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THE attention of the world was riveted on happenings in Iraq every moment of the time when the US and the UK were engaged in an orgy of destruction, pounding it with their mightiest and technologically the most sophisticated weaponry.

Now that the spectacular part of the drama is over, Iraq has ceased to be a matter of interest, and the world has left it to its fate at the hands of the aggressors. The result is the US, with the UK in tow, openly contemptuous of all norms of international relations, and, indeed, of its own solemn undertakings, has begun to treat Iraq as its fiefdom and its people as its vassals.

In the process, the US is monkeying with Iraq. It is finding a country of the size of California with a population of barely 24 million hard to manage. The Chief Secretary of a State like Maharashtra or Madhya Pradesh posted to Baghdad would have brought things under control sooner and better, without being overwhelmed, as the Americans are, by looters on the rampage and people enraged by failure of civic services and shortage of daily necessities.

The likes of General Jay Garner and his successor Mr L Paul Bremer are not simply made for the challenges of complex cultural and managerial situations outside their own country. May be, even now it is not too late: India will be only too happy to lend the services of any of its able officials who will show his paces in no time.

The revolting part of the behaviour of the US is that it has thrown overboard its oft-proclaimed pledge to hand Iraq over to Iraqis. In the days and weeks immediately following the annexation, it was mouthing various formulations such as "interim authority", "governing council" and even a full-fledged Government with the participation of all sections of Iraqi opinion, but now it has given up all such ideas. In fact, it has announced that the establishment of a civil set-up under whatever name has been put off "indefinitely".

Another pledge was that revenues from Iraq's oil and other resources would be used for Iraq's benefit, and the country would not be allowed to become the hunting ground for business predators from the US or elsewhere with an eye for the fast buck at whatever cost to Iraq.

Already steps are afoot to "Bechtelise" that hapless country, and the best that firms elsewhere, (mostly in developed countries, with developing countries standing not the ghost of a chance) can hope for will be crumbs thrown at them courtesy the US.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has revealed that Mr Philip Carroll, the Texan businessperson, appointed by the US to run Iraq's astronomically lucrative oil industry, has close financial and business ties with one of the companies bidding for reconstruction projects. Indeed, according to the paper, the fact that many contracts are going to US firms with links to the Bush administration is causing widespread alarm in Europe and in the US itself. Visit www.truthout.org for a daily briefing on the vultures' feast that Iraq has become.

B. S. Raghavan

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