Berger, President Clinton’s national security adviser, asked what kind of commitment the US was prepared to offer a new Iraq.

“Do we see this as Korea, where we helped build a thriving democracy, but still maintain a military presence a generation later? Or Bosnia, where we seem impatient to leave even before conditions warrant?” Berger wrote.

He said that estimates of the total reconstruction costs in Iraq ranged from $50bn up to $150bn.

But Feil told the Senate that the cost could turn out to be less than that in post-war Afghanistan, as Iraq was in better shape and could draw on oil reserves.

He recommended that the US should be prepared to give one billion dollars annually to a reconstruction fund.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.