Review Sara Daniel, Voyage To A Stricken Land, Four Years on the Ground Reporting from Iraq: A Woman’s Inside Story, Arcade Publishing, 2006

 

Sara Daniel was a French reporter who went to Iraq at the start of the war. Each chapter in her book Voyage To A Stricken Land, Four Years on the Ground reporting from Iraq: A Woman’s Inside Story covers a specific time period and topic from the invasion to the insurgency to the Iraqi and American troops. She came away from her experience extremely cynical believing that Iraq was falling into a civil war due to the U.S. mishandling the occupation.

Review Anne Garrels, Naked in Baghdad, The Iraq War as seen by NPR’s correspondent, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003

Garrels, Anne, Naked in Baghdad, The Iraq War as seen by NPR’s correspondent, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003

 

Anne Garrels was a reporter for National Public Radio who went to Baghdad in 2002 to witness the U.S. invasion and how it impacted Iraqis. Naked in Baghdad, The Iraq War as seen by NPR’s correspondent is a series of journal entries about her day to day activities joined by emails that her husband sent out to update her friends and family about what was happening. Garrels was able to capture the feelings of everyday Iraqis and a little slice of life in the Iraqi capital during this tumultuous time.

Review A Stranger in Your Own City, Travels in the Middle East’s Long War

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith, A Stranger in Your Own City, Travels in the Middle East’s Long War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023

 

A Stranger in Your Own City, Travels in the Middle East’s Long War by journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is an engaging story about him growing up in Baghdad and then experiencing the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. It’s a tale of a nation beset by problems from the 1990s sanctions that impoverished most to the exiles that created a new ethnosectarian political system that was then used it to justify violence. The new elite ended up killing its youth in the street for protesting against corruption. It’s an important addition to the cannon because it not only includes his own recollections of this period but also many Iraqi civilians, soldiers and officials when most books are by and about Westerners.

UNIV OF CHICAGO VIDEO: Lessons From The US War In Iraq: 10 Years After Invasion

UNIV. OF DENVER CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES VIDEO: Lessons From The Iraq War 10 Years On: A Discussion With Christopher Hill And Thabit Abdullah

VIDEO: Iraq Jewish Community, 2003

Rebuilding Iraq’s Healthcare System In A War Zone

Rebuilding Iraq’s healthcare system was not as much of a priority to U.S. officials as some other parts of the country, but it faced more problems than any other. First, a political appointee by the White House was sent to the Health Ministry who wanted to change the entire medical system whether the Iraqis wanted it or not. That led to a huge waste of time, and shortages in Iraq’s hospitals. Second, the Americans failed to manage and coordinate the work. Finally, contractors couldn’t build all the new facilities the appointee wanted. The result was that Iraqis ended up lacking the medical care that they so desperately needed just when violence was picking up.

The first major problem that emerged was the post-invasion chaos. The Health Ministry’s offices in Baghdad were looted after the fall of Saddam Hussein just like the rest of the government offices. It was estimated that six tons of paper was destroyed or taken out of the Ministry during this time. Even after the Americans came in and tried to put the Ministry back together, it was set on fire two to three times, causing more damage. The U.S. therefore had to start from scratch with the Ministry. It had to find and bring back all the workers. It also had to replace almost everything in the offices themselves, and this happened several times, because of the arson.

When the real work of rebuilding Iraq’s health system got under way, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was originally put in charge. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) gave it a goal of basic health services for all Iraqis. Out of the $18.4 billion that the U.S. first allotted for Iraqi reconstruction, $786 million was set aside for health. The CPA appropriated $439 million for 150 new primary healthcare centers and to fix 17 hospitals, $297 million for medical equipment, a mobile blood collection program, rebuilding the Academy of Health Science, training staff, and technical aid to the Health Ministry, and $50 million for new pediatric hospitals in Basra. While minor in comparison to the funds put aside for electricity and water, this was still a large infusion of cash to Iraq’s healthcare system. The problem was that what the U.S. wanted for Iraq was not what the Iraqis wanted.

This started with a political decision by the Bush White House. The USAID initially appointed Frederick Burkle Jr., a deputy assistant manager at the Agency, to advise the Health Ministry. He had a master’s degree in public health, was a teacher at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with expertise in disaster relief, and had worked in Kosovo, Somalia, and Kurdistan after the Gulf War. He was sent to Baghdad immediately after the fall of the regime. Within weeks of arriving however, he was told that he was going to be replaced by a political appointee from the White House. The new Health Ministry adviser was James Haveman Jr. He was formerly the community health director for a Republican governor of Michigan, John Engler, and had some foreign experience working for International Aid, a Christian relief group. Engler recommended Haveman to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who had him hired. Burkle was obviously far more qualified than Haveman. Not only that, but Burkle had worked in Iraq before in 1991 in Kurdistan, giving him some on the ground experience in the country. Since health was not a major priority, the Bush administration probably felt like it was okay to hand the task over to someone with political connections rather than a USAID official.

Haveman then went about causing a major conflict with the Iraqis. He wanted to completely change the country’s reliance upon hospitals, and build a series of small clinics that would concentrate upon preventive care. Haveman believed this would provide greater care to Iraqis. He also didn’t like the fact that healthcare was free in Iraq, and wanted people to pay for their services. Finally, Haveman pushed to privatize the importation and distribution of drugs in the country. This led to a series of bureaucratic battles with the Health Ministry. In the end, Haveman went ahead with his plans even though he never convinced the Iraqis of his point of view. This came at a bad time, because demand for emergency care was taking off in Iraq’s hospitals as violence started. People were regularly being brought in from bombings and shootings, while hospitals were not getting that much money, because Haveman wanted new clinics built instead.

Trying to reform how Iraq procured and handed out its medicine became a huge fiasco. Haveman was in charge of changing drug distribution when he worked in Michigan. He wanted to cut costs in the state, and decided to achieve that by limiting the number of drugs that doctors could prescribe to patients. He wanted to do the same in Iraq. There, roughly 4,500 medications were used, which Haveman wanted to slash. Furthermore, he wanted to stop Iraq from buying its medicines from Syria, Iran, and Russia, and have it purchase them from the United States instead. Haveman asked Washington for help with the task, and got a three-man team from the Pentagon. They were to draw up a new list of drugs to be used in Iraq in two weeks, and then go home. The head of the team quickly found out that this was a ridiculous task. He thought the existing list that the Iraqis used wasn’t bad, that what Haveman actually wanted was a complete institutional change in how healthcare was to be provided, something a three man team was not capable of accomplishing, and that Haveman didn’t know what he was doing. Some of Haveman’s staff shared these criticisms as well. These issues were never worked out. By the time Haveman left the country it was facing a severe drug shortage. The Health Ministry said that 40% of the medicines that were on its essentials list were out of stock in the country’s hospitals, because of Haveman’s attempts at reform.

The companies that the U.S. contracted to build medical facilities also ran into problems. In March 2004, the Pentagon gave a $243 million contract to Parsons to renovate 17 hospitals, fix three Health Ministry buildings, and build 150 new healthcare centers. Later, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) found that the firm was not meeting its goals. It said that high staff turnover, poor management, and weak quality control were the reasons. From May 2004 to the end of 2005 for instance, eight contract officers, six program managers, and five sector leads had come and gone. By September 2005, the U.S. told Parsons it had lost confidence in the company, and reduced its workload as a result. Eventually, its contract was cancelled. By then, it had only built 6 of the 150 clinics at a cost of $186 million, 76% of the original deal’s funds. The Americans then turned to Iraqi contractors to finish the job, and they built over 100 clinics. SIGIR found that much of this was shoddy work. In Tamim province, the Inspector General found five clinics that were so badly built that they were a threat to the safety of the staff and patients. The basis of Haveman’s vision for a new Iraqi health system was the creation of a series of small clinics across the country. Neither Parsons nor the Iraqi companies were up to completing this task.

Parsons had another contract to equip Iraq’s clinics and hospitals. That was for $70 million. Supplies started arriving in Baghdad in the spring of 2006 before any of the new clinics had opened. The U.S. was not ready for this huge influx, and had the U.S. Army build a storage facility in Abu Ghraib, just outside of the capital, to hold everything until the clinics were operational. This was badly managed as well, as officials didn’t know what equipment Parsons was ordering. They ended up losing some of it in the red tape after it arrived in country as a result.

America’s attempt to rebuild Iraq’s healthcare system was problematic from the start. The Health Ministry itself was gutted after the U.S. invasion, the White House decided who should run the effort, and he came in wanting to change how the entire system operated, which led to a series of disasters. Americans often go into other countries thinking about their own experiences rather than what the locals want or need. Iraq became a perfect example of this. The result was a series of hospitals that were overloaded with the dead and wounded from the insurgency and civil war, that didn’t have the supplies that were needed. At the same time, a series of new clinics were opened, some of which could not be used, because of poor construction, and which were not created to deal with shootings and bombings in the first place. The U.S. came into Iraq with good intentions, hoping to leave the country a better place, but its work on healthcare showed how bad things could get.

SOURCES

Chandrasekaran, Rajiv, “Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq,” Washington Post, 9/17/06

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

Rebuilding Iraq’s Oil Sector In A War Zone 2003-2005

 

With oil being Iraq’s main source of income, both Iraqi and American officials were desperate to get the industry up and running again after the 2003 invasion. The oil business consists of three sectors: upstream, midstream, and downstream. Upstream consists of the oil fields and wells, and gas and oil separation plants. Midstream is made up of refineries, and gas processing plants. Downstream is the distribution networks, terminals, and service stations. Iraqis and Americans both believed that earning money was what Iraq needed the most so the reconstruction effort focused upon the upstream, and getting exports going as quickly as possible. This was eventually derailed by the insurgency, and the neglect of the other elements of the energy industry led to problems for the rest of the economy and shortages for the population.

The first problem Iraq’s oil industry ran into in 2003 wasn’t war damage, but rather the looting that took place afterward. The oilfields, wells, etc. were hardly touched by the invasion. Starting in May after Saddam Hussein’s government fell, they, along with other facilities, and the Oil Ministry were stripped. There were stories that the Ministry was the only building in Baghdad protected right after the end of hostilities, but the troops did not show up until after most of the building had already been ransacked. Before the war U.S. advisers had also pointed out places that were important to Iraq’s oil sector that needed to be protected, but the military said they didn’t have the personnel to take care of them. Originally, the Americans were worried that Saddam would set fire to his oil wells, similar to what that he did in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Instead, it was the Iraqis themselves that ended up causing $1.7 billion in damages. That just added to the costs of rebuilding the industry.

The Americans attention then turned to putting the Oil Ministry back together. They appointed Thamir Abbas al-Ghadban as the interim Oil Minister. He, along with U.S. advisers decided that getting oil production and exports going would be their main task. They wanted to get the country back to its pre-war levels, thinking that exports would bring in new cash that could then be used on the mid and downstream parts of the industry later on. Unfortunately, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) decided that oil production and exports would be the main measurement for success, to the detriment of the other sectors of the industry.

The U.S. and Iraqis were immediately successful with their plans. First, Iraq was able to sell 7.5 million in oil that had been placed in storage in Turkey during the invasion. In June, exports started as well. In May, production was down to just 300,000 barrels a day. That went up to 675,000 in June, 925,000 in July, and then quickly shot up, reaching the 2 million barrel mark in October. Exports went from 0 in May to 1.149 million in October. Those numbers gave great hope that Iraq was on its way to recovery, and would be quickly pumping as much oil as it did before the war. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

In the summer of 2003, insurgents started a concerted effort to take down the oil industry. From June to November for instance, there were 13 attacks upon pipelines and facilities. In December 2004, the northern pipeline to Turkey was shut down due to attacks. In June 2005, there was another large wave of operations targeting oil infrastructure. Militants also went after Oil Ministry employees, reconstruction companies, and their workers. The violence was so bad that it shut down all work in some areas. It also limited the ability of U.S. officials to travel throughout the country, and many ended up just staying in the Green Zone. That meant oversight was severely restricted. This trickled down to all levels. First, production and exports were cut. Supplies were delayed arriving at sites, while Iraqis were intimidated and killed. That led to a high turnover in the work force. All of that resulted in skyrocketing costs. Huge amounts of money were then put into securing the oil infrastructure, taking away funds from other tasks.

From June 2004 to June 2005, the oil sector stagnated. An October 2004 State Department report found that security had led to rising costs and delays in work on petroleum. The Oil Ministry reported 186 attacks during 2004, causing $6 billion in damages, and 138 oil security and workers being killed. By that time, the U.S. and Oil Ministry were spending most of their time doing repair work rather than advancing any of their other goals.

On top of that, the U.S. suffered from some very poor planning. An early case was the Al Fatah Bridge in northern Iraq. It was accidently bombed by the Americans during the invasion. This was no ordinary bridge. It included 15 oil and gas pipelines that connected the Kirkuk field to the Baiji refinery, and also the northern pipeline to Turkey. As a result of the bridge being knocked out, Iraq was losing $5 million dollars a day, and helped retard exports. In June 2003, the U.S. decided to fix the Al Fatah Bridge, and put in new pipes. It was estimated that the work would cost $5 million over 2-4 months. Bechtel and Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) were given the job. Immediately, the plan ran into problems. First, Bechtel said it couldn’t start work for two months. Then the Americans decided to build the pipes underground instead of suspended from the bridge. Wilbros. Inc. and Laney were given a $50 million contract to do the work, with an additional $10,000 deal going to Fugro Inc. to do a soil survey before the drilling was to begin. That was over ten times the original estimate. Fugro came up with a bad geological report, and recommended that KBR do more pre-planning. That suggestion was ignored, and KBR went ahead anyway. In October 2003, the subcontractors on the job said they wouldn’t start until they were provided with more security. That delayed work until January 2004. They found the soil to be poor, and they couldn’t do any drilling just as Fugro warned. The companies went ahead anyway, and wasted five months of drilling with no success. In August 2004, the contract was cancelled, one year after it had been issued. KBR claimed it ran into unplanned problems, but it was really because it ignored the Fugro report. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction audited the matter, and found that $75.7 million had been spent completing only 28% of the work, before the job was abandoned. Because all the businesses involved received cost-plus contracts, they were paid even though the project was never finished. Bad management, and the lack of oversight led to this fiasco. KBR seemed to be able to operate on its own in this case, and there was no contracting official that noticed the Fugro survey that could have saved millions.

Another famous case was that of the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant. During the sanctions period, neglect and the lack of funds meant that pressure in many of the wells was allowed to dissipate, and there was not enough to pump oil. Water had to be injected into the fields to solve the problem. The Qarmat Ali water treatment plant was seen as the solution for southern Iraq. KBR was given a $225 million contract to rehabilitate the plant. In August 2004, most of that work had been done with six out of eight water injection pump stations working. Qarmat Ali however, kept breaking down, because its old pipelines, which KBR did not include in its original contract, had cracks and leaks. It took another deal with KBR to repair all these, and that didn’t happen until 2006. This created a major drag on southern oil production, as there was never enough pressure to meet all the pumping requirements. If the management authorities or KBR had done an adequate assessment of the area they would have included those pipes in the original work order, and saved a huge amount of time and money.

The affect of the Al Fata Bridge, the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant, and others was that the U.S. decided to reform its management rules. First, it decided to move away from KBR. In late 2004, American officials issued a “cure notice” saying that it was going to end KBRs work, because of cost overruns. It then started shifting jobs to Parsons Iraq Joint Venture, which had been working on the oil sector in northern Iraq. By the spring of 2005, Parsons was getting the majority of contracts. Then it began using foreign companies working with the Oil Ministry’s state-owned businesses to do most of the rebuilding. This ended up reducing costs, and more projects being completed. By the spring of 2005, the U.S. had given 82 contracts for the oil sector worth $781 million.

All the emphasis upon maintaining oil production and exports led to neglect in other fields. Iraq’s refineries were one such example. The Americans decided they didn’t have the money to renovate them, and suggested that the Iraqis do it instead. One U.S. estimate predicted that rebuilding all of the country’s refineries would cost as much as $7 billion. Baghdad didn’t have those types of funds either, and were just as focused upon exports as the U.S. was. The result was chronic fuel shortages. On top of that, insurgents went after the facilities, and there was a lack of storage capacity for refined products. This trickled down throughout the economy as the Electricity Ministry didn’t have the necessary fuel to run many of its power plants. The result was chronic power outages. The CPA was forced to import massive amounts of fuel to meet demand. It also instituted a rationing system. To this day, Iraq still does not have the refining capacity it needs, and Baghdad is still making large fuel imports as a result. It is still caught up in boosting exports as well, leaving its refinery plans to largely fallow.

Rebuilding Iraq’s oil industry proved to be a daunting task. When the Oil Ministry was put back together and petroleum production restarted it seemed like Iraq would quickly recover. The insurgency had other plans. Their operations led to stagnation in exports, and money being diverted away from important projects to security instead. The lack of oversight led to more waste. By 2005, the country was heading towards civil war, and it seemed like any further progress in the sector would have to wait until major fighting was over. That’s exactly what happened as real progress was not made until 2009 when international oil companies returned to the country in two auctions. That was quite a change as planners originally thought that the entire effort could be done in just months, and oil would end up funding most of the rebuilding. Instead, it ended up being a huge cost.

SOURCES

Agence France Presse, “Oil ministry an untouched building in ravaged Baghdad,” 4/16/03

O’Hanlon, Michael Livingston, Ian, “Iraq Index,” Brookings Institution, July 2012

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

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VIDEO: Inside The Iraq War

ABC VIDEO: Iraq 2003: The Fall Of Basra

How The U.S. Struggled To Establish Law And Order In Post-Invasion Iraq, An Interview With Ret. Col. Ted Spain, Fmr. Cmdr. 18th Mil Police Brigade

Col. Ted Spain deployed in Iraq from 2003-2004 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Retired Colonel Ted Spain is the former commander of the 18^th Military Police Brigade. In early 2003, he was deployed to Kuwait from Germany for the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, and spent a year in the country. I first became aware of him through Tom Ricks’ book Fiasco. I’m currently re-reading it for the first time since it came out in 2006, and that prompted me to get in contact with Colonel Spain. During his time in Iraq, he went through not only the invasion, but the post-war chaos as well. Spain was deployed in Baghdad, which became the center of the looting, insurgency, and general lawlessness that beset the country. While Spain attempted to create a sense of law and order for Iraqis, he ran into a civilian and military leadership that suffered from constant personnel changes, lacked a unified plan, and was caught up in thinking about Iraq in terms of a war, which led them to neglect his work to rebuild the Iraqi police. Below is an interview with Colonel Spain about his experiences in Iraq from 2003-2004, and his general impression of how the U.S. did during that crucial first year.

1. Could you briefly tell me your background, and how you became involved with Iraq?

I assumed command of the 18^th Military Police (MP) Brigade in August 2002, headquartered in Mannheim, Germany, with military police units all across Germany. I deployed to Kuwait on February 21, 2003, and we entered Iraq as part of the initial invasion. My Brigade was part of V Corps, headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. The V Corps Commander, Lieutenant General William Wallace was the senior Army commander during the ground war.

2. What years did you serve in the country, and where were you posted there?

We were there from the initial invasion, and handed over our responsibilities on February 1, 2004. We were mainly in Baghdad, but I had some forces south of Baghdad. My headquarters was at Camp Victory in Baghdad, but my subordinate battalions and their companies were all across Baghdad and south of Baghdad.

3. According to Tom Ricks' book Fiasco, you were originally going to have 20 companies of military police under your command before the invasion, but when March 2003 rolled around you had far fewer units. Do you know why they decided to make that cut in forces?

I was given a mission that if performed doctrinally would have required 50 MP companies, but was allotted 20 companies on my task organization as part of the war plan. That is not unusual, commanders never have enough assets, what you do is prioritize your assets to accomplish the most critical missions. The problem was that when we were told to invade, 19 March, I only had about 3 ½ companies that had all their equipment. I had probably close to another 1000 MPs in Kuwait that had not received their equipment yet, so I left them in Kuwait until their equipment arrived, and then they joined us in Iraq. Meanwhile, I had additional MPs that had not yet left the states, and others that were preparing to ship their equipment. I did not receive my final unit in Iraq until 30 June, about 14 weeks after entering Iraq. I believe the decisions to delay my units, along with some other units, was to get as much fire power in as possible, yet maintain an invasion time before the end of March, because of the upcoming heat, strategic surprise, politics back at home, etc.

4. What was the role of your units during the actual invasion?

During the ground war we were pretty much tied up handling enemy prisoners of war, since that was our top priority, given our limited resources. As we picked up more units, then we started performing more missions.

5. What problems did you run into during the invasion with a smaller force then you originally thought you were going to have?

Mainly, I wasn’t able to perform my other missions, such as route security, which I will always believe led to the capture of members of the 507 Maintenance Company, Jessica Lynch’s unit - I was only about twenty miles away from where they were holding her, escorting more critical convoys, performing area security missions, operating more checkpoints.

6. You arrived in Baghdad in April 2003. What did the city look like, and did you witness any of the looting that went on?

When I personally first entered Baghdad, the 3^rd Infantry Division was controlling the airport. When I first saw the airport it was still called Saddam International Airport, but was soon changed to say Baghdad International Airport. There were several commercial airlines, like Iraqi Air on the tarmac, as well as some commercial and other planes, none military however, that had been destroyed by our air/ground campaign. I saw numerous checkpoints around the city being controlled by the 3^rd Infantry Division with their Abrams Tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Baghdad was a beautiful city, and one image that will always stay in my mind was seeing the amazing accuracy of our “smart bombs,” in that on many occasions I would see one large building standing like normal, while the building right beside it was totally destroyed by one of our various types of missiles.

I should note that my first visit was to see the city for myself, and to assist in planning our follow on mission when we moved there permanently. During my first visit it was just my Command Sergeant Major, our security details, and me. At that time my Headquarters was still at Talil Air Base in Dhi Qar, along with the HQ of one of my subordinate Battalions. This was on or about April 11, my first day in my HQ at Camp Victory, when I permanently stayed was on April 25, the same day I lost my first soldier. My other subordinate battalion, I only had two at the time, because I still had two waiting in Kuwait for their equipment and additional soldiers, was HQ’d just south of Baghdad. I put them there to posture our quick movement into Baghdad, when the situation warranted it. They were running an Enemy Prisoner of War Holding area, and conducting route security; the best they could with their extremely limited assets. My other battalion was doing the same thing in the Talil vicinity.

I did personally witness looting, but during my first visit I had nothing to stop it, and there probably wasn’t enough MPs in the Army to stop it, unless you were going to kill people. There were six million people in that city, and there are only about 17 states in the US that even have six million people in the entire state, it was huge.

The looting in Iraq went on for weeks after the fall of Saddam in April 2003 (AFP)

7. Were you given any orders to do anything about the looting?

Much has been written about Ambassador Bremer’s alleged order to shoot the looters.  He said in his book that he asked his staff if he should put out an order to shoot the looters, but it went out as an order. He says he never issued it. Tom Ricks said on one of the PBS specials that he was with me in Baghdad (one day he spent about 10 hours with me and went with me on patrols, my meetings with the Iraqis, etc.) when he heard that Bremer had issued an order to shoot the looters. He said he asked me what I knew about it, and he said that I said I had not heard anything about it, and it may have happened like that. I do remember my staff telling me one night, and it could have been the same day that Ricks was with me that we had been told to shoot the looters. I asked them where they got that from, and they said General Ricardo Sanchez’ staff. I said we are not going to shoot looters until I heard that from Sanchez personally. It was later clarified there never was an intent to shoot the looters.

As a military policeman, it was absurd to me to shoot looters, and I was not going to allow it, unless I was ordered by someone that had the authority to order me. On a similar note, to my knowledge, I was the only Brigade commander that did not allow warning shots. I know all the combat arms units were using them. Again, in the law enforcement business, warning shots are bad. When someone is shooting behind you, you have no way of knowing whether they are firing warning shots, or are shooting at you, so you are likely to return fire, thus creating dead bodies over a miss understanding. That was allegedly one of the issues when some Iraqis were shot in Fallujah in May 2003. Supposedly some members of the 82^nd Airborne fired warning shots, and other members of the 82^nd thought the Iraqis were firing on them, and returned fire, and I think about 17 Iraqis were killed. I was tasked by General Wallace to send in a task force, headed by one of my MP Battalion commanders to try to restore calm. This was way before anyone knew what would later happen in Fallujah

8. How long do you think the stealing and plundering went on?

Several weeks, until basically there wasn’t anything else to steal, they were stealing everything. I personally saw Iraqis dismantle guardrails by the roadway (the same type of guardrails we have by some of our roadways) to sell the steel I assume. I saw hundreds of hand carts being pushed around with stuff stacked as high as possible, stuff like plumbing materials, sinks, toilets, etc. They dismantled some buildings, brick by brick, all window air conditioners were stolen, etc. There was a lot of damage done to police stations. All the police stations that we had to rebuild were burned in the inside. Every police station I walked in was covered with the remains of burnt files. Iraqis had obviously gone in each police station, took all the files out of all the filing cabinets, threw them on the floor, and set them on fire. I would walk at least ankle deep, and sometimes more, in ashes as I assessed each police station; there were about 90 before the war. After we assessed them, and given our number of MPs I was only able to repair and re-open about 32 of them, across the city, that was about a 4-5 month process.

Col. Spain's main mission after the invasion was standing up the Iraqi police (Michael Totten)

9. What mission were you eventually given for the post-war period?

My main mission after the ground war was to help stand up the Iraqi Police. I believe the senior civilian leadership and military leadership failed to place enough emphasis on the police during the first year. I was unable to convince them how important the police would be to the security of the country, and how important they would be to the individual security of the average Iraqi, just like it is in our country. I suspect you count on the local police for your immediate security, more than you do our Army. As I watched the closing ceremonies in Baghdad this week, and listened to the pundits, some of what they talked about was the Iraqi police and how they are not ready to protect the country. I was saying on day one, and every other day I was in Iraq that the Iraqi police would be an important part of the future of Iraq, but the senior military leadership was so focused on standing up an Army, and going after the terrorists that they didn’t have much interest in the police. They learned a couple of years after I left that the police would be an important part of the future security of Iraq

10. Why do you think the leadership failed to appreciate the role the Iraqi police could play? Were they still thinking about the war/invasion, and not making the transition to the post-war/reconstruction phase?

I addressed some of this above, but you are right. In my opinion, they just didn’t see the police with a lot of firepower. We all operate in our comfort zone, obviously I was more comfortable with understanding the police, and they were comfortable trying to stand up an Army with all the tanks, artillery, aircraft, etc. My point then, and now, was that it didn’t have to be an either/or; we had to have both, simultaneously. I tried to explain to the Army generals that when I talked to the Iraqis on the streets, and the Iraqis in the businesses, which I did almost everyday, they talked to me about their “local security” and the Iraqi police, not the Iraqi Army. If someone tries to break in my house tonight I am going to call the local police, not the Army. I tried to use this analogy with the Army generals, and had more success with some, than others.

During this time, I was quoted in one paper as saying, “We have won the war, now we have to win the peace.” I used to always hear about the “hearts and minds” from the Vietnam era, and didn’t really understand it, but it is true. You don’t win the hearts and minds by busting into Iraqi houses, throwing them in the floor, damaging their very few personal belongings while you are searching for something. How long are you going to trust your local police if they do that at your house, especially when they may not have had probable cause to be in your house to start with, but the Army generals just didn’t get it because they said we were at war. In my personal opinion, I wasn’t sure what we were in, but I believed we were in something other than war, because we now were occupying the country, we were their government. Using General Colin Powell’s words “we broke it, now we own it.” We broke Iraq, and now we had to put it together again, and I felt then, and I feel now, that the Iraqi police have to have a key role in putting it back together again.

11. What was your initial impression of the Iraqi police? What did you think of their abilities? Did you think they were going to be a help or hindrance?

My initial impression was that they did whatever they were told to do by Saddam’s people. They were not part of his inner circle. They told me numerous times that they would receive a call, usually from Saddam’s intel folks, and told to pick someone up, and deliver them somewhere, and they did. They were very corrupt. They ran checkpoint operations across the city, and shook people down. They were making about $12.00 dollars a month, and felt they had to be corrupt to survive. They were not very well trained, and human rights were not in their vocabulary. As to the question as to help or hindrance, I didn’t have a choice. I had to play the hand I was dealt. I tried to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.  I felt they had to help at some point in the future if Iraq was ever going to have a chance to secure itself.

12. Before the invasion, and immediately afterward there were several analysts and reports that said the U.S. should have moved in with a large force of advisors for the Iraqi police, but that never really materialized. Do you think those original plans would have helped the police, and the security situation in Baghdad?

Yes, it would have helped with the training of the police, which would have helped the security situation. There were supposed to be about 1,500 police advisors (many of which had been in Kosovo and Bosnia) coming in, but my personal opinion as to why it didn’t happen was because of a pissing contest between the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. There were only around 10 that I worked with during my time, and they did the best they could, but they didn’t have the numbers or the clout to make much difference. Their biggest contribution during my time was helping us stand up the Police Academy, they had lots of experience there and were invaluable.

13. When did you feel that the U.S. was facing an insurgency in Iraq?

I never heard the word insurgent used during my entire time in Iraq. We had three types of detainees: 1. Enemy- former members of Saddam’s Army, 2. Terrorist – outsiders coming into Iraq to kill Americans, and try to prevent us establishing security, 3. Criminals – people robbing banks, kidnapping for ransoms, murdering people, raping women, etc. Since I’ve retired, I’ve read a lot about the insurgency starting about six months after I arrived in Baghdad, but I was never part of any conversation that called that an insurgency, at the time.

14. Did you have any run-ins with any of the Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army or Badr Brigade?

I didn’t personally, but we did have to deal with the attacks from Al Sadr’s folks. There was a shootout in early October between some of Al Sadr’s folks and Sistani’s folks, in Karbala. I wasn’t in the meeting, but I was told during one of the briefings to General Sanchez about this situation that he asked whom the senior American was in Karbala. When he was told it was one of my MP company commanders he said, “Get Spain on the phone.” I was in my office when I got a call, which I did from time to time that said, “Please hold for General Sanchez.” Sanchez got on the phone, and told me he wanted me to keep an MP field grade officer, either a Major or Lieutenant Colonel in Karbala until he told me otherwise. I only had two Majors and one Lieutenant Colonel in that entire area. I asked him if I could move a Battalion HQ to Karbala, because that’s where we wanted them anyway, but couldn’t, because of the Polish Division commander. Sanchez said he was going to fight the Polish commander over this. He just kept a field grade officer up there until he told me otherwise, over my objections. I did as he ordered, and on October 16 the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kim Orlando, a Staff Sergeant, and a Corporal were all killed in a shootout with some of Al Sadr’s gang.

15. I’ve heard there were a lot of criminal gangs taking advantage of the post-war chaos as well. Was that true, and did you have any experiences with them?

There absolutely were, and we had a tremendous amount of experiences with them, including:  conducting raids and freeing kidnapped people that were being held for ransom; killing and capturing bank robbers; killing and capturing murderers; raiding and capturing counterfeiters that were making counterfeit Iraqi dinars, because we were changing the currency, and even in one case they were making US $100 bills; running hundreds of checkpoint operations recovering stolen vehicles, weapons, etc.

16. Can you expand upon what was happening with these criminals, because I think this is an element of the Iraq story that very few people know about.  Were they mostly gangs that had been operating under Saddam, or were they opportunists that were taking advantage of the post-war chaos or a mixture of both? Did they eventually merge with the insurgents and militias? It seems like for an average citizen of Baghdad, the lawlessness that was released after the fall of the regime might have had the biggest effect upon their every day life.

I can only speculate and give an opinion on most of what you are asking, but let me set the stage a bit to a lot of what you have asked, which is similar to what a lot of what I’ve been asked since I’ve retired. You have probably heard the saying “when you are asshole deep in alligators, it is hard to remember that your original mission was to drain the swamp.” Well, we were asshole deep in alligators everyday during our time in Iraq. 

Since I’ve retired, a lot has been written about what was going on around me that first year, and much more will be written in the coming years (including my book that is being written by Terry Turchie in California). I’m not a very smart person, and certainly not a deep thinker. At the time I was an operator, a war fighter, a leader, someone that daily was trying to “drain the swamp.” I was trying to make Iraq a better place, one day at a time. In hindsight, which is always 20/20, perhaps I should have spent more time trying to understand those things you have been asking me, but I didn’t. 

Back to your original questions. I don’t know if they were gangs that had been operating under Saddam or not. I think many of them were the thugs he had released from his prisons just a few months before we invaded. Six months before we entered Iraq he emptied the now infamous Abu Ghraib Prison. I think we were fighting some of those bad guys.  I think we were fighting many from his former Army that Bremer disbanded. As you suggested, I think many were opportunists that were taking advantage of the chaos just like Americans do here in the U.S. during disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, major power outages, etc. Look what happened in New Orleans. I suspect some were, what were later called insurgents that were trying to fund their operations. I have no idea if some eventually merged with the insurgents and militias.

I think you hit a home run when you said, “It seems like for an average citizen of Baghdad, the lawlessness that was released after the fall of the regime might have had the biggest effect upon their every day life.” Ironically, I’ve never been asked that in the way you asked it, in the countless questions I’ve been asked since I’ve retired, and I couldn’t agree with your assessment more. That was exactly my point at the time. I tried to make that point every week with the senior military leadership and the senior civilian leadership at the time. My assessment then, and now, is that the average Iraqi citizen was concerned about their personal safety. Many of them were scared to go outside, many of them would not allow their children to go to school once they were re-opened, many of them were scared to shop in the businesses that were re-opened. I was on the streets of Baghdad daily, and I personally judged our success by talking to the Iraqi people and seeing how they moved about on the streets what they were saying about their personal safety.

Bottom line: we broke Iraq, so therefore we owned it. We had a great plan to take the country, just not a great plan on what we were going to do with it after we owned it. Had we placed more emphasis on the Iraqi police, perhaps the average citizen would have felt safer, thereby providing us more intel on the bad guys, thereby ending the chaos. We will have to let history tell us how this ended. I just watched the final soldiers roll into Camp Virginia in Kuwait, as the last vehicles left Iraq. In March 2003, I rolled out of Camp Virginia, to enter Iraq, and try to accomplish the mission I was given. There are a lot of things I would have done differently if I had known then, what I know now. Tomorrow morning we can talk about the results of the NFL football games, and I can probably give you an example of where if one of the quarterbacks had passed the ball instead of running it, they would have won the game. I just saw the winning numbers from last night’s drawing of Powerball, if I would have known those numbers yesterday at this time, I would be a multi-millionaire right now. 

17. After the fall of the Iraqi government in April 03 when was the first time one of your units came under attack?

They came under attack from when we first entered Iraq as part of the invasion until the day we left. I lost my first soldier on 25 April, but that was not a result of an enemy attack.  I lost soldiers to IEDs, ambushes, traffic accidents, and drownings.

18. In August 2003 insurgents began high-profile attacks in the capital such as the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy, and U.N. headquarters, and then in Sep. they tried to kill the Baghdad police chief, and hit the U.N. again. What were your impressions of those operations, and did they change your views about what the U.S. was facing in Iraq?

We were involved in everything you mentioned. They didn’t really change my views, because it was chaos the entire time I was there. I learned that the best a commander can do in combat is to manage the chaos, and that is what I tried to do everyday. Some days were better than others. We were more successful in some areas than others. The attacks you mentioned above, and many more you didn’t played well to the media back in the States, and in many cases were carried out to try to show the Iraqi people we couldn’t protect them. Secretary Rumsfeld asked me about the murder rate in Baghdad. I told him we were having about 45 a month, and he said that was less than Washington, DC. I sat on a board in DC about three years ago that was trying to deal with how to handle the next situation like Iraq, as it relates to standing up a host nation police. Some guy from the Department of Justice asked me why I couldn’t control the looting in Iraq. I didn’t like the way he asked me so I answered, “Why couldn’t you control the looting in New Orleans.” I then went on to explain to him that my point was we were doing the best we could given the situation we found ourselves in, just as I’m sure they were doing in New Orleans.

19. In Oct. 03 the insurgents launched their first Ramadan offensive with many attacks being focused in Baghdad. What was it like to be caught in the middle of that?

Similar to my comments above, an attack is an attack, whether the people trying to kill you are criminals, terrorists, enemy soldiers or whoever. We were attacked many times. I survived a plot to assassinate me, and a vehicle bomb attack (two of them simultaneously) because the second bomb malfunctioned, and I was running about 15 minutes late to where I was going to meet with an Iraqi Major Crime Unit and some of my MPs.  I’ve had people in front of me attacked, and people behind me attacked. There was a device placed on the front of my vehicle shortly after my arrival in Baghdad that was supposed to jam any device that would remotely set off an IED attack on me. I will never know if it worked, but I am here today.

20. In May 03 Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority took over control of Iraq. What were your impressions of their work?

As you know, Bremer took over from Retired General Jay Gardner. We had already coordinated our plan with Gardner’s folks, then Bremer, and Bernie Kerik (former New York City police chief) showed up, so we started over. I talked to Bremer several times, and think he was a well intended, and good person. He had a mess on his hands, plus he was a politician and a diplomat.  I was a soldier, and therefore had different opinions from time to time. One of Bremer’s biggest challenges, from what I was personally involved in, was his revolving staff. It would drive me nuts to coordinate something with his people, then they would leave, and someone else would take over. He couldn’t make them stay. Bernie Kerik was there just for the face time, and to build up his resume. He left at the 90 day mark. 

21. Bremer and General Ricardo Sanchez were the two highest ranking Americans in Iraq, but from all accounts they disliked each other bitterly. How did that affect operations in the country?

The main impact on me was trying to determine who was in charge. I was talking one on one, one day with then Major General Martin Dempsey, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I asked General Dempsey, “If Bremer tells me one thing and Sanchez tells me something different what do I do.” Dempsey told me that the military was kind of like in direct support (DS – something all military people understand) to Bremer and the CPA. I sarcastically said, “OK I will do what Bremer said, and blow off Sanchez.” Dempsey smiled, and told me not to forget the uniform I was wearing. I understood the overall situation. It was just frustrating as hell to get conflicting guidance through the civilian channels (CPA) and the military channels.

22. When you left Iraq in early 2004, what did you think you had accomplished, and what challenges did you see ahead for those Americans who were remaining in the country?

When we cased the colors on January 31, 2004, during my speech I told my soldiers and the Iraqi police that we had been part of something historic. I told them that history would sort out whether this was a good idea or not. I told my soldiers not to worry if the future said things didn’t work out, because they should spend the rest of their lives knowing they provided the Iraqi people an opportunity for a better life, but what they did with that opportunity was up to them. I told my soldiers I had just given up my ability to influence the future of Iraq, it was now someone else’s turn. I saw lots of challenges ahead. At the time I thought they could only progress so far until they stopped killing each other. I think they finally got tired around 2006 and started going after the outsiders that were coming in to kill them. Now that we are pulling out, it will be interesting to see what happens now. I told the units that were replacing us that they had to pick up where we left off and continue to move the ball down the field.

23. Overall, what kind of grade would you give the U.S. in those first few months after the invasion was over? 

I would give the individual soldier an A+.  I would give the senior military leadership and the CPA a C, and I would give the politicians in DC a D-.  Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, from Texas, asked me in Baghdad if I agreed with the President’s decision to invade Iraq. I knew with the wrong answer I would be quoted by her on Meet the Press. I said to her, “Ma’am, what kind of question is that to ask a soldier?” I then pulled a cell phone out of my pocket and showed her. I told her that if any general in Iraq wanted to talk to me that they would call me on that phone, and that I was sure if President Bush wanted my opinion he would know how to get in touch with me. (I spent part of Thanksgiving with President Bush, and he personally thanked me for my service.)  I told her if the President asked me my opinion I would give it to him, but I would not give it to her. I said, “Ma’am I know I’ve been here almost a year, but unless you’ve changed the rules since I’ve been here, politicians tell soldiers when to go to war and politicians tell soldiers when to come home, you are a politician, I am just a soldier.”

24. What kind of lessons should the U.S. take away from its time in Iraq?

Some of the same lessons we’ve learned from previous wars, which meant we really didn’t learn them. The military sucks at nation building. It is difficult to take the same soldiers that are killing the enemy, and have trained their entire life to do that, one day, and then have them “win the hearts and minds” the next day. Hindsight is always 20/20 but here goes:

1.  If you break it you own it, and you better have a plan to put it back together again (like Humpty Dumpty.)

2.  We shouldn’t have disbanded the Iraqi Army – they took their weapons with them, took off their uniform, and came after us.

3.  We shouldn’t have stripped all of the top levels of the Ba’ath party out – all of the very senior Iraqi police leadership that I needed to work with were taken away.

4.  We should have placed a lot of emphasis on the police from the beginning, not nearly three years later.

5.  We should have gone in with more soldiers, but in all fairness, Rumsfeld had to balance the movement of equipment, with upcoming heat, with the threat of a chemical attack, with strategic surprise, with protecting the oil fields. As a side note, we were treated as liberators during the ground war. I think we wasted that opportunity because of the way we treated the Iraqi people – we didn’t understand their culture.

6. The military leaders at my level didn’t know what the post hostility operations plan was (assuming there was one.) I am to blame for that also. The original plan called for an encirclement of Baghdad, and a likely 3-4 four month battle. I made the mistake of thinking that would give me enough time to figure out the Iraqi police piece, based on how they reacted to the occupation. I was dead wrong.

SOURCES

Badkhen, Anna and Walt, Vivienne, “U.S.-trained Iraqi guards lack guns,” San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/03

Bennett, Brian, “Who Are The Insurgents?” Time, 11/24/03

Collier, Robert, “Blast highlights U.S. failure to end chaos in Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 8/20/03

Epstein, Edward, “U.S. says increased Iraqi resistance shows desperation,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10/28/03

McGeary, Johanna, “Danger Around Every Corner,” Time, 10/27/03

Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco, New York: Penguin Press, 2006

Ricks, Thomas and Chandrasekaran, Rajiv, “Attacks raise fears of guerrilla war in Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7/7/03

Schlesinger, Robert, “General in Iraq says U.S. faces a guerrilla war,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7/17/03

Schlesinger, Robert and Walt, Vivienne, “As attacks escalate, US troops no longer sole target,” Boston Globe, 8/20/03

Walt, Vivienne, “Bombing at Baghdad police compound,” San Francisco Chronicle, 9/3/03

- “Hellish start to holy month in Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10/28/03

Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction’s “Hard Lessons” Chapter 8 “Treasury’s Triage”

Chapter 8 of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s “Hard Lessons” review of the American rebuilding effort covers the initial U.S. work to reform Iraq’s economy. Immediately after the March 2003 invasion, Iraq was a wreck. The Iraqi military and government had collapsed, and looting was taking place in many of its urban centers. U.S. officials were caught by surprise at the chaotic situation, and were in panic mode trying to put everything back together again. They focused upon getting Iraq’s ministries and banks to re-open, pumping money into the economy, and then moved onto longer term policies such as reforming the currency system, relieving Iraq’s debt, and trying to implement free market policies. The Americans were largely successful at stabilizing the immediate situation and helping with Iraq’s money and debt, but failed at bringing wide-ranging capitalist principles to the nation.

In April 2003, officials from the Treasury Department arrived in Iraq. They found the country’s finances in tatters. The two largest banks, Rafidain and Rasheed, had been looted, and only two of Rafidain’s 170 branches were still open. The Central Bank of Iraq only had $350 million in gold in its vaults. Almost $1 billion in foreign currency had been withdrawn from its accounts before the U.S. invasion. Government ministries were bankrupt, there was no money to pay civil servants, Iraq’s currency, the dinar, was unstable, and the looting had done an estimated $12 billion in damages. 

Pallets full of U.S. cash were flown into Baghdad to get the Iraqi government and economy running again (Guardian)

The first order of business for the Americans was to get money flowing again through the Iraqi economy. They got the bank’s to re-open, began paying government employees, reformed the civil service code and pensions, created a budget for the ministries, stabilized the dinar, and temporarily stopped debt payments to build up foreign reserves. This was mostly funded through the Development Fund for Iraq that was created by the United Nations. Since the Gulf War sanctions, Iraq’s oil revenues had been regulated by the international body, and deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. $12 billion from the Fund was eventually flown to Iraq in new $100 bills, and distributed throughout Iraq with little to no accountability. The priority was to get people back to work and the economy up and running as quickly as possible, so the U.S. skipped the book keeping.

Next the U.S. moved to Iraq’s currency. At the time, the country used two types of money. In Kurdistan there were Swiss dinars, and the rest of the country used Saddam dinars. The latter was easy to counterfeit, and was plagued by high inflation. The U.S. came up with a single dinar and a new exchange rate. In July 2003 CPA head Paul Bremer announced that the Central Bank of Iraq would replace the old notes with the new ones. That process lasted from October 2003 to January 2004.

By the end of 2003 the Americans were working on Iraq’s considerable debt. The Iran-Iraq and Gulf Wars had left the country $130 billion in the hole. The Treasury Department started renegotiation this debt, and got an 18-month moratorium on payments. In December, President Bush appointed former Secretary of State and Treasury James Baker to work on debt relief. He went to the Paris Club made up of 19 industrial countries, and got them to forgive 80% of the $38.9 billion Iraq owed them. In July 2004 the G-8 agreed to an IMF plan to reduce 90-95% of their Iraqi debt. Later, Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of the Iraqi interim government got the Paris Club to forgive 95% of Iraq’s debt and rescheduled the rest.

CPA’s economic director McPherson wanted free market reforms in Iraq (Oklahoma State Univ.)

The CPA also wanted to transform Iraq from a socialist to capitalist country. That was largely based upon the ideas of the CPA’s economic policy head Peter McPherson. He modeled his plans after Eastern Europe, which went through rapid economic changes after the fall of the Iron Curtain. McPherson's ideas were fully supported by Bremer.

In July McPherson focused upon Iraq’s 192 state-owned businesses. Most of them were closed during the war, and even when opened suffered from a lack of assets, obsolescence, high costs, and surplus employees. The looting and post-war chaos had made their situation worse. At the same time they accounted for 1/8 of the workforce, provided basic services, and included 90% of the country’s industry. McPherson decided to close all but the most efficient ones by freezing their assets and cutting off their money. The Treasury Department objected because they were afraid of the affects upon employment and whether it was legal under international law for an occupying power to carry out such changes. There were also differences within the CPA, and many Iraqi objections. That led the CPA to change course in just a matter of days and re-open the companies that would help with reconstruction such as cement factories. By August a third of the businesses were open again.

The U.S. also wanted to transform Iraq’s banks. Under Saddam they were mostly used for savings and transferring money. The Americans wanted them to support businesses, provide loans, and promote economic growth. The CPA suspended the old banking laws, created the Trade Bank of Iraq, started new regulations, and tried to modernize the banking system and change its credit policies. This U.S. effort was only slightly more successful than the ones aimed at bringing capitalism. By 2010 Iraq’s banks are still dominated by large and inefficient state-run ones like Rafidain and Rasheed, which lack transparency, business models, and have high costs. More importantly, Iraq remains a cash rather than credit based economy. 

In the end, the U.S. was successful at getting the economy, banks, and government up and running again, while its long-term plans were sidelined due to differences within the American camp, and opposition from Iraqis. Billions of dollars were pumped into the country through the CPA’s use of the Development Fund for Iraq, and much of the country’s debt was rescheduled or forgiven. The attempt to bring free market reforms to the state-run businesses and banks were either derailed or were ineffective, while the U.S. never even considered privatizing the country’s main asset, oil, because it didn’t want to appear to be after Iraq’s resources. The insurgency was also taking off, switching the emphasis from the economy to security. The result, was that by the beginning of 2004 the U.S. had largely given up on any ideas of bringing capitalism to Iraq, and simply wanted the economy working in the midst of a growing war with militants. This would foreshadow the coming actions by the Americans, who would score several more tactical victories in Iraq. The larger and more important strategic situation however, was much more difficult for the U.S. to shape because it was largely determined by Iraqis who had their own contested ideas about their country’s future.

SOURCES

England, Andrew, “Calls for bank reform to unlock Iraq’s potential,” Financial Times, 12/13/10

Packer, George, “War After The War,” New Yorker, 11/24/03

Pallister, David, “How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq, And watched it vanish,” Guardian, 2/8/07

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

Sterngold, James, “Another enemy looms – Iraq debt,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5/23/04

Basra Protest Over Lack Of Electricity Reflects Twenty Years of Problems

(BBC)

 Summer is upon Iraq with high temperatures in the 120s. Basra, the country’s second largest city, is only receiving an average of two hours of power a day during this scorching weather. As a result, on June 18, 2010 a reported 3,000 people demonstrated there over the lack of electricity. The Electricity Ministry promised an increase in supply this June, but that has not happened due to maintenance work, one power plant going off line, and a lack of fuel to power generators. The Basra protest was just the latest manifestation of Iraq’s electricity problems that have lasted for twenty years beginning with the Gulf War in 1990.

During the Gulf War the Coalition targeted Iraq’s infrastructure, including its electricity network, hoping that it would undermine the government and lead to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. During the actual conflict, commanding General Norman Schwarzkopf denied that the Coalition was targeting Iraq’s power supply, but the truth later came out shortly after the war ceased. (1) On January 17, 1991 for example, the U.S. dropped metallic filaments onto the power network that short circuited the system, and caused blackouts. (2) The Coalition then targeted 28 power plants, flying 215 sorties against them, along with 9 transformer and switching yards. Within a few days, the entire power grid was knocked out of action. Military planners hoped that would cut off communications and the air defense system, as well as cause long-term hardships on the society, which would put pressure on Saddam. While the Bush administration had ruled out direct involvement in overthrowing the government, (3) it hoped to encourage a coup that would get rid of the dictator. Knocking out the power supply was part of that effort.

The problem was there was no coup. In turn, the United States was forced into a long-term strategy of attrition against Saddam, centered on the United Nations sanctions that were imposed in 1990. In the process, Iraq’s power grid began to degrade after it was severely damaged during the war. Four months after hostilities had ceased, 80% of the electrical system was still off line, and the government announced eight-hour blackouts.  A Harvard report made immediately after the war found that bombing damaged 17 of the country’s 20 generating plants, and 11 were total losses. The Pentagon reported that the country’s capacity was down to 1920 levels. U.S. analysts believed that it would take 1-5 years to repair the infrastructure with U.S. aid. That assistance and the spare parts necessary to repair the power grid were largely cut off for thirteen years due to sanctions. In the 1980s Iraq was producing around 9,000-9,500 megawatts. By 2002 it was only producing 4,075 megawatts. 

When the U.S. invasion came in 2003, the Coalition again targeted the power network, and the post-war chaos led to more damage. A report by a military war college and the State Department’s Future of Iraq project warned of outages and other problems that could occur after the war, but the U.S. plans contained nothing abut the electricity network. As a result, during the looting that took place immediately after the fall of the regime, power plants, electricity lines, and other parts of the system were stripped and destroyed. (4) As the situation deteriorated in the months following the overthrow of Saddam, cities and towns began knocking down towers as well to keep power for themselves. By July 2003 the electricity supply was down to 3,100 megawatts. Bechtel received a $515 million contract from the United States Agency for International Development in September 2003 to fix the power system, but the lack of security undermined that effort. In October 2003 the U.S. committed $5.7 billion in reconstruction money to the electricity network. By 2010 America had spent $4.9 billion of that money, and supply had been boosted above pre-war levels to 5,635 megawatts. The dilemma, was that demand skyrocketed after 2003 due to the removal of sanctions, cheap imports, an increase in buying power of Iraqis, and cheap prices. Usage spikes during the summer as well as temperatures rise. Discontent has been rising as a result for the last seven years, and finally boiled over in the Basra protest.

The governor and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have both promised investigations into the Basra matter, but nothing is likely to change, at least not in the short-term. The Electricity Ministry has promised improved service every year. In 2010 for example, it plans on installing at least one power plant in every province except for the three Kurdish ones. Even that is unlikely to provide enough power to satisfy the public until the entire system is overhauled. That will cost billions more, and there are no current plans to do so. Until then, the gap between supply and demand is unlikely to be met, and anger may boil over again.

FOOTNOTES

1. Gellman, Barton, “Storm Damage in the Persian Gulf,” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7/8-14/91

2. Tyler, Patrick, “Iraq Devastation Worse Than Allies Intended,” San Francisco Chronicle, 6/3/91

3. Seib, Gerald, “How Miscalculations Spawned U.S. Policy Toward Postwar Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 5/31/91

4. Hanley, Charles, “500 felled towers keep Iraqi power at home,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10/2/03 

SOURCES

Collier, Robert, “Iraqis swelter in 115 heat – and fume at U.S.,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7/3/03

Fineman, Mark, Wright, Robin, and McManus, Doyle, “Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace,” Los Angeles Times, 7/18/03

Gellman, Barton, “Storm Damage in the Persian Gulf,” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7/8-14/91

Hanley, Charles, “500 felled towards keep Iraqi power at home,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10/2/03

Seib, Gerald, “How Miscalculations Spawned U.S. Policy Toward Postwar Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 5/31/91

Al-Shalchi, Hadeel and Juhi, Bushra, “Anger over power cuts leads to violence in Iraq,” Associated Press, 6/19/10

Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction, “Hard Lessons,” 1/22/09
- “Quarterly Report to the United States Congress,” 4/30/10

Tyler, Patrick, “Iraq Devastation Worse Than Allies Intended,” San Francisco Chronicle, 6/3/91

Wolffe, Richard and Gegax, T. Trent, “The Best-Laid Plans,” Newsweek, 7/21/03