The United States project to rebuild Iraq had been beset by
problems the day it started in 2003. When the civil war started in 2005 it
complicated matters more as security steadily declined. Things got worse after
the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006. In the next four
days approximately 1,300 people were killed. 25,000 were eventually displaced.
The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad began as the Shiite militias went on the
offensive. The Iraqi government and the United States were overwhelmed by the
situation. Reconstruction of the country was thrown into disarray as a result
just as American officials were trying to change directions.
The violence that was unleashed after the bombing at Samarra
greatly impeded the U.S. rebuilding effort. First, the program was run out of Baghdad. Movement throughout the city and entering and leaving it became very
difficult as militias, insurgents, and local neighborhoods created informal
checkpoints to protect their areas from attack. Parts of the capital were
declared no go zones for the U.S. Iraqi professionals and public workers also
begin fleeing the capital in a massive brain drain. That further impaired the
capacity of the government, which was already poor. The Iraqi authorities were
now even less able to run the infrastructure that they were being left with. The
ability of the Americans to monitor and manage projects became greatly impaired
as well.
The outbreak of civil conflict came as the United States was
attempting to change the emphasis of its rebuilding program. 2006 was the year
that the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund 2 (IRRF2) was coming to an end,
which emphasized large infrastructure projects using major American
corporations such as Bechtel. These were long-term efforts that would take
years to impact the country. The U.S. was now trying to move towards small and
medium sized projects that would have immediate effects, and include more Iraqi
companies and local communities out in the provinces. The two tools that would
be used to achieve these goals would be the Commanders Emergency Response
Program (CERP), which was distributed by local military units, and the
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). This was part of the new Clear, Hold
and Build counterinsurgency strategy put together by Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad and the White House. There were many problems in this transition.
First, some U.S. officials didn’t see the necessity of the medium term
projects, and refused to approve them. Second, there wasn’t enough funding, and
there were delays in budgeting and acquisition. That meant that the nine cities
that were supposed to be targeted by the new campaign in the summer of 2006 was
reduced to four. The PRTs were not adequately staffed, lacked money, and there
were disputes between agencies over who would have responsibility over them.
Finally, there were disagreements within the administration over whether the
new strategy should be initiated to begin with. These all undermined the
effectiveness of the new counterinsurgency plan. Without a unified stance,
there was no way the Americans were going to be able to carry out the new
strategy. That on top of the increased violence meant restoring and securing
the country suffered.
Still, the U.S. pressed ahead with a new focus upon
agriculture. Farming was the second largest industry after oil in Iraq, and
employed 25-30% of the workforce, so it had great potential to effect a large
part of the population. It faced major problems. It was behind in techniques
and technology, because it had been cut off from innovations due to sanctions
imposed in 1990. Production had largely collapsed as a result, and there were
problems with irrigation, water supply, and salinity. This started a large
exodus of people from the countryside to the cities in search of jobs. Farming
had been largely overlooked in the first three years of the reconstruction
program. IRRF2 didn’t fund any agriculture projects for example, but the
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) did get the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) to work with the Agriculture Ministry. The
new U.S. effort focused upon reforming the Agriculture Ministry into becoming
more of a regulatory body rather than a manager, and helping to modernize the
industry. While the Americans repaired a large amount of farm equipment, and
started long-term planning for land and water use, it wasn’t able to change the
overall situation. Iraqis were still using mostly 1980s techniques, output was
below pre-war levels, there were few market-based mechanisms, and the lack of
services like a steady supply of electricity hurt production. The Agriculture Ministry was still controlling important inputs like fertilizer and seeds, as it does to this day. All
the U.S. was able to accomplish was put a bandage upon a declining industry.
Another major focus of the Americans was the Iraqi Security
Forces (ISF). In June 2005, President Bush announced that the United States
wanted the Iraqis to take responsibility for security. This was stated in a
number of speeches by the president where he said, “As Iraqis stand up, we will
stand down.” What was left unstated was that this was just the latest version
of the withdrawal plan, because as more Iraqi units were stood up that would
eventually allow the American forces to pull out. The ISF had already become
the largest expenditure in U.S. reconstruction funds. The problem was the
Americans were pushing for immediate results in a process that would take years
to come to fruition. First, too many Iraqi units were put out into the field
before they were ready, and performed poorly or disintegrated as a result. That
caused continuous changes in the training program. Second, Iraqi institutions
were not ready to manage the forces. Budgeting, acquisition, and maintenance
were all weak within the Defense Ministry. Corruption also siphoned off huge
amounts of money. The U.S. tried to help with this process by skipping the
Iraqi procurement system, and used the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program
instead. The amount of equipment the Iraqis needed however, overwhelmed the
FMS, leading to huge delays. Of the $1.7 billion in orders placed in 2006, only
$300 million had arrived by 2007. The U.S. also setup a modern financial and
accounting system within the Defense Ministry, but this was based upon American
norms, which were completely foreign to the Iraqis, and proved to be a failure.
By the end of 2006, more and more Iraqi units were finally considered ready to
take the lead in operations, and two provinces were transferred to local
control. There was still a lot of work ahead, and any hopes of withdrawing
would have to be put on hold as a result.
A far more difficult task was handling the Iraqi police.
Training for the force had always been haphazard and uncoordinated. 2006 was
coined the “Year of the Police” as the program was reformed with more trainers
being sent. The major problem was the divided control of the police. The
Interior Ministry was split between rival political factions, while the local
police came under the influence of tribes, religious groups, families, and
parties as well. In April 2005 for instance, Bayan Jabr of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq became Interior Minister. He immediately began recruiting members of his Badr Brigade militia into the force, especially the National
Police. They were accused of running death squads, and kidnapping and
torturing Sunnis. Jawad Bolani replaced Jabr in 2006, and attempted to reform
the National Police. He replaced seven out of nine brigade commanders, 17 out
of 26 battalion chiefs, and made all of the units go for retraining. That
didn’t stop abuses by the unit. A U.S. review later recommended that the
National Police be completely disbanded, because they were too corruption and
sectarian. That never happened as the U.S. military still felt that the force
could be reformed, and was needed to counter the insurgency. Another issue was
the location of the Interior Ministry headquarters in Baghdad by Sadr City. For
several years it was too dangerous for many employees to go to work with dozens
of workers being killed. Like the Defense Ministry, corruption was also
widespread. Attempts at vetting the police proved ineffective, because it only
worked when commanders were willing and able to overcome all the local and
national pressures they faced from those who wanted control over the security
forces. Last, American civilian officials were worried about the militarization
of the police. The U.S. military took control of all training of the ISF, and many
times regular units, not the Military Police were responsible for much of this.
That meant routine police work like investigating cases and arrest procedures
were ignored for paramilitary training on weapons use and raids to be used
against militants. That was a job no police force was built for, but the
Americans wanted to employ them in the counterinsurgency strategy nonetheless.
The problem as ever was the lack of civilian trainers, which had been a
recurring issue since the 2003 invasion. The effects of all these would be that
the Iraqi police would lag far behind the armed forces in terms of readiness
and professionalism. In fact, to this day many of these problems still afflict
the force.
A final area the Americans attempted to focus upon was the
Iraqi court system. There were a large number of U.S. agencies working on rule
of law. That caused problems with coordination and a unified effort. In 2005,
Ambassador Khalilzad created the Rule of Law Task Force. It didn’t have a
manager until 2006, and wasn’t given real authority until 2007. The U.S. also
tried to bring together the various Iraqi ministries and officials involved in
the matter. One success story was the support given to the Central Criminal
Court, which mostly dealt with terrorism cases. It was given protection within
the Green Zone and new facilities. The rest of the system was suffering. The
number of detainees was overwhelming the bureaucracy. There weren’t enough
judges, workers to handle the files, and prisons and jails. The attempt to deal
with those issues proved unsuccessful, and the regular Iraqi courts were
neglected. One U.S. legal adviser said that the Americans only cared about the
Central Criminal Court, because it suited their goals of fighting the
insurgency, and did little for the rest of the justice system. Regular courts
also came under attack by militants with lawyers and judges being killed.
Corruption and political influence played a huge role with the judiciary as well,
making an impartial ruling a rarity. Iraq had so many problems with the various
parts of the government that the Americans could never deal with all of them at
the same time. The pressing need for security meant that the ISF would get the
most attention, while other parts of the government were going to be overlooked
even though they were important parts in dealing with militants. The justice
system was an example of the latter.
2006 was a year of transition for both the Americans and
Iraqis. The civil war went into overdrive after the Samarra bombing, and the
number of deaths skyrocketed. Large parts of the country were torn apart by the
fighting with Baghdad at the center of it all. That made governing the country
even more difficult than it already was as public workers were killed or
couldn’t go to work, because it was too dangerous. At the same time, the U.S.
was attempting to move towards a more targeted reconstruction effort that would
support its new counterinsurgency program. Work with the Iraqi military proved
the most effective, while the other parts were mixed like with the police to
complete failures like the attempt to reform agriculture. In the end, the new
Clear, Hold, and Build strategy proved incapable of stemming the violence or
improving services and the economy. The events of 2006 simply proved too much
for the U.S. to handle. That led to outside reviews like the Iraq Study Group,
internal studies within the administration, and the firing of Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. The result would be another change in direction in 2007 with
the Surge.
SOURCES
CNN, “Death Squads,” 3/25/07
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Hard
Lessons,” 1/22/09
Tijara Provincial Economic Growth Program, “Assessment of
Current and Anticipated Economic Priority In Iraq,” United States Agency for
International Development, 10/4/12
Wing, Joel, “From Bad To Worse, How Militias Moved Into the
Iraqi Police Force, And The United States Failed At Nation Building. Part Two
Of An Interview With Jerry Burke, Former Advisor To The Baghdad Police And
Interior Ministry,” Musings On Iraq, 2/13/12
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