Mounting American pressure
In the meanwhile, the US kept up the pressure. On June 19, Blackwill said that
India would be part of the “inner board of directors” that managed security in Iraq’s transition to democracy.
A question that dominated public discourse on the issue was about financing the cost of sending and maintaining 17,000 Indian troops in Iraq. “…Our view is that the nations that choose to do this will do it for their own interest and, therefore, should pay for it,” Blackwill told
The Hindu.
There were some media reports that claimed the Indian army had already zeroed in on three divisions from which to pick troops to send to Iraq, with plans of transportation and deployment outlined.
“The Indian army was quite ready to go, quite prepared. They had identified the units that would be deployed and it seemed that it would happen. But as word of the dialogue between the two governments began leaking to the media, there was a counter reaction, particularly among the opposition parties and therefore in parliament, expressing reservations about this,” Thibault noted.
In line with his earlier views,
India Today’s Aroon Purie was one of the prominent commentators who supported sending Indian troops to Iraq.
“True, there is risk, for post-war Iraq is yet to have a civil society; rather, it is violent and anarchic. Still, the Iraqi mess should not be the concern of the US and Britain alone. The world has a stake in Iraq, and it is not subordinated to lucrative construction projects. India, being an emerging regional power in this world, cannot – should not – run away from its responsibility. Forget American pressure, send the troops under national pressure,” read the
magazine’s June 23 ‘editor’s note’.
A few days later,
Financial Express editor Sanjaya Baru, who also batted for Indian military deployment, asserted that such a decision would be financially viable.
He argued that it was “not about cleaning up the mess created by the United States and the coalition forces,” but about “investing in our energy security in the long run”.
“All the rhetoric about being a big power in a multipolar world will remain just that, pompous hot air, if we cannot cough up the funds required to ensure the security of our neighbourhood,” Baru wrote, calculating that the exchequer’s bill would be around an “affordable” $200 million.
New Delhi was told that Indian troops would be stationed in north Iraq – to keep peace in the Kurdish majority regions.
Baru told
The Wire that he stands by his views expressed at that time, “and [will] only say that I was not in [the] government but my views were based on high level briefing from within [the] government”.