LETTER FROM BAGHDAD: Three Months of Dysfunction
Mylroie, Laurie
Y THREE MONTHS RECENTLY SPENT in Baghdad clarifiedtheconsiderabledifficultiesfacingtheUnited States in Iraq. Baghdad is very much a city at war, under siege by insurgents seeking to make...
...The posts were distributedwithlittleregardtothecapabilitiesoftheindividuals who assumed them...
...The ministries, along with the patronage they entail, came tobeseenasspoilsofthevote,doledouttotheparties, according to the election results...
...But it does seem to me the causes of much of the chaos in Iraq, mentioned above, needtobedealtwithbyforcefuldiplomacyormilitary force:SyriansupportforalQaeda;theunaccountability of government officials...
...The first post-Saddam government,chosenbyU.S.officialsandheadedbythe CIA's long-time favorite, Ayad Allawi, embezzled over one billion dollars...
...Others who have recently visited Iraq, including the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, have returned significantly more optimistic, as they explained in the pages of the New YorkTimes.TheviewofanyvisitortoIraqisnecessarilylimited,sodifficultandcomplicatedisthesituation, andonecanonlyhopetheyarecorrect,asdefeatwould have very serious consequences...
...In 2003, Gen...
...In August, most of the Sunni ministers resigned from the government...
...The situation in Iraq is complex and varies from one area to another, even as the violence severelylimitsanobserver'smobility...
...Five signatureswererequired.Hereducedthattoone,andif theinvoicewasnotpaidinatimelyfashion,theministry was to be charged interest on the outstanding balance...
...As a more thoughtful minister explained, many of his colleagues have personally never lived as well as they do now!WhenU.S.officialssaytheymustreformorthere willbeconsequences,theydonotbelievethem...
...Al Qaeda had taken over the western province of Anbar...
...That proved a "fiasco,"aU.S.officerlaterexplained...
...Similarly, in the spring of 2004, a Marine offensive againstFallujahwassuspended,andthecityputunder the control of the "Fallujah Brigade"--Iraqi forces headed by a Saddam-era general...
...They ran on party lists, with each list receiving a proportionoftheparliamentaryseats,according to its share of the vote...
...THE U.S...
...and--although not dealt with in detail above but clearly also an issue--the continued Saudi and other Arab financing of the Sunni insurgency...
...Furthermore, the prime minister does not have real authority over his ministers,becausetheydonotowetheirjobstohim.Rather, powerlieswiththeleadersoftheparties...
...Despite the remarkable success of the Anbar SalvationCouncil,therearepartsofIraqwherereplicatingthatexperiencewillbedifficult.Adelegationof Shia leaders from the northeast province of Diyala came to Baghdad in June, before the U.S...
...The United States, however, considered al-Jaafari ineffectual and favored therunner-upintheShiacaucus--AdelAbdulMehdi,of theSupremeIraqiIslamicCouncil(SIIC),althoughSIIC is closer to Tehran than any other Iraqi party...
...The Shia list, the United Iraqi Alliance(UIA),whichwonthelargestnumberofvotesin the last elections in December 2005, initially chose Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be prime minister...
...Another figure associated with the council suggested cross-border raids to punish Damascus...
...forces began working with them,establishingajointoperationsroomandproviding military assistance, including, occasionally, helicoptersupportintheirbattleswithalQaeda...
...Bureaucrats tenaciously protect theirturf.Iraqisdesperatelyshortofrefinedfuelproducts...
...As a spokesman for the delegation explained, "The Baathists are attacking us in the first place...
...Laurie Mylroie is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein'sWarAgainstAmerica(AEIPress...
...Head of the Dawa party, al-Jaafari had been prime minister in the previous transitional government...
...Baghdad is very much a city at war, under siege by insurgents seeking to make Iraq's capital unlivable and to a disturbing extent succeedingindoingso...
...David Petraeus, as head of the 101st Airborne in Mosul, allowed them to assume senior positionsinthecity.Mosulbecameahavenforformer regime elements, and before year's end, the modus vivendi had fallen apart...
...To take a decision is to assume responsibility--andrisk.Decisionsareregularlydeferredorsentto committees...
...TheychangetheirnamefromBaathiststoal Qaedato1920RevolutionBrigades,butthey are all the same...
...Yet those who led the walkout aredubiousfigures,mostassociatedwithterrorismand violence.InApril,U.S.forcesraidedtheBaghdadhome of one such member of parliament, discovering explosives and other bomb-making material, as well as a cache of mortars...
...Unlike Anbar, which is entirely Sunni, Diyala has a mixed population and sectarian strife--particularly violence directed against the Shia--isvicious.Onememberofthedelegation,atear rolling down his cheek, related how al Qaeda fighters had kidnapped two of his sister's children while playing outside their house...
...In the name of enforcing strictIslamiclaw,itkilledwantonly,murderingthose itdenouncedasheretics,includingtriballeaders.The Iraqi Islamic Party, the most moderate of the nationL A U R I EM Y L R O I E Underlyingthisunwieldygovernment structureisastillunreformed Saddam-erabureaucracy,which, absentthebrutaldisciplineofthe formerregime,isverycorrupt...
...The Iraqi and American governments hadtodosomethingaboutSyriansupportforalQaeda, he said, suggesting Iraq's border police needed to be made far more effective...
...Instead of Dawa's top leadership, the second tier assumed office, one reason the present government is lesscompetentthanthepreviousone...
...Al Qaeda receives most of its training in Syria, which also serves as a safe haven--as northern Pakistan does for Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan...
...Qualifications to this pessimistic assessment should be noted...
...In fact, the U.S...
...L E T T E RF R O MB A G H D A D ThreeMonthsof Dysfunction 3 4 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 by Laurie Mylroie M O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 3 5 An ill-conceived electoral system contributed to this political gridlock...
...military has recently undertaken a major new initiative to work with the Sunnis at the local level, arming the tribes to fight al Qaeda...
...Such a system promotes the autonomy of parties and tends to produce ideologicalpolitics...
...Sometimes they simply fear being accused of taking bribes...
...Iraq has a substantial budget surplus, because ministers do not make decisions on how to spend government funds...
...military at first, although that changed four months later, when they had shown themselves to be successful...
...Ayearago,Baghdadreceivedfourto sixhoursofelectricityadayfromthenationalgrid.Inlate April, when I arrived, it was down to two hours...
...Despitealltheseproblems,therewas,atleastuntil recently, little pressure on top government officials to performbetter.TheyliveintheGreenZone,protected bytheUnitedStates,enjoyingthefullrangeofservices andamenitiestowhichAmericansareaccustomed,but which are not to be found elsewhere in Baghdad...
...WHENSOMETHINGDOESNOTHAPPEN,itisvirtually impossibletoknowifitisdeliberatepolicyon thepartofthegovernment,incompetence,or merely inexperience in disciplining unresponsive underlings...
...I did not leave Iraq feelingthatIhadstrategicadvicetooffer,onlyinsights based on my experiences...
...My experiences were largely limited toBaghdad.OtherpartsofIraq,liketheKurdishnorth, aredoingmuchbetter,evenprospering.Avisitorfrom Samawa, capital of the southern province of Muthanna,citedproblemsthere,butaffirmedthatlife was incomparably better than it had been under Saddam...
...FormermembersoftheSaddam-eraregimedominatetheviolenceinDiyala.TheyprovidesupportforalQaeda and have their own organizations as well...
...Al-Hayyis explained that al Qaeda, at least as it exists in Anbar, is a mix of Arab nationalities, but consists mostly of young Iraqi men from the tribes of Anbar itself...
...That said, the Iraqi government is clearly dysfunctional.Baghdadisgenerallyseeitasagangofself-serving politicians, enriching themselves and their parties, but doing little for the average Iraqi, despite the country's dire circumstances...
...The Iraqi vote was not conducted on the basis of territorial representation, as in the United States, where candidates are chosen from districts--and those elected address their constituent's concerns, lest they be defeated in the next election...
...military surge began there...
...Subsequently, the Sunni minister of Culturewaschargedwiththemurderoftwosonsofan independentSunniMP,andsoonthereafter,thespeaker of parliament, from the same bloc, was obliged to resignafterhisguardsbeatupaShiaMP...
...officialsblockedal-Jaafari'sappointment.TheUIArejected their attempt to determine its candidate, but the Americans would not relent in their opposition to alJaafari,sohisdeputy,al-Maliki,becameprimeminister...
...Baghdadis, once hopeful about thefutureinapost-SaddamIraq,arenolongerso...
...Other Iraqis explained that the United Arab Emirates, which has a territorial dispute with Iran,isamajorfunderofalQaeda,asareSaudireligious organizations, while the Saudi government funds the 1920RevolutionaryBrigades...
...This anger is not focused on Prime MinisterNurial-Malikiinparticular,butdirectedacross thepoliticalspectrum.The government's weakness reflects fundamental, systemicproblemsthatbothIraqiandU.S.officialshave helpedcreate.DespitePresidentGeorgeW.Bush'sstatedcommitmenttodemocracyinIraq,U.S.officialshave hadadifficulttimeresistingthetemptationtomeddlein the country's politics...
...L E T T E RF R O MB A G H D A D 3 6 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 "TheychangetheirnamefromBaathists toalQaedato1920Revolution Brigades,buttheyareallthesame...
...The Anbar Salvation Council is the model for that effort, andHamidal-Hayyisisacentralfigureinthecouncil...
...The Sunni walkout has not made Iraq's political paralysisworsethanitalreadywas.Assumingal-Maliki remainsprimeminister,whichislikelybutnotcertain, the resignations may improve the government's performance,makingiteasiertoreachagreementoncontentious issues, while focusing responsibility more sharply, despite the general lack of accountability to voters.ThewalkouthashadlittleeffectonU.S.effortsto workwithSunnisatthelocallevel,suggestingtheymay be as alienated from Iraq's government and parties as mycontactsinBaghdad...
...Shortly before I left in late July, insurgents had toppled the last towerbringingpowerintothecity,andthenationalgrid providednoelectricityatall.Sincethen,theavailabilityof electricity has recovered somewhat, but the water supply--which depends on electricity--has faltered: for one weekinlateAugust,therewasnoneatall.Oneofthesadder features of life in Baghdad is that the situation has steadily deteriorated in the four years since Saddam Hussein'soverthrow.Thepassageoftimeseemstomake things worse, not better...
...Ahmed Chalabi, now head of the Iraqi government's Popular Committees to Support the Surge, explained the difficulty of getting invoices paid to those whohadrenderedservicestothegovernment,whenhe wasdeputyprimeminister(May2005-May2006...
...Iraqi politicians have no concrete constituents...
...The United States has tried working with the Baathists before...
...The delegation complained bitterly about American bias in favor of the Sunnis, who, as the former rulers, often have the skills that make them attractive partners for U.S.forces...
...The Iraqi government begantopaytheirfighters,incorporatingthemintothe Interior Ministry, and U.S...
...Allawi is, nonetheless, trying to make a political comeback with the help of a major Washingtonlobbyingfirm,headedbyRobertBlackwill, formerWhiteHouseenvoytoIraq...
...The United States also pushed for a "national unity" government to include all the major Iraqi factions, on the assumption that giving each group a slice of the political pie would promote national reconciliation and reduce Iraq's violence...
...They then decapitated the youngsters and sent their heads on a tray to their mother, with a note saying, "You are Shia, and you must leave...
...forces were obliged to undertake a sustained campaign to clean up the city...
...The State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) is theonlybodyauthorizedtoimportsuchproducts.One obviousremedyistoallowtheprivatesectortodosoas well,butSOMOblocksanysuchchange...
...In September 2006, the tribes began to organize themselvestocombatalQaeda,creatingaforceofsome 800fighters.TheyreceivednohelpfromtheIraqigovernment or the U.S...
...MILITARY HAS SINCE ANNOUNCED apartnershipwiththe1920RevolutionBrigadestofight alQaedainDiyala,althoughitrecognizesthatit is dealing with former regime members who were major players in the Sunni insurgency...
...Yet governing by consensus is difficult, especially when none exists...
...This had the desired effect, because ministries had no budgetforpayinginterest,andanyoffendingbureaucrat wouldbeintroublewithhisbosses...
...al Sunni parties, governed Anbar, but did nothing about al Qaeda...
...OnavisittoBaghdadinlateMay,al-Hayyisexplained how the council began...
...An Iraqi official described another aspect of this problem...
...Initiallyitworkedout OK,butitwasn'tagoodideaforverylong...
...UnderlyingthisunwieldygovernmentstructureisastillunreformedSaddam-erabureaucracy, which, absent the brutal discipline of the former regime,isverycorrupt.Receivingapassportinatimely fashion costs $500...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
