Much of the discussion about the origins of Iraq’s
insurgency deals with the marginalization of Sunnis by the Americans, their
desire to return to power, and the entry of foreign Islamists to the country.
The role of Saddam Hussein, the war’s he led his country into, and Iraq’s
tribes are usually only side notes. Tribes in Iraq faced a steady decline under
modernization and urbanization, but when the Baath Party came to power in 1968
some found a new role as bastions of the regime. When wars and sanctions beset
the nation they became even more prominent gaining patronage, their own weapons
and sources of revenue. These groups went on to fill the vacuum left after the
U.S. invasion, and then many of them turned towards armed struggle against the
occupation. The organization and funding the tribes developed over the previous
two decades would become important backbones of the insurgency.
Iraq used to be a tribal society, but modernization transformed
them and then ate away at their standing. Tribes were
based upon extended families that became tribal groups and confederations. The
development of modern
agriculture turned many sheikhs into landlords and their tribesmen into
serfs. By the time Iraq was created after World War I many sheikhs had become
part of the political elite, were integrated into the state, and received
legislation to protect their interests. By 1958 80% of the country’s peasants
were landless and 1.7% of the landlords owned 63% of the land. Migration to the
cities and urbanization broke down many of traditional structures of the tribes
as well. Starting with the 1958 coup up to the Baathist takeover in 1968 a number
of laws were passed that eventually broke down the power of the landed
elite. The draw of the cities further weakened the role of tribes as people
were drawn into new associations such as their neighborhoods, their mosques,
their jobs, etc. Iraq’s tribes started off as migrating groups, but they
eventually settled down with many members becoming laborers with the sheikhs emerging
as part of the country’s elite that helped maintain the state. That role
started to wane, but the emergence of the Baath Party and the weakening of the
government in the following years would lead to other transformations.
The Baath Party took power in 1968 claiming to be a
modernizing force, but unofficially used kinship and tribes to solidify its
hold over the government. The Baathists said that they were against tribalism,
but reality was another matter. Three of the five members of the Revolutionary
Command Council that was announced after the 1968 coup were from Tikrit
including future president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hammad Shihab who were
cousins. Saddam Hussein was also kin to Bakr. Saddam went on to fill
many of the secret police with men from the tribes around Tikrit. Eventually
all the heads of the security agencies were from five different tribes and the
extended family of Saddam. As Baath rule solidified it ended up destroying
other social groups such as other political parties and unions, leaving tribes
as one of the few networks left in the country. The party’s reliance upon
tribes would only increase when Saddam assumed power and he took the country to
war twice.
The weakening of the state due to the Iran-Iraq and Gulf
Wars led Saddam Hussein to turn to tribes for support. When Iraq went to war
with Iran, the government used tribes to recruit
and organize men for the army. The Dulaim, Jabouri, and Ubaid became some of
the privileged
groups during this period along
with three others and 18 clans. Later, as sections of the country rose up after
the Gulf War, tribes were used to put down the revolts. As sanctions took their
toll in the 1990s, Saddam began decentralizing power to trusted tribal groups.
As part of this tribes were allowed to control parts of the informal sectors of
the economy that grew tremendously during this period. By the 2002 it was
estimated that 68% of Iraq’s labor force participated in the grey economy and
made up to one third of Gross Domestic Product. Tribes were involved
in smuggling of goods and oil and hijacking leading to the creation of
organized crime rings. The Dulaim
confederation in Anbar for example, grew rich off of smuggling oil and other
goods to and from Syria. Sheikhs were also armed and given control of their own
personal militias to help control sections of the nation. In 1996 a High
Council of Tribal Chiefs was created that gave sheikhs legal, security, and
taxation power. In 1998 during a confrontation with the U.S. certain tribes
were deployed in and around Baghdad to put down any uprisings that might
emerge. This gave them control of both the law and crime greatly enriching them
during a period of austerity. These privileges were also doled out in a way so
that the tribes could be controlled using a divide and conquer strategy. That
didn’t mean there weren’t conflicts as well as elements within the Dulaim and
Jabouri tribes attempted to overthrow or assassinate Saddam several times in
the 1990s, and by 2000s there were several armed confrontations between the
army and tribes in Anbar. Overall, this was a huge expansion of the Baathist
tribal policy after it first took power. There was a direct relation as in
previous periods of Iraqi history, that when the government weakened it turned
to other organizations such as tribes to help strengthen its position. The
Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and sanctions put so much pressure upon the state
that it was forced to give semi-autonomy to some of its closest allies amongst
the sheikhs to maintain order.
Many have argued that after the 2003 invasion the tribes
suffered a loss of power that led them towards the insurgency, but some were
actually able to expand in the vacuum left over from the collapse of the
regime. The conventional wisdom is that the fall of Saddam was a major setback
for the privileged tribes. They lost their patronage from the state, while
others their smuggling businesses. Another take is that these groups actually
expanded in the post-Saddam era. They took part in the looting after the
government was overthrown, seized weapons left over from the war, and protected
their communities when the Iraqi forces folded after the invasion, and then after
the army was disbanded by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Many were also
able to continue on with their illicit business, as there was no Coalition or
Iraqi Security Forces present in many parts of the country, something that
continues to the present day.
These networks became crucial when many Sunnis decided to
fight the United States. Tribes became one of the main groups that those
opposed to the occupation turned to. An erstwhile insurgent leader for
instance, could have been a former soldier laid off by the CPA, a member of the
Baath Party, gone to a specific mosque, taken part in an organized crime group,
and been part of a tribe and extended family many of which might have
overlapped. The tribes proved handy because they had a loose organization,
weapons, and an independent means of funding. The kinship connections were also
important in maintaining secrecy and were used for recruiting as well. This
repeated Iraqi history where the strength of the tribes was often directly
related to the weakness of the state. Post-03 Iraq presented a huge vacuum that
the country is still struggling with today, and which some tribes moved to fill.
The motivation and ideology of the insurgency would come from many sources, but
the tribes proved to be a crucial network for forming armed groups and
sustaining them.
SOURCES
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Hassan, Hussein, “Iraq: Tribal Structure, Social, and
Political Activities,” Congressional Research Service, 3/15/07
Haussler, Nicholas, “Third Generation Gangs Revisited: The
Iraq Insurgency,” Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, September 2005
International Crisis Group, “Iraq After The Surge I: The New
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Mackey, Sandra, The
Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein, London: W.W. Norton &
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Modern History Of Iraq, Colorado, Oxford: Westview Press, 2004
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