Understanding Saddam’s Information Minister “Baghdad Bob”

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the West was both shocked and amused by the announcements made by Iraq’s Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as “Baghdad Bob.” He repeatedly claimed that the Americans and British were being thrashed, and that Iraq was winning the war. These comments were incomprehensible in the West as their news was reporting a quick and deadly thrust by the U.S. led Coalition, which reached Baghdad in only a matter of weeks. In fact, Minister Sahaf’s pronouncements reflected what Saddam Hussein’s government was actually hearing from its military and officials. This was due to the environment the Iraqi dictator created based upon Iraq’s history, and his conspiratorial mind.

Saddam's Information Minister al-Sahaf became known as "Baghdad Bob" during the 2003 invasion (Wikipedia)

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf made a name for himself internationally by his unbelievable quotes he gave to the media during the invasion of Iraq. When U.S. troops were on the outskirts of Baghdad he told the press, “They are not any place. They are on the move everywhere. They are a snake moving in the desert. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion.” On April 3, when the Americans reached the Baghdad airport, he said, “We butchered the force present at the airport. We have retaken the airport! There are no Americans there!” Two days later, when U.S. forces were in the center of the capital, the Minister told the press, “They are not near Baghdad. Don’t believe them. … They said they entered with … tanks in the middle of the capital. … This speech is too far from reality. It is a part of this sickness of their plan. There is no … existence to the American troops … in Baghdad at all.” On April 6, he claimed, “Whenever we attack, they retreat. When we pound them with missiles and heavy artillery, they retreat even deeper. But when we stopped pounding, they pushed to the airport for propaganda purposes.” It seemed like the Minister was living in some fantasy world, but in fact, his public pronouncements reflected what the Iraqi regime actually thought was happening during the war.

The state of fear that Saddam Hussein imposed on Iraq created a distorted picture of the 2003 invasion. This started with Saddam’s mistrust of his military. Given the history of coups in the nation, Iraq’s leader was always weary of another happening. The Baath party for example, had seized power in May 1963, only to be kicked out by a countercoup in November. During the 1990s, there were also several attempts to unseat Saddam, one involving the Republican Guard, the elite military unit in the country. This caused the Iraqi dictator to create a series of parallel military and paramilitary forces, such as the Special Republican Guard and the Saddam Fedayeen, each meant to keep the other in check. He also routinely carried out purges of the officer corps. As Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz noted, “If a military leader disappeared one did not ask to know what happened, since it was known that the security services had dealt with the unfortunate individual.” Given this culture, officers were afraid to speak the truth to Saddam out of fear that they might anger him, and be killed as a result. This happened within the government bureaucracy and the Baath Party as well. The result was when the U.S. led Coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, the leadership received rosy news from the battlefield. Soldiers, local officials, and the Baath Party offices all reported fierce fighting with the Americans. When the rare negative memo was received it was dismissed. That’s why on March 30, when U.S. forces were in Najaf, Saddam believed that the war was a stalemate. That same day, his secretary told the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to relay to France and Russia that it would only accept an unconditional withdrawal by the Coalition from the country. The picture that Information Minister Sahaf was painting therefore was a reflection of what the government was hearing from its underlings not the ranting of a government apparatchik desperately trying to spin a positive story in the face of defeat. Almost to the end, Baghdad believed that it was actually winning the war.

Saddam on Iraqi TV, April 2003. Right up to the end of the war Saddam actually believed that Iraq was winning, because of the false reports his underlings were sending him out of fear of telling him the truth (Reuters)

Minister Sahaf seemed like a joke every time he appeared on TV proclaiming that the U.S. led Coalition was losing. He became something of a celebrity as a result, and there are websites to this day that archive his statements, and make fun of them. What was not known then was that Saddam Hussein actually believed that his forces were beating the Americans. When the U.S. and England invaded, all Baghdad heard was that waves of fearless Iraqis were not only holding their own against the Coalition, but pushing them into the desert. When Minister Sahaf said there were no U.S. forces in the capital, most in the government actually believed that. This was a result of the bubble that Saddam created around himself. The fear of being overthrown caused him to undermine his own military, and instill a reign of terror throughout the government in an attempt to defeat any plots that might be hatched against him. In turn, bearing bad news was not allowed out of fear of death. Saddam thus became a victim of his own survival tactics, and Minister Sahaf provided a look into this world more than anyone knew at the time.

SOURCES

Center for Individual Freedom, “The Collected Quotations of “Baghdad Bob,” Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf: The Iraqi Minister of Disinformation”

Gordon, Michael, Trainor, General Bernard, Cobra II: The Inside Story

of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, New York: Pantheon, 2006

Mohan, Geoffrey, and Perry, Tony, “Troops Reach Baghdad’s Airport,” Los Angeles Times, 4/3/03

Polk, William, Understanding Iraq, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Harper Perennial, 2005

Woods, Kevin with Pease, Michael, Stout, Mark, Murray, Williamson, and Lacey, James, “A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership,” Iraqi Perspectives Project, 3/24/06

Does Iraq Suffer From The Oil Curse?

Iraq is the most oil dependent country in North Africa and the Middle East. More than half of its Gross Domestic Product and almost all of its foreign exchange come from petroleum. That has led to major difficulties with its economy. Some would explain this through the resource curse. That theory holds that countries that are natural resource dependent usually underperform, lack productivity in other parts of the economy, suffer from poor social indicators, poor governance, authoritarianism, and corruption. Having oil does not automatically mean that a nation will run into these problems. There are plenty of countries that have petroleum such as the United States, Canada, and Norway that have prospered. The deciding factors are trying to base development solely upon exploiting that resource, and then how the wealth generated is used and distributed. The resource curse definitely helps explain many of Iraq’s current economic difficulties.

There are several different versions of the resource curse. The four main ones are the rentier thesis, the repression thesis, the rent seeking thesis, and the Dutch Disease. The rentier thesis argues that oil creates regimes, which are not dependent upon their publics. Petroleum brings in so much money that taxes are not necessary to fund the government. That makes countries dependent upon oil, and less accountable and representative of their publics. The result is that there is no social contract formed between the people and the authorities. Petroleum dependence also leads to booms and busts in the economy and government spending. When oil prices are high, public expenditures not only go up, but countries usually over spend, causing inflation. Likewise, when prices go down as they traditionally have, spending has to be dramatically cut. Oil is also capital and technologically intensive, and employs few people. Not only that, but petroleum producing countries usually lack the skilled labor force to work on the industry, and have to import foreign workers meaning there are even fewer jobs available. The huge amount of wealth generated from hydrocarbons, and the large government projects that are started with it open up ample opportunities for corruption. The repression thesis is based upon the idea that oil leads to authoritarian governments. Oil money is used to fund large security forces to keep the elite in power. The rent seeking thesis believes that oil becomes the spoils that factions within countries compete over. Political parties then use the petroleum wealth to create patronage systems to stay in power. For example, they start government programs that are about distributing goods and services to hold onto their followers rather than ones that are about producing things. Finally, the Dutch Disease is based upon the experience of the Netherlands. In the 1960s, it found natural gas in the North Sea, and went on to emphasis it over other industries, which distorted its economy. Nations afflicted by the Dutch Disease see the value of their currency driven up by oil profits, which makes their other exports less competitive as a result. Businesses then start focusing upon sectors that are not affected by the appreciation, and that usually leads to less innovation. The government then steps in by creating high protective tariffs to try to preserve those sectors, which are struggling. The net results it that the agriculture and manufacturing sectors most often get pushed out, and the countries become even more oil dependent. The growing strength of the domestic currency also drives up demand for imports as they become cheaper. The overall affects are countries that on the surface appear rich, but are actually economically hollow, corrupt, have weak bureaucracies, and ruling elites that are intent upon staying in power.

Iraq appears to have many of the characteristics of a nation struck by the resource curse. First, according to a 2010 study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iraq is the most oil dependent country in the Middle East and North Africa. 60% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 95% of its foreign exchange comes from petroleum. In comparison, Saudi Arabia, which is the large producer in OPEC, depends upon oil for less than 30% of its GDP and approximately 78% of its revenue. Second, Iraq does not rely upon taxes. They only account for 2% of the government’s income. That means the government is not dependent or connected to the public. Third, public spending and the GDP are directly correlated to oil revenues. For instance, in 2008, Iraq earned $58.79 billion in oil receipts, and had a $72.18 billion budget. That year, its GDP was $86.53 billion. The next year, oil revenues went down to $37.02 billion, driving down the budget to $58.61 billion, and the GDP declined to $65.84 billion. Then in 2010, oil prices went back up, and so did the budget and GDP. That’s a classic example of the boom and bust that oil dependent countries experience. Not only that, but much of the public spending goes towards salaries, pensions, and goods and services provided by the government with only around a quarter being for infrastructure and investment. The Food Ration System for instance, takes 7% of the budget, and is the largest in the world. The state is also the largest employer in the country. Fifth, the reason why the public sector employs so many is because the country’s largest industry, oil, only provides 1% of jobs. The government therefore has to step in, and uses jobs as a form of social service to keep the public content. They are part of vast patronage systems run by the ruling parties, so that they can stay in power. Sixth, Iraq has been ranked one of the most corrupt countries in the world since 2003. In 2012, it was eighth from the bottom of 174 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Seventh, there is a huge pent up demand for products in Iraq after years of wars and sanctions. Most of this spending goes towards imports, and is fueled by government salaries, which are in turn, paid for by oil profits. Those all point to Iraq suffering for the resource curse, but there are some differences. For one, Iraq’s dinar has not seen a large increase in value as the Dutch Disease argues. While there was high inflation in the mid-2000s, the Central Bank has now gotten that under control. It now wants to revalue the currency upwards, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is opposed. Iraq does not have many tariffs either. There are few protectionist barriers, and those that exist have just been implemented, because the Americans got rid of most of them when it ran the country after the 2003 invasion. That’s a major reason why Iraq’s agriculture and industry have regressed. Iraq has been flooded by cheap imports, which have put out of business many of Iraq’s farmers and factories. Last, Iraq is predicted to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the next several years. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch estimated that Iraq’s GDP would grow 10.5% in 2012 and 8.2% in 2013. That’s due to the massive government spending that is going into affect with high oil prices. That is the opposite of most oil dependent countries that have traditionally underperformed compared to others that do not rely upon natural resources. There are far more characteristics of the oil curse apparent in Iraq than not. Oil affects the economy, government, and society. It has created a country that depends upon oil for growth and a large public sector that is responsible for goods, services, and jobs. It also helps keep the ruling parties in power, and provides them with plenty of money to pocket as well.

There are many ideas on how to solve the oil cruse, but they would be very difficult for Iraq to implement right now. Transparency is being pushed by international organizations such as the World Bank in Iraq. Baghdad recently singed on to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for example, which will make the authorities open up some of its books on the oil industry. That could help reduce the amount of theft going on, and give the public more confidence in the authorities. Privatization could get the government out of the oil business. It would in turn, force the government to set up a taxation system, and re-connect it with the public. Iraq could follow other countries that have set up oil funds. That would limit public spending, and provide a means for escaping the booms and busts that afflict it right now. Smart investing using those funds could also help diversify the economy. Oil profits could be directly distributed to the public as well. That could increase private spending, and provide an incentive for the growth of businesses. This was included in the 2012 budget, but has not been followed through with. Still, Iraq would face many problems trying to follow any of these policies. A big one is that Iraq’s government lacks skilled staff, and has weak institutions to carry out reforms. The oil money not being distributed to the public is an example of this. Second, the ruling parties and the public would oppose privatizing the oil industry. Iraqis are very nationalistic about oil, and would not want to turn it over to businesses especially if that meant foreign control. The political parties would lose a huge source of money to steal and spend, and therefore would be against the idea as well. Finally, even in developed countries, some of these ideas don’t work out. Setting up oil funds for example require difficult decisions about how much money should be taken out of the budget, and requires smart investing both of which can go wrong. Transparency can only go so far, as many of the energy companies that have joined the Oil Ministry, as partners do not want to divulge their business. Iraq also has bad bookkeeping, and many of its records are incomplete even if wanted to make all of them public. For the foreseeable future then, Iraq is likely to remain under the resource curse. Changes in the economy and governance could very well take place, but they’re likely to take a generation, because Iraq is coming out of such a problematic past.

Iraq seems a fitting example of the resource curse. It is an oil dependent country, and that has caused distortions in both the economy and government. Everything from the budget to jobs to food to investment are largely driven by the petroleum industry. Not only that it has created a public that relies upon the state rather than the other way around. Baghdad has talked a lot about diversifying the economy with all the money it is generating, but there have been very few concrete steps in that direction. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but right now the status quo seems pretty much set as there would be political and public opposition to many of the ideas on how to reform things.

SOURCES

Birdsall, Nancy and Subramanian, Arvind, “Saving Iraq From Its Oil,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2004

Dickey, Christopher, “The Oil Curse,” Newsweek, 5/7/10

Al-Hassoun, Naseer, “Iraq Parliament Stalls Handout Of Surplus Oil Cash to Citizens,” Al-Hayat, 12/10/12

Karl, Terry Lynn, “Covering Oil, Chapter 2-Understanding the Resource Curse” Covering Oil, A Reporter’s Guide to Energy and Development (Open Society Institute: New York, 2005)

Kumas, Gizem, “The Oil Curse and Iraq,” Bilkent University

Kurdish Globe, “Iraq to be world’s fastest growing economy 2012/2013,” 11/25/12

Looney, Robert, “Can Iraq Overcome the Oil Curse?” World Economics, January-March 2006

Mustafa, Karim, “Iraq’s current monetary crisis: bubbles or fleeting appearance of a deeper economic crisis?” Al Mowaten, 5/13/12

Naim, Moises, “The Devil’s Excrement Can oil-rich countries avoid the resource curse?” Foreign Policy Sept./Oct. 2009

Peel, Michael, “Iraq issues arrest warrant for bank governor,” Financial Times, 10/18/12

Shafaq News, “Parliamentary Economic committee: 2013 won’t witness the birth of the new Iraqi currency,” 12/2/12

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Quarterly report to the United States Congress,” 10/30/12

Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012,” December 2012

West, Johnny, “Iraq’s Last Window: Diffusing the Risks of a Petro-State,” Center for Global Development, September 2011

Al-Zubaidi, Hassan Latif, “social welfare flip-flop: why iraq’s ration card can’t be scrapped,” Niqash, 11/15/12

Iraq Still Towards The Bottom Of Corruption Index

The German anti-corruption group Transparency International recently released its yearly Corruption Perceptions Index. For the last several years, Transparency has been looking at how corruption is viewed throughout the world. This year’s addition included 174 countries. As usual, Iraq was towards the very bottom of the list.

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is a study of how people see corruption in their countries. The group uses a variety of surveys and studies to base their Index upon, and then gives each country a score of 0, highly corrupt, to 100, very clean. Transparency uses studies and surveys, because it believes there is no real way to compare corruption. There is no accurate reporting for example, on how much money officials might steal or how many bribes are demanded each given year. Instead, Transparency uses how citizens in countries feel about their government’s performance. That’s important to know, because it means that the nations at the bottom of the list are not the most corrupt, it’s just those that have the worst reputations amongst their public.

In the 2012 Index, many of the same countries were at the bottom as the last time. Three countries tied for the lowest score this year. Those were Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan with a score of 8 each out of 100. In 2011, Somalia and North Korea were tied for the last spot. They were followed by Sudan, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Iraq came in at number eight from the end with a score of 18. It was followed by Venezuela, Haiti, Chad, and Burundi who all had a score of 19. Iraq’s ranking was exactly the same as last year. Those were actually a slight improvement from 2006-2010 when Iraq was second from the bottom in 2007 and 2008, and fourth worse in 2009 and 2010. Since the Index is based upon people’s perceptions the change in scores cannot quite be compared year to year since there’s no real way to determine what might make people feel one way and another the next in such a list. Still, the fact that Iraq does so poorly the last several years means its public does not think well of its government.

Transparency International 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index

1. Somalia 8

1. North Korea 8

1. Afghanistan 8

4. Sudan 13

5. Myanmar 15

6. Uzbekistan 17

6. Turkmenistan 17

8. Iraq – 18

9. Venezuela 19

9. Haiti 19

9. Chad 19

9. Burundi 19

Iraq’s Ranking In Corruption Index 2003-2012

2003 #20

2004 #17

2005 #22

2006 #2

2007 #2

2008 tied #2

2009 tied #4

2010 #4

2011 tied #8

2012 #8

Corruption can affect a country in many different ways. In Iraq’s case it permeates the entire government bureaucracy and society. It has been going on for decades, and has become a basic means of governance amongst the ruling parties. It contributes to a lack of economic development and rebuilding, because so much money is siphoned off from contracts. It means a lack of services, or the necessity to bribe officials to receive them. It also affects the quality of the goods and services people receive. Finally, it undermines the public’s confidence in the authorities. Those are the problems that Iraqis have to face everyday, and the reason why their country consistently does so poorly on the corruption index.

SOURCES

Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012,” December 2012

JOURNEYMAN PICTURES VIDEO: Saddam On Sale Nov. 2007

FORA TV VIDEO: Christopher Hitchens On Saddam's 1979 Purge Of The Baath Party

Current Baghdad-Kurdistan Dispute A Replay Of 2008 Khanaqin Incident

Today, the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish peshmerga are facing off across the disputed areas of northern Iraq, while politicians in Baghdad and Irbil are in a heated war of words. The point of contention is the new Tigris Operations Command created by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The recent events are almost an exact replay of 2008 when the central government confronted the Kurdish parties in Diyala province. Both appeared aimed at shoring up the premier’s standing with the electorate before provincial elections. Regional President Massoud Barzani also benefited as he rallied the Kurdish parties behind him. On the outside these confrontations looked like they could escalate into open warfare, but they were more political theater than anything else.

(New York Times)

Diyala province in northeastern Iraq contains several disputed territories, including the Khanaqin district along the Iranian border. Kurdish forces occupied the area during the 2003 invasion, and they were later asked by the central government to help with security there. In 2008, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki selected that district as the place to confront the Kurds. First, he started setting up Tribal Support Councils across the province. They were supposed to help out with security, but were actually a way for the premier to create patronage networks throughout Iraq. Kurdish politicians interpreted the councils in Diyala as a way to undermine their hold on the disputed territories before the 2009 provincial elections. The Kurdish mayor of Khanaqin for example, said that the councils were a threat, and a way for Maliki to assert his power in the district. In April, the 34^th Peshmerga Brigade was told to vacate the district by the 5^th Army Division who said it would take over responsibility for security, but it was rebuffed. Again, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) saw this as a provocative move by the prime minister. Then in July, Baghdad launched Operation Omens of Prosperity in Diyala, which was to focus upon insurgents. As part of it, the 1st Army Division moved into Khanaqin at the beginning of August. The unit demanded that the 34^th Peshmerga Brigade vacate the area within 24 hours, but it refused. The soldiers then attempted to force out several Kurdish political parties and the peshmerga from their offices. This led to a tense standoff between the two sides with army forces standing on one side flying the Iraqi flag, and the peshmerga on the other flying the Kurdish flag. The next month, Iraqi police tried to arrest a Kurdish intelligence officer in the district, which led to an argument, and shots being fired, which killed a peshmerga. At the time, this growing escalation by Maliki against the Kurds in Diyala was seen as a dire threat to the status quo in the country. The Kurdish and Shiite ruling parties had long-standing alliances dating back to the Saddam times when they were both opposed to his dictatorship. Now the prime minister seemed to be threatening those ties by pushing the KRG over a small district. Many thought this could explode into open warfare between the central and regional government, and had far ranging affects throughout northern Iraq.

The incidents in Khanaqin spilled over into other provinces in the region. In Ninewa, the prime minister was accused of replacing Kurdish units with Arab ones, and attempting to transfer Kurdish officers out of an army division there. 200 Kurdish soldiers and a battalion commander in the province ended up deserting, and left for Irbil. A Kurdish army brigade in Diyala refused to take orders from Baghdad as well. Finally, the premier removed two leading Kurdish officials from the team that was negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States in August. Again, these were all seen as provocative moves by the Kurdish ruling parties. Many interpreted it as a mini-Arabization program by Maliki, which harkened back to the much more vicious and institutionalized Arabization campaign by Saddam when he forcibly uprooted Kurdish villagers from northern Iraq to be replaced by Arabs from other parts of the country.

This culminated in a war of words between Maliki and the KRG President Massoud Barzani. Kurdish officials began calling the prime minister the new Saddam. A Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) lawmaker in the Kurdish parliament told the press that Baathism was alive and well in Baghdad, and that it was trying to abrogate Article 140 of the Constitution that set out a process to determine the future of the disputed territories. (1) These verbal attacks went on for nearly a year after the Khanaqin incident at the beginning of August. It ended up having a lasting affect upon how Barzani’s KDP would see Maliki. From then on, it thought he could no longer be trusted. The feeling was that with the insurgency and militias receding in the country, the central government would repeat its long history of turning on the Kurds. This opinion played out all the way to the 2010 parliamentary elections when Barzani amongst other Iraqi politicians unsuccessfully tried to place limits upon Maliki’s power when putting together a new government.

The dispute in Diyala was eventually ended with help from the United States military, and direct talks between Irbil and Baghdad. President Barzani ended up travelling to Baghdad where he worked out a deal for Khanaqin to be placed under local police control instead of the Iraqi Army or peshmerga. The U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno also helped create joint U.S.-Iraqi-Kurdish checkpoints throughout the disputed territories to get the two sides to work together on security. He also negotiated a ministerial committee to bring the top security officials from Baghdad and Irbil together. Those moves effectively diffused the tension, and the two sides went back to their normal business. It still raised fears that the situation could have gotten out of control, and some soldier or commander on the ground in Khanaqin could have made a bad decision that would have led to fighting between the army and peshmerga.

Kurdish tanks parked outside of Kirkuk, Dec. 2012 (Reuters)

Today, a very similar standoff is happening in the disputed areas. In July 2012, the Defense ministry announced the formation of the Tigris Operations Command. It would command both the army and police in Diyala, Tamim, and Salahaddin. By September, the Kurdish parties became increasingly critical of the new command, calling it illegal, provocative, and a threat to Article 140. In November, there was a shootout between the Iraqi army and police and a peshmerga unit in Tuz Kharmato in Salahaddin when there was an attempt to arrest a Kurdish businessman accused of smuggling oil. One person ended up dead, and ten were wounded. That led the central and regional governments to once again mobilize their forces and send them to the disputed territories. That same month, Barham Saleh of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said that Maliki wanted to take the Kurds back to Saddam’s times. In a December 2 addition of Azzaman, President Barzani stated that the KRG would not allow Maliki to moves his forces into the disputed areas, and called him a dictator. The next day, the Peshmerga Ministry accused Maliki of arming Arab tribes in Ninewa, Diyala, and Tamim. Once again, the U.S. military was also brought in to help negotiate between the two sides. The events in 2012 are very similar to those in 2008. The prime minister made a provocative military move, which the Kurds saw as a threat to their claim to the disputed areas. Like 2008, they have sent their forces to stare down the central government’s. Like the dispute in Diyala, Kurdish officials have started making comparisons between Maliki and Saddam, and like then, the U.S. military has been asked to be an honest broker. The politics of the two are comparable too.

Both the present and past confrontations come before provincial elections in Iraq. On Maliki’s side, he is playing upon Arab nationalism, and trying to portray himself as standing up against Kurdish expansionism. This plays well with some Sunnis in northern Iraq who feel threatened by the Kurds. The Arab bloc in Tamim for example, welcomed the Tigris Operations Command, saying that it would reduce the power of the peshmerga. A parliamentarian from the Iraqi National Movement also stood up for the command. This was exactly the same stance that the prime minister took in 2008. Then, he was changing his image from the weak and compromise premier that took power in 2006, to the strong nationalist leader who took on Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad, and then the Kurds. Just like today, some Sunni parties came to Maliki’s side over the Khanaqin incident like when a lawmaker from the Iraqi Accordance Front demanded that the peshmerga withdraw from Diyala. The benefits of these standoffs have not been one sided. President Barzani has gained political points as well. In each case, he strengthened his image as the protector of Kurdish interests. Today, he has rallied the Kurdish press, opposition parties, and the PUK behind him. This was especially important, because the opposition and PUK had become increasingly critical of Barzani’s unilateral policies beforehand. In fact, despite the news reports of possible armed conflict, it seems like the true motivations behind both incidents is political gain before upcoming elections.

Khanaqin and the Tigris Operations Command are eerily similar. In 2008, Prime Minister Maliki decided to militarily challenge the Kurds in the disputed territories. This immediately led to the KRG to call out the peshmerga, and a tense situation ensued where armed forces stared at each other over open ground, and insults were tossed around in the press. This raised fears that the central and regional governments were on the verge of war. Almost the exact same series of events are now occurring over the Tigris Operations Command. The emphasis upon the threat of violence however, misses the more important political side. In both cases, Prime Minister Maliki and President Barzani have been trying to expand their constituencies by saying that they are standing up to the other. The hope is that this will result in votes in the next round of provincial balloting. The military side of things is just the show. Behind the scenes, these two leaders are playing the real game as they use the fears about each other to build up more support.

FOOTNOTES

1. Aswat al-Iraq, “Provincial elections, Khanaqin conspiracy against Kurds – official,” 9/9/08

SOURCES

Abouzeid, Rania, “Arabs-Kurd Tensions Could Threaten Iraq’s Peace,” Time, 3/24/09

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How Ambassador Khalilzad Walked Into A Turf War Between The State And Defense Departments As He Tried to Find A New Path For The United States In Iraq In 2005

In June 2005, Zalmay Khalilzad returned to Iraq as the new U.S. Ambassador replacing John Negroponte. Khalilzad originally worked on Iraq in 2003 as the special presidential envoy to the Iraqi opposition. When he came back to the country things were not going well. The opposition to the United States had turned into a full-blown insurgency, and America’s policy seemed adrift. The reconstruction effort was focused upon large infrastructure projects, which had not improved the lives of average Iraqis, while the military strategy was to get out as quickly as possible. The political rhetoric was about victory, but there was no actual ideas on how to achieve it, and was contradicted by the withdrawal plans. Khalilzad, like his predecessor ordered an immediate review of the situation, and came up with a new strategy. Unfortunately, because of in fighting back in Washington the ambassador’s ideas were not fully implemented until two years later. This pointed to the dysfunction and disconnect between the White House and those in the field in Iraq, which undermined what the U.S. was hoping to accomplish.

Ambassador Khalilzad entered Iraq during a time of transition for American policy. Both the State and Defense Departments were carrying out their own separate reviews. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent retired General Gary Luck to Iraq to go over the training program for the Iraqi security forces. He said the program needed to be greatly expanded. As a result, the Iraq Security Forces Fund was given $5.7 billion. New Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dispatched Ambassador Richard Jones, who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to Baghdad as well. He characterized Iraq as a failed state. The U.S. was not helping, because its staff had little interaction with Iraqis. After the CPA closed shop it shut down its regional offices, and withdrew its advisers from Iraq’s ministries. By 2005, most of the American civilian staff was holed up in the Green Zone with smaller contingents in four regional bases. Jones recommended that the reconstruction effort be shifted from the CPA’s emphasis upon large capital projects like power plants to capacity building within the Iraqi government. Those projects were not having an affect upon the daily lives of Iraqis either in terms of services, security or employment. Not only that, but also many facilities the U.S. was building were too large and advanced for the Iraqis to maintain. As a result, many were failing apart, because the locals did not have the skills, management, spare parts or supplies to run them. Jones also noted that the American embassy staff had to get out into the field, and work hand in hand with their Iraqi counterparts. These reviews pointed to the two separate policies that the United States was simultaneously following in Iraq. The Pentagon wanted to build up Iraqi forces, so that it could withdraw as soon as possible. The State Department on the other hand, was trying to finish the rebuilding job that the CPA had started; while at the same time was attempting to transform the American presence to a regular diplomatic one despite the on-going insurgency. The two agencies were also rivals dating back to the beginning of the Bush Administration, partially based upon the personal dislike between Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Defense Secretary had even less respect for Rice, making him even more unwilling to cooperate with the diplomatic wing of the American government when she took over. Khalilzad walked into the middle of this bureaucratic turf war, and tried to find a middle ground that would help stabilize Iraq.

Khalilzad ordered his own review upon his return to Iraq in the summer of 2005. His major concern was defeating the insurgency. He thought that the Sunni community had been shut out of the new Iraq, because they were associated with the old regime. Instead of being excluded, he thought they needed to be involved in the political process as a way to reconcile with them, and help end the fighting. All of the political, economic, and reconstruction policies needed to be focused upon this sole priority. Khalilzad created the Civil Military Strategic Planning group to go over what was already in place in Iraq. It found that Gen. Casey’s plans to turn over security to the Iraqis and withdraw would fail. It also criticized the lack of cooperation between the American civilians and military, and the exclusion of Iraqis from much of their work. It advocated for a coordinated counterinsurgency strategy that would use all of the U.S. resources in the country, along with the Iraqi government. This became known as the oil spot approach, which was extrapolated upon by Andrew Krepinevich in a winter 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs. Krepinevich was a former Army officer who went on to become a defense analyst and Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and professor at George Mason University. One of his specialties was the Vietnam War. Based upon that history, he advocated a counterinsurgency plan for Iraq that would focus upon securing and rebuilding specific strategic locations in Iraq such as Baghdad to defeat local militants, and win over the support of the population. Once one area was secured, the oil spot would spread to the next, until eventually the whole country could be covered. Unfortunately for Khalilzad, he didn’t have the authority to remake Iraq policy, especially on the military side, but he could change the reconstruction plans. As a result of his new ideas, the ambassador ordered a freeze on all rebuilding work, and another review of each project to make sure that it would support his counterinsurgency plan. Parts of these ideas would be later taken up by the Surge in 2007. The problem as ever was the lack of coordination between the various U.S. agencies, and the inter-office rivalries, which made that so difficult to accomplish. 

Khalilzad moved ahead with his ideas anyway, and created two new organizations in Iraq to try to put them in action. The first was the Provincial Reconstruction Development Councils. These were started in the spring of 2005 and were Iraq-American working groups to build capacity in the country’s provincial governments. They were set up in 15 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, excluding the three in Kurdistan. They came up with lists of projects, which were meant to empower Iraqis, improve their living standards, and help turn local support to the government. The other group was the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). This was a concept that Khalilzad had helped implement when he was ambassador in Afghanistan from 2003-2005. These were joint American civilian-military organizations meant to help implement and support the plans created by the Councils. Immediately the PRTs ran into problems, because of the disputes between the State and Defense Departments. There were arguments over who would fund them, who would lead them, and how security would be provided. As a result, the first PRTs were put out in the field before they had the necessary budget, transportation, protection, and staff. The PRT in Ninewa for example, had no protection, housing or way to get around the province. It had to move into Forward Operating Base Marez, and rely upon the U.S. military unit there for almost everything. It took one year for lawyers from the Pentagon and State Department to work out an agreement about how the two departments would cooperate in Iraq. In the meantime, the PRTs would have to trudge ahead despite their limitations. Here was the first specific example of the difficulties Khalilzad would find trying to transform Iraq policy. He and his staff had come up with some good ideas, but implementing them would be another issue all together. Washington was divided, and the ambassador all the way in Baghdad would be a victim of their disagreements.

The differences between Sec of Def Rumsfeld (left) and Sec of State Rice (right) helped retard changing Iraq policy (AP)

Those differences over Iraq strategy within the White House immediately became apparent. Rumsfeld and General Casey were opposed to Khalilzad’s new ideas. Their top priority remained to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. Secretary Rice on the other hand, became an advocate for her ambassador’s approach. On October 19, 2005, she testified to a Senate committee advocating for a Clear Hold Build plan, which was another name for the oil spot approach. Rumsfeld immediately contradicted and criticized her statements. He said, “Anyone who takes those three words and thinks it means the United States should clear and the United Sates should hold and the United should build doesn’t understand the situation. It is the Iraqis country. They’ve got 28 million people there. They are clearing, they are holding, they are building. They’re going to be the ones doing the reconstruction in that country.” Despite those objections, President Bush backed his Secretary of State as Clear Hold Build was included in the White House’s National Strategy for Victory in Iraq in November. That didn’t stop the bickering however, as Rice and Rumsfeld still battled over planning, and refused to cooperate in Iraq. It wouldn’t be until the Pentagon chief was pushed out at the end of 2006 that things would begin to change. Khalilzad’s new ideas would suffer as a result.

On the ground in Iraq there were small movements in a new direction. First, reconstruction funds began to be shifted away from the large capital projects once pushed by the CPA to smaller ones that would be more visible to Iraqis, and hopefully have an immediate impact upon their lives. This was to be accomplished by pushing for the employment of Iraqis, using Iraqi contractors wherever possible, and including local Iraqi officials and government in the planning and implementation. There were still major hurdles to overcome. Iraqis for example did not understand American contracting procedures, and much of the bidding was supposed to be done on line, which was difficult for many Iraqi businesses. There were still disputes in Washington over the PRTs as well, so they had to trudge ahead often lacking the right personnel and funding to carry out their tasks.

From 2003-2007 the United States followed an ad hoc and dysfunctional policy in Iraq. There was a lack of planning and innovative ideas in Washington, and a disconnect between what was said publicly by the Bush Administration, and what was actually happening on the ground. The President’s constant statements about victory in Iraq were not supported by the strategy being implemented on the ground. Rather then defeating the insurgency, the Pentagon was set on withdrawing, and the State Department was trying to pull back to the embassy in Baghdad. Ambassador Khalilzad immediately noted how things were failing in Iraq, and tried to right the ship. Unfortunately for him, his ideas were only supported by his superior Secretary Rice, who was unable to convince Secretary Rumsfeld to change course. The results were small changes on the ground like in the types of projects started, and the creation of two new organizations to work with the Iraqis more closely, but there was still not the full support, funding, nor coordination necessary from Washington to make it a success. Iraq would descend into further chaos and become a failed state for another year and a half before the Americans course would change.

SOURCES

Kakutani, Michiko, “Rumsfeld’s Defense of Known Decisions,” New York Times, 2/3/11

Krepinevich, Andrew, “How to Win in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005

PBS Frontline, “INTERVIEWS Elisabeth Bumiller,” Bush’s War, 3/24/08

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Hard Lessons, 1/22/09

Weisman, Steven, “The Struggle For Iraq: Diplomacy; Rice, Testy Hearing, Cites Progress in Iraq,” New York Times, 10/20/05