Iraq

This publication is now archived. IntroductionFor weeks now—at least since Iraqis overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in late October—United States policy in Iraq increasingly has come to depend on the ability of American and allied forces to "stand up" Iraqi army and security forces before American public support for the Iraq deployment collapses. The new premium placed on creating Iraqi forces that "control their own battle space," in Pentagon jargon, is on prominent display in recent public statements from the president, senior national security officials and military commanders, as well as in the 35-page "Strategy for Victory in Iraq" plan released in early December. The effort to train a new Iraqi army has been underway since shortly after Saddam’s fall in April 2003. Yet today, more than at any point since U.S. forces breached the first defenses along the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border in March 2003, the future of Iraq is in the hands of Iraqis rather than Americans. Yet the details of how this training is proceeding, and how U.S. and other trainers are judging individual Iraqi units to be "battle-ready," have been obscure and plagued with miscommunication and confusion. Here is a look at some of the issues behind the effort. Who is training the Iraqis? Iraqi forces are being trained primarily by the U.S. military with help from civilian trainers. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), plus several other nations individually, are training Iraqi soldiers and police officers inside Iraq. Others, including Canada, Germany, Jordan, and the Netherlands, are training Iraqi police officers outside the country. Other nations are involved in efforts to train Iraq’s naval patrol forces. The lead agency for this training is the U.S. Central Command’s Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTCI). The MNSTCI is led by U.S. Major General Martin Dempsey, and his senior staff includes generals from Britain, Australia, and Denmark. What is the status of the training effort?There is considerable controversy—and has been for some time—about the status of the Iraqi forces being trained by the military. But in early December, 2005, in a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, President Bush said some forty-five Iraqi battalions—each with 750 men—are able to lead combat operations on their own. All told, that suggests that some 33,500 Iraqi troops have reached the point where they can "own their own battle space," as the president put it. Gen. Dempsey, who runs the training effort, says the United States’ goal is an Iraqi army of 160,000, with 25,000 "elite" police commandos, 135,000 police officers, 6,000 highway patrolmen and about 27,000 border troops. All told, the goal is a trained Iraqi security force of 400,000. Dempsey told CNN on November 23 that about 212,000 total recruits have joined so far, suggesting that a vast majority of them remain unprepared for duty. Adding to the confusion, critics of the administration say, were earlier claims that proved to be wildly optimistic. Why are the numbers so controversial? Some of the confusion surrounding the number of trained troops is the result of a lack of coordination by military and political officials when describing the progress publicly. For instance, Bush’s assertion in early December that some 33,500 Iraqis own their own battle space conflicts with Dempsey’s remarks a week earlier, when he told CNN that about 23,000 are battle-ready. That number only accounts for thirty out of a total 130 battalions. Either fifteen extra battalions graduated during Thanksgiving week, or there are different standards implied by Dempsey and Bush. In a Washington Post op-ed, Senator Biden writes that Rice insisted there were about 125,000 trained Iraqi security forces, while he maintained the real number was between 4,000 and 18,000. Adding to the confusion, critics of the administration say, were earlier claims that proved to be wildly optimistic. For instance, in February 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview: "Today, in February of 2004, there are over 210,000 Iraqis serving in the security forces." Yet he and other officials, including Dempsey, were citing exactly the same number in November, 2005. Again, the discrepancy could be explained with more specifics about what "serving in the security forces" implies, but the confusion has contributed to an impression that the military is being too optimistic in its public assessments. How are new Iraqi forces judged? Military trainers are applying a four-stage assessment system to Iraqi forces. The most effective units are rated Level 1 (fully effective) and Level 2 (largely effective) status. In plainer terms, these are units which, after an eight-week training course and subsequent training in the field, can be left in charge of provincial headquarters facilities and effectively direct security and anti-insurgency operations with laborious U.S. backup. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, who led the U.S. training effort until late September, says a Level 1 unit is virtually interoperable with an American unit. That is no small thing: Within NATO, only some units of the British military are regarded as interoperable. But that is not the same thing as being "fully effective." Interoperability refers to the ability of the two armies to recognize each other on the battlefield, to communicate, and to share logistics. Being "fully effective" is another matter. The U.S. Army has given various answers to the question of how many Level 1 battalions exist in the Iraqi army, but the spread is pretty tight, between 1 and 3. Is “Level 1” the standard that must be met for U.S. forces to start withdrawing?There is no easy way for the Army, or the American public for that matter, to judge progress...That is a complicated question. First of all, no solid criteria have been announced for such a withdrawal. Indeed, most plans mentioned in published reports suggest the first stage would be to pull U.S. forces back to more remote so-called base camps within Iraq, making them less vulnerable to terrorist attack but still able to react quickly in support of Iraqi forces. (This same approach was used in Saudi Arabia after the bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in 1996, the idea being to reduce U.S. visibility and vulnerability. Most U.S. forces left Saudi soil in 2002). For practical purposes, military trainers say, the goal is for most units to attain Level 2 or "largely effective" status. But Petraeus, who has been speaking in public since returning from three years in Iraq last autumn, notes troops at Level 3 ("partly effective") are fighting, too, and that on-the-job training is part of the plan for developing in them an independent command capability. It is mostly Level 3 troops, for instance, who have taken over and largely quieted the once-murderous Baghdad airport road. But Petraeus and others add that there is a long way ahead. He warns there is no easy way for the Army, or the American public for that matter, to judge progress: "There is no arithmetic relationship or mechanistic formula that I can give you," he told reporters in October. What specific skills and traits are trainers looking for?The military and civilian trainers handling the task of bringing Iraq’s forces up to standards are applying a dizzying array of measurements to their charges. For instance, the chart used for assessing the status of a so-called provincial headquarters unit grades these forces on categories like leadership, training, station effectiveness, force protection, equipment, and infrastructure. Inside the category "equipment," for instance, are subcategories for vehicles, vehicle radios, pistols, body armor, rifles, and handcuffs. A former civilian training official who was in Iraq in 2003-04 and visited again in November says keeping track of weapons has been a major issue. "We’ve probably issued four rifles for every Iraqi soldier in uniform," he says. "There just wasn’t any kind of inventory system at first, and most of them just disappeared." Petraeus, briefing reporters upon his return from Iraq, acknowledged the problem. "It’s just a very, very complex endeavor," he said. "And again, it was a very conscious choice to focus first the major effort on getting forces out in the field that could fight, knowing that we would have to provide the logistics and sustain that support for some period of time." Did the United States abolish Saddam’s Iraqi Army?Yes, by order of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) on May 23, 2003, the former Iraqi Army was disbanded. The move was controversial from the start, with supporters saying Saddam’s forces were desperately compromised by the atrocities they had committed over the years and the dominance of Sunni Arabs loyal to the regime. The CPA’s former administrator, J. Paul Bremer, defended his decision as "the most important decision I ever made" as recently as April in a symposium at Stanford University. Others, however, including many former generals and senior policy figures, predicted that a failure to keep paying Saddam’s army would result in an inability to control Iraq’s population and would, in effect, disgorge a large, armed and angry group of unemployed males into Iraqi society at precisely the wrong moment. As early as the summer of 2003, several former generals, including retired Maj. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, complained: "Now, elements of this army are attacking us with truck bombs, mortars, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], remote-controlled mines—all stuff in the Iraqi Army arsenal."

This publication is now archived. IntroductionThe December 15 elections will mark the first time in post-Saddam Iraq when voters will decide the permanent makeup of their government. At stake is the composition of the 275-seat Council of Representatives, formerly the National Assembly. Some 226 political groups and more than 7,000 candidates are running for parliament. Each parliamentarian will be elected for a four-year term. The vote symbolizes the final stage in the U.S.-led process of establishing a functioning, multiparty government in Iraq. Experts say the vote should run smoother than past elections in Iraq due to more sophisticated campaigning techniques, additional polling stations, and the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops. How will Iraqis’ votes be counted?The election will run under slightly different rules from those that governed January’s single-district, proportional-representation system. Under the new rules, 230 of the 275 seats will be divided among the eighteen provinces and allocated depending on each province’s registered number of voters. The remaining forty-five seats will then be divvied up not by province but by total vote count, including votes cast by Iraqis abroad. These seats are then distributed in two phases: First, any political bloc that does not win seats at the provincial level but meets a certain threshold nationwide will be granted “compensatory” seats. Second, the last remaining seats will be offered to those political blocs that win provincial-level seats to reward the blocs with larger national support. Is this new system popular among Iraqis?Experts say this system, devised by the interim parliament, rewards voters who turn out, is proportional, and will produce fewer wasted votes than in previous elections. There was talk of reserving a select number of seats for minority candidates, but the plan was shelved because there was inadequate time to decide which political entities qualified as minorities. There was also criticism by some because the system was adopted only three months before the election and, because of its complexity, most voters do not fully understand it. The vote symbolizes the final stage in the U.S.-led process of establishing a functioning, multiparty government in Iraq. Which political groups stand to benefit most under these new voting rules?Nathan Brown, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the new voting structure will likely benefit Sunni Arabs because they are the majority in only a few provinces. Under the old rules, even majority-Sunni provinces were underrepresented in parliament because Sunnis boycotted the vote. Under the new rules, the allocation of a select number of seats to the three main Sunni provinces—Salahuddin, Anbar, and Nineveh—virtually assures them at least forty to fifty of the provincial seats. Experts say the new voting system should also benefit independents and smaller political coalitions, whose support tends to be more split among the provinces. Another point that has received scant attention, Brown says, is that this time around voters will be represented by parliamentarians directly from their province, as opposed to nation-wide slates of party candidates. “They are now not merely party representatives but also local representatives and likely to have stronger ties in the province,” he says. The list of candidates will remain confidential until after the election, however, for security reasons. Will there be election monitors present?Yes, but mostly just Iraqi or regional observers. The European Union had planned to send a monitoring delegation but backed out because of security concerns. Instead, three EU lawmakers will be on hand December 15 but not have powers of an official mission. Traditional U.S. election watchdogs like the Carter Center will not be present, but others, including the National Democratic Institute and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), will be on hand for monitoring purposes. According to the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI), more than 70,000 independent election observers have been accredited to monitor 6,200 polling stations across all of Iraq’s eighteen provinces—a 50 percent increase from the October referendum. Who is eligible to vote?Any Iraqi over the age of eighteen who’s registered to vote. All told, there are roughly 15 million registered voters, including some 1.5 million Iraqi expatriates from fifteen countries around the world. Australia’s 20,000 Iraqi voters began casting absentee ballots on December 12. What kind of voter turnout is expected?Organizers predict a high voter turnout. Hussein Hindawi, head of the IECI, recently told reporters he expects turnout to eclipse the October’s constitutional referendum, when roughly two-thirds of Iraq’s 14 million registered voters turned out to vote. Part of the reason is that Sunni Arabs, who comprise at least 20 percent of Iraq’s population, do not intend to boycott these elections, as they did in January’s interim parliamentary elections, when only 58 percent of the electorate voted. Also, news reports suggest several clerics, both Shiite and Sunni, have been urging their worshippers to vote; some have even issued fatwas ordering their followers to cast ballots.Several clerics, both Shiite and Sunni, have been urging their worshippers to vote; some have even issued fatwas ordering their followers to cast ballots.Further, because these elections will decide parliament’s makeup for the next four years, there is more at stake, experts say, suggesting that Iraqis will be more inclined to go to the polls. Organizers say the increased number of polling stations and improved media coverage of the various coalitions should boost the turnout as well. In January, Anbar, a heavily Sunni province, only had twenty polling centers. There were 144 on hand for the referendum; now there are more than 160, according to Hindawi. However, experts say a late surge in insurgent violence could deter voters in less secure areas like the Sunni Triangle from turning out December 15. What happens after the election?Once the seats are allocated, the parliament, which will convene fifteen days after the results are certified, selects a presidential council, comprising a president and two vice presidents. This council, which must win two-thirds majority approval, then appoints a prime minister, ostensibly the leader of the largest bloc represented, expected to be the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance. The prime ministerial post and presidency will likely go to a Kurd and Shiite, experts say, but it’s unclear if the cabinet positions—which the prime minister has thirty days to fill—will be distributed evenly to reflect the parliament’s political breakdown. In addition to approving the council of ministries, the parliament is in charge of deciding policy on legislative, treaty, and budgetary issues, according to Iraq’s constitution. The parliament’s other two biggest tasks at hand: forming a constitutional court and amending the constitution. Iraqi moderates have voiced concern that Iraq’s constitutional court may get packed with Islamist-leaning judges. To block such a move, some experts say a coalition of sorts could form among Iraqi secularists in parliament. Sunni Arabs are expected to amend the constitution under Article 140, which was added by Shiite leaders shortly before the referendum to appease Sunni Arab voters. But significantly altering the constitution is a complex process, experts say. Parliament must first form a committee, which then has up to four months to propose a package of constitutional amendments. Next, the parliament must vote on the amendments as a package, not individually, and requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of amendments then needs to win approval from the public in a nationwide referendum, similar to the one held on the constitution in October.

Fawaz A. Gerges, an expert on the insurgency movement in Iraq and on the jihad movement in the Muslim world, says the bombings at three Amman hotels last month have produced "a turning point in the Middle East." He says the overall disgust with these violent policies has also led to what he calls "the beginning of a civil war within the Sunni community in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world," in which Sunnis are planning to defy Zarqawi and vote in large numbers later this month to have a role in the new Iraqi government. Gerges, a Lebanese-born professor of International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College, says "many Islamists and former jihadists are saying Al-Qaeda is doing a great deal of damage to the ummah, the Muslim community worldwide, but also to the Islamist movement. Public polls, a very important indicator in the Arab world, tell us we are witnessing a shift away from being sympathetic to Al-Qaeda to being inhospitable and even hostile to Al-Qaeda’s global ideology."Crucial to all this, he says, is a decision by the Bush administration to signal to the new Iraqi government that it is planning some kind of phased withdrawal from Iraq "sooner rather than later." Gerges says, "I think the administration must act on the momentum that exists now in Iraq and try to convince Sunni public opinion that, ’We are planning to leave. We are planning to leave in a year, a year in a half, and allow Iraqis to run their own affairs.’" Gerges was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on December 5, 2005.In a Washington Post article on Sunday you make the point that the Zarqawi-ordered bombings in three hotels in Amman, Jordan have amounted to a turning point in the Middle East war on terrorism. Could you expound on that? Yes. I think we are witnessing a turning point in the Middle East, because I think more and more Muslims are having a closer look, not only at the [Abu Musab] Zarqawi network but also at the parent organization that is al-Qaeda. As you know, the basis for al-Qaeda is that it must wage jihad against the United States and its Western allies. What has happened in the last two or three years in particular, is that now al-Qaeda is waging its war in the heart of the ummah, the Muslim community worldwide. I think the overwhelming numbers of victims are Arabs and Muslims. These include Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, Indonesian, Turks, Moroccans. And I think many Arabs and Muslims are saying...And Iraqis of course. And the Iraqis of course. Many Arabs and Muslims are saying "Hey, you are killing Arabs and Muslims. You are killing innocent Westerners, who have nothing to do with American foreign policy." And I think in this particular sense Arabs and Muslims are getting a closer look at the brutal tactics used and abused by al-Qaeda, particularly by the Zarqawi network in Iraq and elsewhere.Now, of course, all the Arab countries outside of Iraq are predominately Sunni Muslim. Zarqawi took the position inside Iraq that he wanted to kill Shiites. Are the Shiites now getting some sympathy from these countries? Yes. I think what we need to understand is, not only is there a great deal of opposition in Sunni-dominated Arab and Muslim countries to Zarqawi’s tactics, but we are witnessing now what I call the beginning of a civil war within the Sunni community in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world. Let’s remember Zarqawi is not just killing Shiites and Kurds, but he is beginning now to kill Sunnis, those Sunnis who have opposed his indiscriminate terrorism against Shiites and Kurds in the past few months. Several leading Sunni clerics and politicians have been assassinated, allegedly by the Zarqawi network. Many Sunnis in the Arab world are realizing Zarqawi doesn’t give a damn about Sunnis or Shiites iff they disagree with him. I mean, the killings in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, in Jordan in other places have really shed a great deal of light on the Zarqawi network, at least in Arab Muslim eyes. I think many Sunni Arab clerics and politicians and civil society leaders are saying, "Hey listen, you’re not just waging a war against Shiites, but you are also waging a war against anyone who disagrees with you, be he Sunni, Shiite, Kurd or even a Western civilian." I know there were public demonstrations in Amman in the days following last month’s bombings. But what are you basing your general opinions on about the turning point here, the opposition to Zarqawi? Is the press in these countries being more outspoken? I’ve noticed for years that since the American invasion of Iraq you’ve rarely seen any criticism of the insurgents, the terrorists, or Zarqawi in the Arab press. I think there are several indicators that tell me we are witnessing a turning point or a new momentum against Zarqawi and al-Qaeda, the parent organization. I think more and more Arabs and Muslims are becoming vocal, as opposed to just being silent, in their condemnation of Al-Qaeda’s global jihad ideology. More and more Arabs and Muslims are going to the street and protesting against the jihad ideology of al-Qaeda. More and more Arabs and Muslims as saying they will no longer support by word or deed the indiscriminate tactics of Zarqawi. We are witnessing a soul-searching, not just among Arabs and Muslims, but also among Islamists and militants. If you really, as I do, follow the writings of radical Islamists very closely, many Islamists and former jihadists are saying al-Qaeda is doing a great deal of damage to the ummah, the Muslim community worldwide, but also to the Islamist movement. Public polls, a very important indicator in the Arab world, tell us we are witnessing a shift away from being sympathetic to al-Qaeda, to being inhospitable and even hostile to al-Qaeda’s global ideology. I think we are witnessing several patterns of behavior on the part of Arabs and Muslims,which tells me we are beginning to see the beginning of the end, if not the end, of this global jihad ideology—not just in Iraq, but also in the Arab and Muslim world. Of course, this depends on many factors. Having said so, if the war continues in Iraq, I would argue that Iraq continues to be a radicalizing impact in the Muslim world. Iraq continues to be a recruiting ground for militant jihadists’ causes. As long as the war continues in Iraq, as long as citizen fault lines continue in the Middle East and the Muslim world, I think the global jihad ideology will find a way to survive below the surface and above the surface as well. What if the White House called you in and said, "President Bush wants your advice on what to do in Iraq." He gave a major speech the other day outlining what he called the Strategy for Victory in Iraq. Somebody I interviewed said it’d be better if we simply said "Strategy for Success" instead of victory. In your article you suggest the best thing for the United States to do sooner rather than later is to begin to set the stage for withdrawal. Is that your thesis?Yes, in fact I would argue a plan for success has to take into account that the United States, and particularly the Bush administration, must convince Arabs and Muslims it plans to leave Iraq sooner and not later; that the United States is not interested in staying in the Iraq permanently; and that it is genuine about having a timetable for leaving Iraq. The reason I say this is because the American military presence is the greatest gift to al-Qaeda’s global jihadist ideology. The American led invasion/occupation of Iraq has given al-Qaeda a new lease on life. Al-Qaeda was in a coma before the American invasion/ occupation of Iraq. Whenever I travel in the Middle East people no longer talk about crimes perpetrated by Osama bin Laden against American civilians on 9/11 and the Arab-Israeli conflict. People are now talking about the Iraqi causalities, the American bombings of Iraq, the American invasion of a Muslim land. The point I would really like to get to the American reader is that in the eyes of many Arabs and Muslims, regardless of the justification for the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, a Muslim land is occupied by a foreign power. I keep asking and talking to Arabs and Muslims and say "Listen, Saddam Hussein is out, the United States did a great favor for Iraqis, it got rid of Saddam Hussein." And they say, "As long as Muslim land is occupied by a foreign land, this is unacceptable." So in this particular sense the most effective tool the administration has against al-Qaeda is to basically find a way to convince Iraqis and Sunni public opinion the administration is genuine about leaving Iraq, the sooner the better. Also I think we need to understand now—and this is really a major point—that Sunni public opinion in Iraq appears to be prepared now to confront al-Qaeda, to confront the Zarqawi network. This is a major turning point in Iraq, and not just the Arab world. In this particular sense, I think the administration must act on the momentum that exists now in Iraq and try to convince Sunni public opinion that, "We are planning to leave. We are planning to leave in a year, a year in a half, and allow Iraqis to run their own affairs." It seems to me Sunni public opinion is not yet convinced the administration is planning to leave Iraq. Many Sunnis I have talked to say the United States is planning to have bases in Iraq, permanent military bases. This is why I said it’s essential the administration not only impress on the American people, but also impress on Sunni public opinion, that we are leaving, and we’re leaving sooner and not later.I was impressed by the fact that the Arab League seems to be finally showing some support for the Iraqi government. What do you think?This is one of the major developments in the unfolding Iraqi struggle, and I don’t say it because I think the Arab League has been abysmal. Why? This is the first time that Iraqis met and sat together [in Cairo last month], all Iraqis—Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, secular, Islamists. They sat down, argued, debated, and at the end of the day they basically had a consensus. A consensus that says they would like to have a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops. This is a point the administration must understand. The reason why Iraqis succeeded in Cairo in agreeing on a platform during the Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference is the Shiites and Kurds accepted the Sunni community’s major demand that a timetable must be set for an early pullout of foreign forces. The administration should work on this particular development, because after all, here you have more than one hundred Iraqi leaders of all communities saying, "Yes, we would like to have a timetable for an early withdrawal of foreign troops out of Iraq." Why not embrace this particular consensus by the Iraqi community? Why not build upon this consensus? Why not, in fact, empower the momentum and allow the Iraqis to begin the process of healing and of basically creating a functioning government, a government that will stand up and defy and hopefully defeat the terrorists, like Zarqawi.Do you agree that this election in the middle of December is a very important one?Yes, absolutely. I think this is a very important watershed for Iraq and Iraqis for a variety of reasons. The first is, the government which will emerge out of these particular elections will serve for four years. It will have tremendous impact on the future of Iraq. Secondly, you have now a majority of Sunni Iraqis who boycotted the elections in January and are deeply engaged and involved in this particular election. And why is this important? It is important because Sunnis are defying Zarqawi and they are saying, "It’s our future. We would like to gain a measure of political influence in Iraq. We would like to play a role in the development of the new vision in Iraq." This is why if the elections succeed, I hope the Bush administration will take the necessary steps and say to the Iraqis, "Here, you’ve succeeded in electing a government. Here is a timetable for the early pullout of American forces." Of course, this should be in stages, no one is telling the administration it must have an artificial timetable. We’re saying the administration must have a realistic timetable for the early withdrawal of American troops. This is in order to convince Sunni public opinion and Arab public opinion the United States is not there to stay permanently. This should empower Sunnis to confront the Zarqawi network, and hopefully rid Iraq and Iraqis, including the Sunnis, of this particular terrorist cleric, who has been doing a great deal of damage to Iraq and Iraqis and Arabs and foreigners alike.

Lee Feinstein, a CFR expert on U.S. foreign policy, says President Bush’s November 30 speech on Iraq and the accompanying "National Strategy Plan" for victory in Iraq represented "a watershed moment in America’s debate about Iraq." He says the president "is at least entering the debate on a strategy for winning the war and this is a welcome shift in tactics by the White House from attacking critics of the war to debating them."But Feinstein, a former principal deputy director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Office in the Clinton Administration, says he wishes the president had used the term "strategy for success" in Iraq, rather than "strategy for victory." "He could have said ’strategy for success,’" says Feinstein, the executive director of the CFR’s Task Force Program. "Everybody wants to be successful and I think the strategy frankly ought to be to leave Iraq better than we found it. That is a much more reasonable strategy and I think it’s a moral strategy as well. I don’t think it suggests anything other than what all of us would like for Iraq and for Americans who have served in Iraq and have paid the price for serving there."He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on December 1, 2005. President Bush yesterday gave what was billed as a major speech to the U.S. Naval Academy and at the same time the White House made public a "National Strategy Plan" for victory in Iraq that contained details about U.S. tactics and strategy right now. What did you make of the whole effort?First, this was really a watershed moment in America’s debate about Iraq. The president is at least entering the debate on a strategy for winning the war and this is a welcome shift in tactics by the White House from attacking critics of the war to debating them. This I think is due to a shift in how the public is looking at foreign policy now. We’re in a period of time where 9/11 is no longer the prism through which the public is looking at foreign policy; Iraq is.And what’s the big difference?The big difference is that after 9/11, there was greater deference to the president’s decisions about what was necessary to keep the country safe. Now, there is more skepticism, which is more in keeping with American views on foreign policy generally. This is borne out in a poll that the Pew Research Center did with the Council recently that showed Americans are less inclined to support the muscular foreign policy of the administration than they were after 9/11. That Pew Report was quite interesting. It really reflected the old sort of isolationist sentiment in the country.I’m not so sure it’s an isolationist sentiment but rather, a return to the norm. The public has different public priorities for foreign policy than elites do, and in general, the public does not welcome foreign policy activism. I would also in this context refer to a very important piece in Foreign Affairs by John Mueller on public opinion and wars since 1945. The points he makes that I think are relevant to the president’s speech is first that public opinion is now figuring in this war in a way that it hadn’t before. The Iraq war represents just the third time since 1945 that the United States has been involved in sustained ground combat. Mueller cites a threshold of 300 war dead and notes that this is just the third time since 1945—Vietnam and Korea being the previous times—when the United States has suffered casualties above that level. Now of course, casualties in Korea and Vietnam were much higher, although in Iraq they are significantly over 18,000. That includes the wounded, yes?That includes the wounded. But the consequence of this is that public opinion now figures in the president’s ability to conduct the war and is part of the overall calculus about how you fight the war. The president’s speech is clearly a response to the pivotal vote in Congress in overwhelming support of an amendment sponsored by Republican Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which essentially said next year is the year of transition. And asking for periodic reports from the president?It requires periodic updates from the president. A lot was made of the fact that a competing Democratic amendment was not approved, but the truth is that these amendments are almost identical. Some have said that the Democratic bill implied a specific timetable linked to dates for withdrawal but I think that that’s arguable. We know what he said in his speech and we know what the strategy document said and we know the president’s going to be speaking on Iraq between now and December 15 when elections for a new parliament take place there. What markers should we be looking for as signs of progress toward ending the war?Well, I would answer that in two ways. I’d like first to comment on the document itself. I commend the president for putting out a detailed national strategy document on "victory in Iraq" and it’s extremely important to have these kinds of things as benchmarks. I was very struck, however, that the opening page quotes the president from 2003 and the statement that I think really was and still remains the president’s over-arching strategy for the war, which is "we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary and not a day more." To my mind, this has always been a Clintonesque statement that was intended to have it both ways but has never been sufficient as a guiding strategy. I was surprised that this was invoked yet again and I think it speaks to the tension that you see in the document because the document is analytical in places, particularly about the nature of the insurgency. But then it is in other places stubborn. I think the title "Strategy for Victory in Iraq" is a conundrum for the president and I think probably a mistake, but obviously very deliberate.In other words, it could have been called, "Strategy for Withdrawal," right?He could have said "strategy for success." Everybody wants to be successful and I think the strategy frankly ought to be to leave Iraq better than we found it. That is a much more reasonable strategy and I think it’s a moral strategy as well. I don’t think it suggests anything other than what all of us would like for Iraq and for Americans who have served in Iraq and have paid the price for serving there. So this question of war termination I think is really the central question that is raised by the president’s speech yesterday and the document the White House released. And I think it’s really the question that is not adequately addressed, at least not yet. Of course the president is going to have three more bites at the apple since he’s planning further addresses on his Iraq strategy. But I just thought it was very interesting in the speech yesterday that the president actually invoked the end of World War II and the signing of the armistice with Japan on the battleship Missouri and then said—That we won’t have any such signing—That we won’t have any such signing but that also, "I will settle for nothing less than complete victory." And of course, this alludes to the very intense debate, even in World War II, about what constituted victory. Remember in World War II, we were certainly completely victorious but we did agree to allow the emperor to remain in power in Japan, which was something many people opposed and that was a compromise. So even in a "traditional" war, the terms of ending a war are always controversial and difficult to set. Now, the president in his speech and in the document the White House released does not consistently define victory and I think that that helps to explain why the analyses [of the speech and the paper] are all over the place. Sometimes, the president defines victory modestly. For example in the document, victory in the long term would be when Iraq is peaceful, united, capable, secure, well-integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terror. Here there is no mention for example of it being democratic. In the speech, however, victory is defined as when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy. And elsewhere, again, victory is defined more modestly, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, or when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists. I think the president and his administration have made a mistake by embracing the idea of not wanting to settle for anything less than victory.I want to go back to one thing you said. You mentioned they repeated the president’s statement from 2003 that we’ll stay in Iraq as long as possible but not a day longer. You said that was a very "Clintonesque statement." What does that mean?I think it was meant to be a statement that could incorporate many interpretations and appeal both to those who are concerned about a long stay and those who want total victory. The truth is that this glosses over the problems rather than addresses them. That’s why I think that this is really the heart of the problem the president is facing.You mean, what is victory?What is victory. And I think again it underscores the tension between analysis and politics that you see running throughout this document and throughout the president’s speech.I’d like to add just one other point that I thought was interesting. Some of the commentary about the president’s speech points to the fact that the document and the president’s speech seem to acknowledge most of the insurgents are Iraqi and not al-Qaeda-connected. That is interesting because, first of all, I think it’s important to know who you’re fighting and if this represents an indication that the United States has a better fix on who the enemy is, that’s good. But it creates a political issue for the president because the president has said and repeated yesterday that Iraq is an essential front in the war on terrorism. But if in truth the opponents of the United States in Iraq are not terrorists, this creates a tension between how the president has been trying to win support for the war politically and the reality of the war on the ground.You’re right. If Iraq is a war against terrorism and the people we’re fighting are mostly Iraqi Sunnis then the important thing is to get them into the government which is another part of his speech, right?Right. My advice to the president would be that it’s time to focus on the problems we face and not try to rationalize the way ahead based on what has gone before. A more direct way of saying that is that if you can’t admit mistakes, at least in going forward don’t try to rationalize them. I am concerned the president’s efforts to rationalize past policies and past mistakes are negatively affecting judgment on how we prosecute the war. That goes to two specific issues: 1) war termination and 2) tactically who the enemy is and therefore how to fight it.Do you think he gave too rosy a picture of the ability of the Iraqi forces? I think that the document and the speech in some places accentuate the positives and in other places are very realistic about how it’s going to take. On balance, the statements yesterday are much more realistic about how difficult it’s going to be to have effective Iraqi forces but you know you have to look very closely to find that.What about the political reaction in Washington? Was it kind of the expected reaction for the Democratic and Republican sides?I think the responses have come back within the Republican Party with much more skepticism than you might have expected. For example, [Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee] Senator Richard Lugar’s reaction was tepid. I think on the other hand, Senator Joseph Biden [the senior Democrat on the committee] went out of his way to be constructive in his response. I would summarize both of their responses as "good, go further." Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the minority leader, of course just blasted it.Right. And Representative Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], the House minority leader, has now thrown her support to the [Representative John] Murtha [D-PA] plan [to pull out of Iraq within six months]. Another interesting comment comes from my colleague at Brookings, Ivo Daalder who says [on the blog TPM café] the president’s plan looks a lot like the Murtha plan in terms of its military tactics, which go to essentially withdrawing American forces to the periphery. I think he overstates the case but I think it’s a brilliant point to show that there is a lot more in common between the Murtha plan and the president’s plan than you might think.

This publication is now archived. IntroductionThere is a growing chorus of complaints from Sunni Arab leaders that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) has been infiltrated by Shiite militias that engage in torture, kidnappings, and, in some cases, deaths squads against Sunnis. Though Iraq’s leadership downplays these outbreaks of violence, experts say there is widespread evidence that an increasing number of members of the Mahdi Army, led by the hot-headed Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr Organization are joining the ranks of Iraq’s military and engaging in paramilitary-style policing methods. “The ISF is not a true national force but rather a carved-up conglomeration of militias,” says Kenneth Katzman, senior Middle East analyst with the Congressional Research Service. The latest evidence: The November 13 discovery of a detention center in Baghdad allegedly run by Iraqi intelligence officials linked to the Badr Organization, where eighteen of the center’s roughly 170 captives—most of them Sunni Arabs—were reportedly beaten, blindfolded, or subjected to electric shocks. Sunni Arab leaders accuse Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a former high-ranking official with the Badr Organization, of turning a blind eye to this torture. The Muslim Scholars Association, a Sunni organization, recently compiled a list alleging hundreds of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, illegal raids, and instances of torture of Sunnis by individuals linked to Shiite militias. Experts say it’s impossible to tell what percent of the ISF is made up of militia members. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, the bulk of Baghdad’s largely Shiite 60,000-strong police force is split between those loyal to the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. Squad cars in Iraq’s capital often carry a green ribbon, the Badr Organization’s insignia, or a picture in their windows of al-Sadr. The U.S. Position on MilitiasThese militias have put the U.S. government in a difficult bind: On one hand, experts say, these groups are effective in fighting the Sunni-led insurgency. Last year, the U.S. military fought alongside militia groups in counterinsurgency operations in Mosul and Samarra. On the other hand, these groups are fueling sectarian tensions and infiltrating the military, which raises doubts as to where these soldiers’ allegiance lies. But U.S. officials seem unworried by the spread of militias. “They are increasingly an Iraqi problem, not a U.S.problem,” says a senior Defense Department official who preferred not to be named. Though Iraqi militias were technically banned by theCoalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in June 2004, the U.S. military is “encouraging existing militias into the security services—that is true,” says the Defense Department official. “We continue to examine their loyalties but also are trying to build loyalty [to the Iraqi state].” The Mahdi ArmyThe Mahdi Army—named after a Shiite messianic figure—is a militia of several thousand members loyal to the young anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The group led two uprisings last year against U.S. forces before agreeing to a ceasefire in October 2004. The militia is heavily influential in Najaf, a city in southern Iraq, and in Sadr City, a Baghdad slum of some 2.5 million Shiites. Some news reports suggest the Mahdi Army may be regrouping and rearming itself. In recent months, Sadr’s group has been accused of abducting Sunni Arabs as well as members of rival Shiite militias like the Badr Organization, British troops, and journalists, including Rory Carroll, an Irish reporter for the British newspaper the Guardian. On October 27, in Medayna, a village northeast of Baghdad, a group of so-called Sadrists reportedly raided and set ablaze several homes suspected of harboring Sunni insurgents; the ensuing fight left some twenty people dead. Some experts say the group is not an organized, disciplined unit with clear political objectives. ’’I think the Sadrists are a social movement, not really so much an organization,’’ said Juan Cole, a Middle East expert at the Universityof Michigan , in an interview with the New York Times. ’’So you have these neighborhood-based youth gangs masquerading as an ’army.’ Then you have the mosque preachers loyal to Muqtada who try to swing their congregations, and who interface with the youth gangs.’’Other experts say Sadr is receiving aid from Iran’s intelligence services and Revolutionary Guard, though this is widely disputed. “Sadr is a very poor prospect as an Iranian proxy,” argues Michael Knights, a London-based associate with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s xenophobic. He’s very disenchanted with Iranian-sponsored exiles who are currently heading up Iraq’s Shiite block, including of course Prime Minister [Ibrahim al-] Jaafari and SCIRI. He has recently flexed militarily with SCIRI’s Badr forces, so he’s generally not an ideal proxy for the Iranians to use.” Regardless, Sadr has emerged as a powerful figure in Iraqi politics and relishes his new kingmaker position. Though he has refused to participate directly in Iraqi politics, his supporters won a handful of parliamentary seats in the January 30 elections and thirty of his candidates joined the mainstream Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, ahead of the December 15 parliamentary elections. The Badr OrganizationThe Badr Organization, formerly known as the Badr Brigade, was built by Iraqi Shiite defectors and soldiers captured by Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Its members were funded, trained, and equipped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2003, the 10,000-strong militia changed its name from the Badr Brigade to the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development after pledging to disarm and devote itself to peaceful purposes and is now the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite opposition party founded in 1982 by Iraqi exiles in Iran. SCIRI, which has emerged as Iraq’s most powerful political party, advocates the creation of a separate, Shiite-run region comprising nine oil-rich provinces in southern Iraq. In a rare November 27 interview with the Washington Post, SCIRI’s leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, downplayed his organization’s ties to Iran and denied accusations that the Badr Organization practiced torture or targeted Sunni Arabs.The group, however, has remained armed, experts say, and has been accused of assassinating, torturing, and unlawfully detaining Sunni Arabs. Peter Khalil, former director of national security policy with the CPA and a Middle East analyst with the Eurasia Group, says the Badr Organization continues to receive support, both military and financial, from Iran (Al-Malaf.net, a Jordanian news site, alleges the Badr Organization still receives a monthly stipend from Tehran of roughly $3 million). The militia group has also said it will run candidates, separate from SCIRI, in the upcoming December 15 parliamentary elections as part of the United Iraqi Alliance, the most powerful Shiite coalition. The Badr Organization has recently clashed with British troops in Basra and with the al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, also based in Iraq’s predominantly Shiite south. In August, after Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf were set aflame, the Mahdi Army staged a reprisal attack against Badr troops. “It’s a mafia-style war between two descendants of Iraq’s leading ayatollah-led families, the Sadrs and the Hakims, who don’t exactly express affection for each other,” writes Robert Dreyfuss, a national security expert, in TomPaine.Com. Further attacks were called off by Sadr after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani intervened to quell the dispute. The Badr Organization denied responsibility for setting fire to Sadr’s offices. The Wolf BrigadeOne of the Badr Organization’s offshoots is the Wolf Brigade, a unit of roughly 2,000 special commando police officially under the Ministry of the Interior that is among Iraq’s most feared groups. Last November, the brigade—which was formed in the fall of 2004 by a former three-star Shiite general and SCIRI official whose nom de guerre is Abu Walid—fought alongside U.S.-led forces in Mosul, a Sunni stronghold northwest of Baghdad. Its members dress in garb—olive uniform, red beret, wraparound sunglasses—redolent of Saddam’s elite guard; their armband logo is a menacing-looking wolf. Last December, the Wolf Brigade won further notoriety after the success of Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a primetime show on U.S.-funded al-Iraqiya television that featured live interrogations of Iraqi insurgents by Wolf Brigade commandos. In one show, Abu Walid questioned around thirty shabbily dressed suspects, some clutching photos of their victims, waiting to confess their crimes.The Wolf Brigade was reportedly responsible for the July seizure of eleven Sunni bricklayers who were then locked in the back of police cars and held for sixteen hours in scorching-hot temperatures. The brigade’s fierceness has given it a mythological aura among Shiite Iraqis: Parents are said to warn their children about the “wolves.” There are also patriotic songs devoted to the group. However, in May, the Sunni-controlled Muslim Scholars Association and other Sunni Arab leaders accused the Wolf Brigade of targeting Palestinian refugees in Iraq, using torture to extract confessions from prisoners, raiding Sunni homes, and engaging in “mass killings” and arrests in northeastern Baghdad. Walid denies the charges. Yet human rights groups say the Wolf Brigade, because of its counterterrorism television show, is violating the Geneva Conventions by publicly humiliating detainees. Despite its heavy-handed tactics, the group has proved useful to counterinsurgency operations. In mid-November 2004, the Wolf Brigade successfully arrested more than 300 suspected insurgents, including several Sunni officials, in Baqubah, a city northeast of Baghdad. The militia has also spawned copycat groups, not necessarily under the aegis of the Interior Ministry, with names like the Tiger, Scorpion, or Snake brigades.

It is the question of the moment in Washington: How and when should the United States begin drawing down its forces in Iraq and turning over more responsibility for that nation’s security to local forces? Regardless of how they felt at the start of the war, many in Congress now want a timeline set, something the Bush administration is resisting, citing the need to base decisions on military considerations. Yet military experts seem divided, too. On one hand, argues Council Fellow William Nash, if U.S. forces stay put until Iraq is perfectly stable, they may never leave. On the other hand, leaving prematurely could “turn a bad situation into a regional nightmare,” argues the Lexington Institute’s Daniel Goure. Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments reiterates the Pentagon’s contention that this will be a “long, hard slog,” while Council Senior Fellow Max Boot says timetables for troop withdrawal should be avoided but adds that victory in Iraq is still obtainable, “ even if the insurgency isn’t finished, as long as the Iraqis are doing the bulk of the fighting.” Cfr.org’s Lionel Beehner asked all these scholars the following question: What is the United States ’ best strategy for exiting Iraq. Major General William L. NashWe’re beyond good ideas and just trying to figure out the least bad option. This is not a situation of figuring out the perfect solution. So I am one who believes strongly that our presence is now a detriment to our achieving our goals. As a consequence, I would say we need to be looking for excuses to withdraw, not for reasons to stay. That’s not cutting and running, that’s saying this is what we came for: The country has had several elections; it has a constitution, etc. We’ll stay engaged, but we’re not going to run this place. If we’re trying to get it perfect, we’re going to be there a long, long time and we’ll never, by definition, make it perfect because our presence will prevent it from being perfect. Having spent a couple years training their forces, I also believe the Iraqi security forces are far more capable than we give them credit for, especially if we don’t busy ourselves by trying to make them look like mirror images of us. Sometimes we get excited by form over function. [Our withdrawal should] be graduated, but it’s saying we recognize that it’s your country, and we’re going to leave like we said we would and there’s no great quarrel over our intent or what we’re really going to do. Just by doing what we claimed we were going to do will build us great credibility [among Iraqis]. Going into Iraq was a bad idea, but now that we’re there we need to figure out some way to leave and sooner is better than later. I do think the training mission will need to continue, but it won’t be as robust as it is now. I think there are some combat missions we probably need to perform in the border areas and keep sufficient force in the [Gulf] region so that we can ensure the survival of this government. This is not a get-on-our-helicopter-and-leave strategy that says “you’re on your own.” Daniel Goure, senior defense analyst and vice president, Lexington InstituteIt is a fundamental mistake talking about exit strategies rather than talking about military objectives and winning the war. Winning the war does not mean you have to march into an enemy capital and overthrow the country. In that context, it seems the goals in Iraq, by which then we could withdraw our forces, are fairly straightforward. First, [there is] the creation of a representative government in Baghdad that has basically the acceptance of a majority of the people and can do the basic functions of a sovereign state. Second, you have to have security services capable of meeting those objectives like border security, crime control, counterinsurgency, and defense of the state. Third, and we’re fairly close to being there, the insurgency needs to be sufficiently crippled. An Iraq-led counterinsurgency in a year or two should be able to deal with the insurgency’s remnants. If you look at Iraq, fourteen out of eighteen provinces have less than one attack per day; the majority of the attacks are in the Baghdad area and in Sunni-dominated provinces. So it’s not a nationwide insurgency, it’s a local and regional insurgency. In a sense, we’re probably two years behind where we ought to be, but we’re moving in the right direction in terms of Iraqi military training, with the proviso: You can’t speed it up. In fact, you might argue to slow it down. We tried to rush a police force into place and threw people into uniforms without giving them equipment or training, and they failed. You have to train each private, platoon, brigade, and battalion—you also have to train the officers and coordinate them with other units, as well as teaching air support, how to plan logistics without running out of bullets, etc. And all these things take time. In terms of an exit strategy, faster is exactly the wrong thing. This is going to end in one of two ways: Either we manage to move toward stability, there is a progressive reduction in conflict, and we bring the Sunnis into the process, or it will end with the Shiite-run government rolling over the Sunnis and slaughtering them. We will have genocide if we’re not careful. Our leaving incorrectly will turn a bad situation into a regional nightmare. If there’s a slaughter or genocide out of this civil war, that’s something that will bring in the Syrians, the Jordanians, and the Iranians. Also, we’re not the only ones causing problems, because most pipe bombs are going after locals, mosques, police, etc. Why would that stop if we get out? [Recent comments made by Democrats in Congress calling for a pullout] assume as soon as we leave everything will return to normalcy and people will simply put down their guns because we are the catalyst. But the majority of the casualties have not been againstU.S.forces. It’s been Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. Our idea is to put powers in the hands of those who are stable and not genocidal in attitude and able to perceive a government in which there are minority rights and freedom of expression. So the question is: How do you wean them from their dependence?They don’t know how to do large operations. The police don’t have a good manual on democratic procedures, on how not to beat confessions out of people. This is the old routine of teaching someone to fish versus giving them the fish. We want to move where they’re doing all the fishing on their own. So they’ll be dependent, in the sense of needing us to support their military operations, for another three to five years, assuming there’s still an insurgency going on then. Andrew Krepinevich, executive director, Center for Strategic and Budgetary AssessmentsThere’s a difference between a withdrawal strategy and a victory strategy. First, the Bush administration needs to talk about troop reduction but also to achieve our objectives in Iraq. Second, it’d be interesting to have them address an issue that I think is begging to be addressed: It seems to be those advocating a fairly rapid withdrawal underestimate the cost of such a withdrawal, whereas at the same time, those for staying the course underestimate the cost of achieving our goals. By costs, I mean in terms of resources—both human and material, as well as political—in terms of frayed relations with our allies, and the economic costs if Iraq were to descend into civil war, or if radical Islamists were to take over, the effect that would have on energy prices. To sum it up, what started out a war of choice is arguably now a war of necessity. The costs of withdrawal are likely to be quite high, but the costs of persevering and achieving our objectives of a democratic Iraq that is not a threat to its neighbors is also quite high. We have not “fessed up” to ourselves just how difficult this situation is, that it will require, as [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld said, a “long, hard slog.” The administration hasn’t done the things that would indicate there is this high level of seriousness—there’s no single person in charge in Baghdad, or in Washington, except the president. There’s no war cabinet; we rotate our best generals in and out ofIraq; if we find someone exceptional, we don’t keep him there; it seems the Pentagon’s bureaucratic personnel system trumps battle efficiency. Also, it’s hard to feel this is a war waged for high stakes when the American people are not being asked to make any level of sacrifice. We haven’t seen tax increases to cover the war’s costs or even a war-bond drive. I think there is need for some level of troop reduction to show Iraqis we will not indefinitely occupy their country; to show the American people the Iraqi security forces are capable of taking on some responsibility, at least marginally; and third, and perhaps most important, given the growing difficulties the U.S. Army is experiencing recruiting soldiers and retaining soldiers, some stress needs to be taken off the Army as an institution before the recruiting pool dries up even further and those on active duty begin voting with their feet, by just not reenlisting. The question then becomes: How do you do that while making progress toward your goal? First, put one competent person in charge of the overall effort in Iraq, including intelligence-gathering, military, diplomatic, and reconstruction efforts—and that has to be the ambassador. Second, when you find a good commander, keep him there [in Iraq]. Third, emphasize population security rather than sweep operations. I clearly believe this is a war on intelligence; that is, if we win the intelligence war, we win the war. A critical source of intelligence, particularly finding who the insurgents are, is the Iraqi people. The best way to get that information from them is to provide them with security. The U.S. military has been modifying [their sweep operations] somewhat by leaving Iraqi battalions behind [in secured areas], but it’s not clear how competent these Iraqis are. [I recommend leaving] not just an Iraqi battalion behind but one with a higher level of embedded U.S. soldiers with it. Another important point: The local police are the key to winning this war; the police, which are the enduring face to the Iraqi population, are critical: Can we train good police so that they’re competent and incorruptible? It’s incredibly difficult given Iraq’s history. Overall, it’s going to require a substantial long-term military presence in Iraq. Democracy is about more than elections; it’s about a country where people see their security in terms of institutions, not warring factions. It takes a long time to build up these institutions. It’s about an Iraqi military that sees its primary loyalty to the government inBaghdadand not to their own local ethnic group or faction. That will take an extraordinarily long time. Seventy-two years after we ratified our own constitution, Robert E. Lee said he felt more loyalty to his own state than to his country. And in Iraq, there is no George Washington or group of founding fathers who have a fairly homogenous background and who fought together on the same side. There are still hot-button issues within Iraq’s constitution about power-sharing, the sharing of resources—oil is two-thirds of the country’s economy. There’s a lot of uncertainty over who’s going to control existing versus new oil fields. Again, the administration has been reluctant to say what Rumsfeld has said privately: that it’s going to be a long, hard, and costly war, but we don’t have a choice and have to suck it up. It’s very difficult to do that when your public standing in terms of opinion polls is where the president’s is right now. Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign RelationsI would avoid publicly speculating about timelines for withdrawal. That only feeds the frenzy and puts the White House into a bidding war with Democrats over who can withdraw troops faster. Any pullouts should be based on objective conditions on the ground, not on political conditions back in the United States . There is a real danger of pulling out troops too soon. Iraqi forces are getting better, as Bush says, but they still need a lot of support. Moreover, improvements in the overall security situation will come with more total security forces, whereas if U.S. forces pull out as Iraqi forces stand up, the overall number of forces on the ground will not change and it will be harder to extend the zone of security. The administration should put its focus on convincing the American public that our troops are doing something worthwhile in Iraq and that they’re winning. Talking about pullouts undermines both messages. The point isn’t to exit; it’s to win. I doubt that we’ll be able to pull all of our forces out of Iraq in the foreseeable future. But we’ll certainly be able to reduce the number over time. The point isn’t to stamp out the insurgency; that’s not an achievable short-term objective. The point is to give the Iraqis enough breathing space to establish a stable democratic government. We need to be careful about how we define victory. We can still win even if the insurgency isn’t finished, as long as the Iraqis are doing the bulk of the fighting. An Iraq without U.S. troops on its soil right now would be an unimaginable catastrophe. The likely result would be an all-out civil war in which hundreds of thousands could die. It might also lead to the partition of Iraq with the western part of the country turning into a jihadi state along the lines of Taliban Afghanistan . Iraqis are aware of these scenarios, which is why most say they want U.S. troops to leave—but not yet.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, says a recent poll of Americans shows a sharp drop in American support for the war in Iraq, particularly among so-called "elite" groups. "Support for the decision to go to war has fallen amongst the public. It has fallen from 70 percent to about 48 percent, it’s come down a long way," says Kohut, a former head of the Gallup Organization. "But we found the public still is more hopeful about success than most of the leadership groups," he says about the poll, jointly sponsored by the Pew Center and the Council on Foreign Relations.The poll showed a major rise in isolationist sentiment. Kohut says isolationism "often swells when things aren’t going well. I mean, the spike we’ve seen in sentiment that we should mind our own business is reminiscent of two other spikes—right after Vietnam, and in the 1990s, [after the collapse of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union] when we thought we didn’t have any enemies and history had come to an end."Kohut was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on November 17, 2005.I’ve always been brought up in foreign affairs to believe that the American public by and large is isolationist and has little interest or knowledge in foreign affairs except at moments of high tension like war. Would you say this poll, with its isolationist streak, more or less underscores that the U.S. public is back to its normal frame of mind?Well, the public always has an ambivalent attitude about our relationships with the larger world. They think we should play a role in the world and, in fact, a leadership role, but the size of the isolationist minority I want to emphasize the word minority—often swells when things aren’t going well. I mean, the spike that we’ve seen in sentiment that we should mind our own business is reminiscent of two other spikes—right after Vietnam, and in the 1990s [after the collapse of Communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union], when we thought we didn’t have any enemies and history had come to an end.I don’t want to overstate this. Generally, the American public is disengaged and doesn’t pay a lot of attention to what is going on in the world, but for the most part does think we should play an important role in the world. But how important and to what extent are all subject to time, leadership, and circumstance. The circumstance now is that people are feeling gloomy about our relationships with the world perhaps because of Iraq, perhaps because of growing concerns at home.Let’s talk about Iraq, because that obviously is first and foremost the major foreign policy concern of the United States. Your poll is interesting to me because it separates out what you call elite audiences from the "general public." How did that come out? Did most people think Iraq was not worth the effort, or what?Support for the decision to go to war has fallen amongst the public. It has fallen from 70 percent to about 48 percent; it’s come down a long way. There are a lot of calls for timetables and, while people don’t want to just leave Iraq, there is an increasing pressure to begin to get troops out and to begin the process. But we found the public still is more hopeful about success than most of the leadership groups. The Council members that we interviewed, the scientists, the people from the think tanks, they were much more bearish about the prospects of a stable democracy in Iraq than even the public itself. The public hasn’t given up all hope that this might work out, that was also the case among the military people that we interviewed, and among the state’s local officials, the governors and the lawyers? But there is a gap. In this case, even though there is a lot of lost support among the general public, there is even less support among many of the elite groups. How much of that is partisan politics?A good deal. The elite groups are by and large Democratic, is that what you’re saying?Many of them are, but the military isn’t and state government officials are pretty much balanced like the public.So those would be the ones more supportive of the war at this time.That’s right. One of the lessons of the poll is that the elite and the public are divided on trade and immigration, with the public being more anti-trade and concerned about immigration than all of the elite groups—irrespective of partisanship. But on the issues of the war and President Bush, partisanship is more important than the elite-public divide. And I noticed a sharp drop in support for the United Nations.That’s part of that spike amongst the public in isolationist sentiment. The public is not feeling good about international organizations. In this case, the decline is even greater among Democrats. The Democrats are still more supportive, but the falloff in this recent survey is more amongst Democrats and Independents than Republicans. Republicans are already there.Why do you find that?Well, I don’t know. I think this may be another expression of being a little shell-shocked. Interesting. How does this translate for a political operative? In other words, if you’re thinking ahead now to 2006 elections or 2008 from this kind of poll, do you get the impression that one should lay off on foreign affairs or press ahead?Well, you have to keep in mind that we ask a lot of questions about what our priorities should be. I think there is a consensus among leaders and the public as well that it’s weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, energy—and by the way, those were the priorities through the 1990s too, that hasn’t changed. But there are some gaps between the public and the leaders that would be instructive to candidates and that is that the public puts jobs way up there and the public is more concerned about immigration and the public puts even more emphasis on energy. It puts very low emphasis on promoting democracy. If you were trying to make the case for international involvement, you might make it on an energy basis more so than on the basis of spreading the gospel about democracy.In other words, the public would rather see oil from Saudi Arabia than democracy, necessarily. I don’t want to make that inference, but clearly there is more concern about energy than there is about spreading democracy as a goal of American foreign policy. I’ll let you draw whatever conclusion you want to draw from that.President Bush has consistently claimed the war in Iraq is necessary to defeat terrorism, and that if we left Iraq prematurely, terrorists would flourish and spread everywhere. Does the public link those two issues or not?I think it’s one of the premises that has kept support, to the extent that there is still support, given the fact that we didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. Let me just get to the numbers on this. We still have a majority saying we should withdraw all of our troops and we still have the public evenly divided on whether the war was a right decision or wrong decision, which is a long way from where it was even a year ago. One of the reasons why those numbers are as high as they are, absent weapons of mass destruction, is the public is concerned about the terrorist threat. Now, they don’t think as they once did that the war has really helped the war on terrorism, but I guess that what you can interpret from this is that they don’t want the situation in Iraq to hurt the war on terrorism.I noticed the poll showed that people believed that the absence of terrorism in the United States since 9/11 is more a matter of a luck than policy.Well, the public is skeptical about how good a job we’re actually doing in protecting ourselves.Interesting. I interviewed Brookings expert Ivo Daalder recently, who said he thought in the 2008 election, whoever the candidates are, they are all going to run against Bush’s foreign policy. Can you draw any conclusions from your poll in that direction?Well, I think that the most important thing about that is that the principal tenet of Bush’s foreign policy, the war in Iraq, is not seen as succeeding. That makes him vulnerable and makes that an appealing theme, although it’s a little early to figure things out like that. But on the other hand, the people who are generally critical of Bush are generally for more multilateral diplomacy like the United Nations, but yet the United Nations doesn’t get high marks. It’s an interesting contradiction.Yes, I think that is. I mean, I think that may reflect some problems that that institution is also having. I think the poll shows a sort of ambiguous sentiment about China: Is China a potential enemy or friend? This seems to mirror the administration’s feeling about China, also.Yes, I mean China is a growing power that hasn’t caused any alarm. The percentages of people who say China is an adversary or even a problem hasn’t grown in recent years either among the public or among the elites. Many people -- even in our question that asks who will be our new allies -- are mentioning China.Of course, our trade with China is so expansive. I guess that is interesting.The India numbers are interesting, too. India hasn’t been in the news that much. We did sign an agreement with India in July, but I’m sure most of the people in the polls didn’t even know about that. Well, no, these are the elites, they know about that.How does that jibe with the concern about jobs? The job issue garnered a lot of publicity last year when jobs went to foreign countries, such as to India’s telecom industry. The polls show a big divide on how the elites and the public look at the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]. The elites think that NAFTA is great for the country and the public is very doubtful of that. The American public more or less agrees with all these protesters in Argentina who are against the free trade agreement for the Americas, too, I guess.For different reasons, yes. I thought, parenthetically, it was interesting how little many people knew about the foreign policy questions you asked them.Well, that’s true. I think that, for most questions about foreign policy, people are working based on their instincts. They get a glimmer of what’s going on and they use their good judgment to say, "This is how I feel about that issue."Fifty-nine percent of the poll showed people thought Iran already had nuclear weapons, which even the U.S. government in its wildest predictions says is ten years away. I think that’s making an assumption about a country that people think is unfriendly and dangerous and aggressive about nuclear know-how.A larger number of people seemed to support torture than I would have thought.We find that 45 percent to 46 percent of the public, about what we found in the past, say torture of terrorist suspects is sometimes or often justified, and the numbers for each of the elite groups is much lower than that -- especially low among the military.I guess people are trying to be pragmatic, that if you can extract some sort of important secret, it’s ok.I think people feel if there is a terrorist who has information about a weapon of mass destruction going off in an American city, I think that’s how they can justify it.

Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, says the recent compromise approved in the Senate on Iraq is a "message" to President Bush that says, in effect, "We don’t have any confidence anymore that things are going well in Iraq. We need you to lay out a clear strategy and a clear plan for what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, and when we’re going to be finished. If you don’t do that, we will likely step in later on to do it for you."Daalder, who holds the Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair at Brookings and worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, says that rather than setting a detailed timetable for withdrawal, the United States must tell the Iraqis they have to "step up" and do well enough politically and militarily in 2006 to warrant a draw-down in American forces. He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on November 17, 2005.There has been a heated debate in Washington in the last couple of weeks involving the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, and the president and the vice president, over the issue of whether there should be a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The Senate has worked out a compromise which avoids setting a specific timetable but seems to move in that direction. What do you think about the latest compromise?I think the importance of the compromise is less about the specifics of what was actually voted upon in the amendment, than the message we’re trying to send, which is this: "Mr. President, we don’t have any confidence anymore that things are going well in Iraq. We need you to lay out a clear strategy and a clear plan for what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, and when we’re going to be finished. If you don’t do that, we will likely step in later on to do it for you."I think that’s the message. The fact is the Senate could have just defeated the [Senator Carl] Levin [D-Mich.] amendment and moved on. It didn’t do that. It defeated the Levin amendment but was able to do so only by offering an alternative which incorporated much of the disquiet of the Democrats, and importantly, pushed the same line, which is to say: 2006 is the moment of truth. Either we’re going to find the Iraqis, politically and militarily, really step up and solve some of their fundamental political issues, and take on more of the responsibility of the security in Iraq, or they’re not. If they don’t, then the real question of whether we should continue to do so is on the table. I think that’s the message the Senate sent.It’s interesting. The anti-administration sentiment sort of snowballed this summer when there was a protest by Cindy Sheehan [mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, now head of a movement protesting the war], outside [President George Bush’s] ranch in Crawford, Texas. It built up gradually over the fall, with the administration coming under attack for its handling of Hurricane Katrina; then we had the media attention on the 2,000th military death in Iraq and the indictment of [Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff L. "Scooter"] Libby. How do you see the actual situation on the ground in Iraq? In one of your recent blogs, I think you said things were actually going a little better. What is your reading?I think the one piece of positive news which makes me move from 99.9 percent pessimistic to 98 percent—which may not be a lot, but the shift is significant—is that inside Iraq, what we saw with the runup to the referendum and the actual referendum on the constitution were two very important developments. One was a willingness of the Shiites and Kurds who have effectively run the country for the last year, to say to the Sunnis, "We’re not prepared at this moment to change the constitution, but we are prepared to have a serious dialogue with you folks within the first four months of the new year to address some of the big questions that were raised by you and many other people on the issues of federalism, who controls resources, and representation by the Sunnis who had a role in the previous regime."That was number one. Number two was, you did have a very large turnout among the Sunni voters. Yes, it was all against the constitution, which is not unimportant, but it was a large turnout. That suggests the door is open for some serious deal-making in the first part of 2006. This also assumes the Sunnis [will] continue to participate in the same way when [parliamentary] elections are held one month from now [December 15], and [will] be prepared to have a serious discussion in the new national assembly on how Iraq can move ahead in a way that continues to make it a united country, as opposed to dividing along either sectarian or other lines.That’s my optimism, and to pull the plug out now, or even to say we will leave by the end of 2006 or 2007 no matter what [Iraqis] do, doesn’t strike me as sending the right message. I would turn it around and say: We like what you’re doing and we want to encourage you to continue. In fact, we will remain part of this process as long as you, the Iraqi people and their leaders, demonstrate a willingness to make this work. But if you don’t demonstrate that willingness, if you continue down the line of sectarianism, if you engage in the kind of behavior that was just exposed—where you have Shiite militias running literally underneath the Interior ministry torturing their fellow citizens—we don’t want to be part of that. That’s the kind of Iraq we tried to get rid of. We are not going to be part of that kind of Iraq. If you want to go down that line of sectarianism, of civil war, of moving from covert to overt civil war, if you are not willing to train your security forces, and are only interested in maintaining your militias—then frankly, we don’t have a role there anymore. We cannot want a united, independent Iraq more than the Iraqis. That’s the message I think we should be sending.Do you think the administration is sending that message on its own to the Iraqis?Yes. Partly I think they are. If one person is to be more congratulated than anybody else on the recent progress that has been made, it’s been the [U.S] ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. He is the one who really has gotten his hands dirty, who has started to talk to everybody in Iraq, not just our friends but also our potential enemies—Sunnis who are very sympathetic to the insurgency—in order to pull them into the political process. He is the one who has pushed the Shiites, in particular, to take another look at Sunni grievances and to figure out a way in which to share power. I think the administration on the ground has a good team, with the ambassador actually out there doing things that are important. I think the military folks, General George Casey and others, remain extremely competent and not starry-eyed by any means. The problem has always been in Washington. It’s not been on the ground.Of course, this major election for the new National Assembly takes place on December 15. I noted with interest that Ahmed Chalabi, who currently is a deputy prime minister, was recently in New York and he’s still in Washington. He’s leading a new party of more or less secular Shiites. And Ayad Allawi, who was the former prime minister under the transitional authority, is also trying to revive a more secular party. Another major development is that [influential Shiite cleric] Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has said he won’t endorse any particular list in this next election. Do you think there is a chance the more religious, Iranian oriented-parties will lose some seats?Well, almost by definition they’ll lose seats because there is a different electoral systemIt’s by district now?It’s now by district rather than a national district, so there are certain seats that are not going to be won by Shiites because there are no Shiites living in many places. You know there are the Shiite seats and the Kurdish seats, so almost by definition, you’re going to have less influence among Shiites and Kurds in the [new] National Assembly. I do think what you’re seeing is now an increasing openness of the political system at large, and particularly among the Shiites—less so among the Kurds, and still to be seen among the Sunnis.Among the Shiites, there continues to be a fight, at least at the elite level. I’m not a specialist on Iraqi politics, so I don’t know to what extent it will translate itself into votes, but at least in the elite level you see a disquiet among sectarian and non-sectarian Shiites. It seems to me the fact that Sistani has stepped back does open up the political process to one where competence, as opposed to ideology or religion, may be a more important factor in determining how people will vote. In that regard, I think it’s hard for Chalabi to run on the competence side; I’m not sure what program he’s running on other than he happens to be able to get to see the Americans, which frankly says more about the Americans than it says about him. It’s not as if he is well-loved or liked or even known in Iraqi. I do think that Allawi is a more interesting prospect, because not only is he secular, he’s also multiethnic. He’s really saying, "I am an Iraqi first and last, I’m really not a Sunni or a Shiite or a Kurd, and I’m political as opposed to religious." I think that’s an interesting ticket. If I were Allawi, the last thing I would do is get any endorsements or seek any support from the administration, which is probably a death note. So far, he hasn’t done it. What you’re seeing is a political process taking place, against a background of sectarian violence, that suggests there is at least some hope you can move forward in a positive direction. I didn’t see that six months ago, and that’s the change.Let’s talk a bit about American politics. How significant do you think the Iraqi war will be in the 2006 elections?It depends on two fundamental issues. One, what is the state of affairs inside Iraq? Are we seeing a U.S. casualty rate equal to or larger than we have today? I think we’re now at two to three American deaths a day, and a general sense that Iraq is in a state of disintegration. Secondly, what is the overall troop level in November or October 2006? If it is over 100,000 and the violence has not diminished, I think this will be the issue of the election for a very simple reason: every Democratic non-incumbent is going to run against the war. It’s already happening.What you’re seeing is a movement in the Democratic party of people who did not vote for the war. They have embraced an anti-war message as fundamental both in the primary and then presumably in the general election. If the election were held today, and the situation today prevails at the time of the election, I think Iraq is going to be a major, major issue.On the other hand, if Iraq goes reasonably well, if the violence diminishes, if a political process is in fact moving forward, if, as a result, large troop reductions have been both executed and are on the way, if troops are down to 80,000 or lower—I think then other issues are likely to be at least as important: Issues of general competence, the role of government, the energy crisis, and the state of the economy. But my view is, this war is a losing proposition politically. I think last August was a turning point. That’s when the public turned on the question of whether we are better off or worse off with the war. I just don’t see that pulling back, even if things go well. If the general view within the country is good then people will say, ’Good, now we can go home.’ If the general view in the country is bad, they will say, ’Now we can go home.’Carry this across to the 2008 presidential election. Obviously we don’t know who is going to be the candidate for either party.The 2008 election is much more difficult, because you may have a situation in the runup to 2008 in which both political parties run against George Bush. You have an open primary in the Republican side as well as the Democratic side. You can have, in fact, two candidates heading the tickets who are anti-Bush. You know, [Sen.] John McCain [R-Ariz.] or [Sen.] Chuck Hagel [R-N.D.] on the one hand and any Democrat on the other.Do you think McCain can get a nomination? He’s getting on a bit in age.What you need is a moderate on foreign policy who still lives happily with the right wing of the party. McCain actually comes pretty close, though he’s such a maverick on a lot of other issues. It is not a given that the Republican candidate for president will have to defend foreign policy. I think people will want to run away from this president as fast as they can. By the time we get to the election, [Bush] may be down to 25 percent in popularity in the polls.Unless, as you say, there is a miraculous change politically in Iraq....But even then I don’t think it would help. I think the wheels have come off the Bush presidency.You said at one point, I think in one of your articles, that Bush reached his apex in foreign policy when we invaded.Yes, and it’s been downhill ever since. The question is, at what point did the American public get it? It happened for a variety of reasons. A not inconsiderable reason had to do with the candidate the Democrats had in 2004. Bush’s downfall only really happened in 2005. It was the combination of what was happening inside Iraq, the refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan—which I think people will look at as one of the great failures of this president because he could have gotten rid of the whole issue for August—and Katrina. Katrina sort of exposed the emptiness of the presidency in terms of leadership, competence, security, safety, and the role of the government. It just devastated this president.Refresh my memory, what was your view on the war when it was launched?My view of the war, on the day of the war, was: When we did go to war, I supported it given where we were. I regret it. I spent a lot of time in 2002 and 2003 against precipitous war but I am on record, something that I hate to be but I am, drafting a letter with moderate Democrats and the neoconservative wing of the Republican party that says, "Now we’re at the brink of war, we may not have agreed on how we got there, but now that we’re there we ought to support it." And we listed a number of things we needed to do in the postwar period.

This publication is now archived. What is the status of the U.S.-led reconstruction efforts in Iraq?The reconstruction of Iraq has been hampered by a number of hurdles, including government bureaucracy, corruption, and security concerns, according to an October 30, 2005, report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), an independent auditor. The effort is the biggest rebuilding project since the post-war rebuilding of Europe in 1945. More than thirty months after the March 2003 invasion, Iraqis still complain of a lack of basic amenities like heating oil, water, and electricity. What else did the auditor find?Among its findings, SIGIR reports of a “reconstruction gap” in Iraq: of roughly 3,200 projects initially proposed, only 1,887 have been completed, with 897 projects ongoing. Only 79 percent of the $18 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) has been committed to projects. This gap is due to factors including project delays, cost overruns, and the constant risk of insurgent attacks, which are diverting reconstruction resources to pay for security. The report also found fifty-four instances of corruption, related to no-bid contracts and billing discrepancies resulting in millions of dollars lost. How is security affecting Iraq’s overall reconstruction?The security environment on the ground is growing worse, SIGIR finds; 412 contractors have been killed since March 2003. “That’s about one for every five [U.S.] soldiers killed,” says Frederick Barton, senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program. “That has a tremendously negative impact on the ability to do reconstruction work,” he says. Security costs, originally factored in at around 9 percent, now make up more than 25 percent of all reconstruction spending. Further, security issues lead to recruiting problems, which in turn forces contractors to raise wages to attract workers. Anbar, a heavily Sunni province northwest of Baghdad, is so poorly secured that only one U.S. State Department employee and one USAID employee are on the ground, according to Time Magazine. Which sectors are most in need of reconstruction?According to news reports and polls, the three highest priorities of everyday Iraqis are oil, electricity, and water, experts say. Numerous obstacles remain to supplying these staple items. Among them: Oil. Much of the post-war reconstruction was supposed to be financed by oil revenues. However, daily oil production in Iraq is around 2.14 million barrels, which is less than the average 2.5 million barrels before the 2003 Iraq War. “We’ve spent over $2 billion [on oil-related projects], and the situation is actually worse than we arrived,” said Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) before an October 18 National Security Hearing. Domestic demand for oil is up. Iraqis are buying more cars but waiting long hours to fill their tanks. The sluggish production is due to pipeline attacks by insurgents, poor infrastructure, and lack of refineries. According to the International Oil Daily, oil shortages in Iraq are costing the country billions of dollars in lost export revenues. Further, government subsidies on fuel provide incentives for sabotage and smuggling oil products out of Iraq; more than $2 billion-worth of gas and diesel-fuel supplies is smuggled out of Iraq every year.Electricity. Roughly $4.4 billion has been spent to boost Iraq’s electricity production, yielding mixed results. According to the U.S. State Department, power generation, currently at 4,600 megawatts, has only recently exceeded the prewar level of 4,400 megawatts. That’s still shy of the 6,000 megawatt objective stated by the Coalition Provisional Authority in September 2003. Nationwide, Iraqis on average have power for just half the day. Security forms a large part of this problem, too: a July 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office found that USAID nixed two electricity-generating projects in March 2004 because of the increased security costs of a separate electricity project. Several other power-generation projects have been cancelled or delayed. Barton says a better solution would have been to hand out 500 generators. Water. In an effort to provide potable water to 90 percent of Iraqis, some $1.2 billion was allocated for water and sanitation-works projects. Yet the IRMO says just 66 percent of Iraqis have access to drinkable water. Further, the GAO report says that between $52 million and $200 million worth of water-sanitation projects were either inoperable or operating below capacity. Thirteen of Iraq ’s wastewater-treatment plants are operating at about a quarter of capacity, according to U.S. News & World Report. Experts point to looting, power shortages, and a poorly trained Iraqi staff as causes of the shortfall. What other factors are hobbling reconstruction?Among them:Bureaucracy. Much of the reconstruction funds were held up in red tape, experts say. Further, the decision-making behind these projects was done in Baghdad and Washington, not at the local level. “The authorities didn’t ask local people and governments what their priorities are,” says Jane Arraf, Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former senior Baghdad correspondent for CNN. The system of awarding projects to Iraqi subcontractors is still problematic, she adds. “The criteria with U.S. organizations are still who can present the best proposal in English, as opposed to who can actually execute the project,” she says. As a result, many contracts go to the lowest Iraqi bidder, resulting in shoddy work and missed deadlines.  Mismanagement of funds. An audit by the Iraqi government found that as much as $1.27 billion was lost to accounting irregularities between June 2004 and February 2005. In October, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund, a UN auditing agency, called on the U.S. government to repay Iraq $208 million over disputed fees set by a U.S. contractor. The company—Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton—carried out work paid for by Iraqi oil proceeds, but the work was grossly overpriced and poorly done, according to the auditing agency. KBR claims that the questions raised have to do with documentation, not quality-of-work or accounting issues. The project, carried out in 2003-2004, was a $1.4 billion no-bid contract to repair parts of Iraq’s oil infrastructure.Poor oversight. Once a contract is tendered, there is little government oversight, experts say. For example, in Najaf, a Shiite city south of Baghdad often cited as a reconstruction success story, a $5.5 million sewage-treatment plant built by Bechtel, a U.S. company, was completed in February but was not made operable until August because no one in Najaf was trained to operate the facility, according to the New York Times. Further, a maternity hospital in the city received $8 million but had little to show for it after five months. Stuart Bowen Jr., SIGIR’s inspector general, cited two examples of poor oversight in a November 3 interview on National Public Radio. The first was a $28 million project to build five “state of the art” power plants in Basra, a Shiite city in southern Iraq, but failed to provide the substations connector wires to carry the electricity to Iraqis. In the second case, $1.8 million was paid to rebuild a library in Karbala, but the work was never performed. “In both cases, there were grant moneys and contract dollars that simply disappeared,” Bowen said. What progress has been made on the reconstruction of Iraq? The U.S.-led reconstruction efforts, despite setbacks and security woes, have shown some progress in places like Najaf and Sadr City, a Shiite suburb of Baghdad. Contractors have refurbished police and fire stations, replaced decaying water pipes, and renovated schools and hospitals. In Baghdad, the first of 120 rebuilt health centers was opened. Increasingly, more of the contracting work is being done by Iraqis, though Arraf says in parts of Kurdistan subcontractors rely increasingly on low-wage Chinese laborers. Despite the fact that Iraq is producing oil below capacity, the high price of crude has pushed Iraq’s oil revenue to a post-war high of $2.63 billion in August. What steps have been taken to improve the reconstruction efforts?The U.S.-led coalition is hoping that once Iraq’s security forces are fully operational, the improved security environment will speed along reconstruction projects. Another strategy introduced by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is so-called provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs. An experiment with a proven track record in Afghanistan, PRTs consist of small units of around fifty soldiers paired with several civilians with expertise in certain areas like stability or reconstruction. PRTs are expected to assist reconstruction efforts in Hilla, Mosul, and Kirkuk. Bowen, in the SIGIR report, recommends that Khalilzad host an anti-corruption summit to tackle the growing problem of graft. On the financing side, the Iraqi government is expecting higher future oil revenues to help offset the escalating costs of reconstruction projects. In addition, Baghdad is seeking more funding from donor nations—which have pledged $8 billion so far—and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which have pledged $5.55 billion.

This publication is now archived. What is the controversy over the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program?The UN Security Council started the Oil-for-Food program in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell enough oil to pay for food and other necessities for its population, which was suffering under strict UN sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War. But Saddam Hussein exploited the program, earning some $1.7 billion through kickbacks and surcharges, and $10.9 billion through illegal oil smuggling, according to a 2004 Central Intelligence Agency investigation. Wide-scale mismanagement and unethical conduct on the part of some UN employees also plagued the program, according to the UN Independent Inquiry Committee. What are the latest revelations?The UN committee’s fifth and final 623-page report released October 27, 2005, accused nearly half of the 4,500 participating companies of paying kickbacks and illegal surcharges to win lucrative contracts, and allowing Saddam Hussein to pocket $1.8 billion at the expense of Iraqis suffering under UN economic sanctions. The commission’s lead investigator, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, stated that it was UN mismanagement and failure of the world’s most powerful nations to end corruption in the program that allowed Saddam to fill his coffers. What did the earlier reports find?A September report faults UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his deputy, and the UN Security Council for allowing Saddam Hussein to graft over $1 billion from the humanitarian operation. The committee’s January briefing paper charged UN management of the oil-for-food “operated in an ineffective, wasteful, and unsatisfactory manner,” leading to some $5 million in documented contractor overpayments, and “undoubtedly much higher” losses not discovered by the limited UN audits. The February interim report found the program’s procurement office did not follow established rules “designed to assure fairness and accountability.” It also accused the former head of the program, Benon Sevan, of an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” because he helped a company owned by a friend obtain valuable contracts to sell Iraqi oil. Other allegations against Sevan are also being investigated. Sevan retired from the United Nations last year and has denied any wrongdoing. What does the committee’s final report recommend?In conjunction with the September report (PDF), the commission proposed several changes they believe should be enacted within a year, but experts say that is unlikely to happen. UN member states are already grappling with similar reform proposals introduced during September’s General Assembly meetings. Among the report’s recommendations:The UN Security Council should be clearer about UN operations’ purposes and criteria.A Chief Operating Officer should be nominated by the Security Council to provide needed focus for the Secretariat’s administrative responsibilities.An Independent Auditing Board should be established to fully review UN programs and hiring.Tasks should be coordinated more effectively between UN agencies. What were the committee’s earlier findings?The Volcker’s committee has issued four interim reports since it began its work in April 2004. These reports found there is no evidence of corruption on the part of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in administering the program. However, it finds that his son, Kojo, inappropriately concealed his business relationship with a major Oil-for-Food contractor. Kojo Annan, who was not a UN employee, received some $400,000 from Swiss-based Cotecna Inspections S.A. between 1995 and 2004. Kojo Annan formally stopped working for Cotecna in 1998, leaving just before the company won its $10-million a year UN contract. But he continued to receive monthly payments from the firm until 2004, as part of an unusual arrangement in which he was paid thousands of dollars a month to refrain from joining a competing firm.The committee’s January briefing paper charged UN management of the Oil-for-Food “operated in an ineffective, wasteful, and unsatisfactory manner,” leading to some $5 million in documented contractor overpayments, and “undoubtedly much higher” losses not discovered by the limited UN audits. The February interim report found the program’s procurement office did not follow established rules “designed to assure fairness and accountability.” It also accused the former head of the program, Benon Sevan, of an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” because he helped a company owned by a friend obtain valuable contracts to sell Iraqi oil. Other allegations against Sevan are also being investigated. Sevan retired from the United Nations last year and has denied any wrongdoing. What other investigations into Oil-for-Food are there?They include:Five ongoing congressional investigations examining the role of U.S. companies and individuals and the program more generally. The Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has already issued a dozen subpoenas for individuals affiliated with the program, according to news reports. Four House panels are also conducting inquiries: the International Relations Committee—which has already made three trips to the region and issued a subpoena to Paris-based bank BNP Paribas—the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, and the Appropriations subcommittee on commerce.An ongoing U.S. Treasury Department investigation into which U.S. trade laws may have been violated.An ongoing federal criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.Oil-for-food-related investigations underway in Iraq, Britain, and Switzerland, according to The Wall Street Journal.An April 2004 report by Congress’s nonpartisan investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, now called the Government Accountability Office. What are the details of the CIA report?The September 30, 2004, report by Iraq weapons inspector Charles Duelfer uncovered the regime’s complicated and lucrative schemes to earn illicit funds. In a particularly egregious abuse, Saddam was found to be using secret “oil vouchers” worth millions of dollars to reward individuals and companies for helping Iraq subvert sanctions. Among the alleged recipients of the vouchers was Sevan, the program’s chief administrator. Duelfer headed the CIA team that authored the report, known as the Iraq Survey Group. How did the oil voucher scam work?Under the Oil-for-Food program, the United Nations was supposed to monitor and approve all of Iraq’s oil sales. All profits went into special escrow accounts that the United Nations controlled. Because the purpose of the program was to help feed and provide for the basic needs of the Iraqi people, Iraq was not permitted to buy military equipment or so-called dual-use items—items that could potentially be used in banned weapons programs—with its oil proceeds. But Iraq was given wide latitude to determine to whom it sold its oil, and was also permitted to select the vendors from which the United Nations would purchase goods with Iraqi oil profits. Saddam Hussein skimmed billions from the program by controlling these decisions. How did Saddam Hussein choose buyers of Iraqi oil?Iraq could sign final oil contracts only with a set number of approved “lifting” companies—major oil companies that could transport the oil. But, officially unreported to the United Nations, Saddam Hussein developed a complex internal system that moved the oil through middlemen before it got to the final buyer. The initial oil sale, the Duelfer report said, was generally to a company or individual whom Saddam wanted to influence or favor. Senior Iraqi leaders, such as former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Iraqi ambassadors could nominate an individual or company to receive secret “oil vouchers”—guarantees from the regime that the holder of the voucher could buy a certain amount of oil at a set price. Iraq priced this oil below market value, so that the holder of the voucher could make a significant profit when he sold it on to another middleman or international oil company. Saddam Hussein personally approved all names on the voucher recipient lists, the Duelfer report states. How much could a voucher holder earn?Depending on the price of oil, voucher holders could earn from ten cents to thirty-five cents per barrel beyond the regular market profit, the report says. Who received the vouchers?The Duelfer report contains a list of more than 1,300 oil vouchers that Saddam Hussein gave to more than a hundred corporations, foreign officials, individuals, and political parties around the world. This information came from lists found at Iraq’s state oil company and interviews with captured regime officials.Thirty percent of the oil vouchers were issued to beneficiaries in Russia, including individual officials in the president’s office, the RussianForeign Ministry, the Russian Communist Party, members of the Russianparliament, and the oil firms Lukoil, Gazprom, Zarubezhneft, Sibneft, Rosneft, and Tatneft.Fifteen percent of the beneficiaries were French, including a formerinterior minister, the Iraqi-French Friendship Society, and the oil companyTotal. Entities in China received 10 percent of the vouchers.Entities in Switzerland , Malaysia , and Syriaeach received 6 percent. U.S. companies and individuals received between 2 percent and 3 percent of the total vouchers—some 111 million barrels out of a total of 4.1 billion. These companies were not named in the report, because of U.S. privacy laws, but were later leaked to the press. Which individuals were named in the report as voucher recipients?Among them:Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian Liberal Democratic Party leader, and companies associated with his party were allocated 53 million barrels. Alexander Voloshin, chief of staff under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, was allocated 3.9 million barrels of oil from May to December 2002.Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., a prominent Texas energy investor with a long history of dealings in Iraq, received vouchers for 29.7 million barrels, according to press reports.Benon Sevan, the UN chief of the Oil-for-Food Program, received an allocation of 13 million barrels.Charles Pasqua, a businessman and former French interior minister, received an allocation of 11 million barrels.Megawati Sukarnoputri, the former Indonesian president, was allocated 6 million barrels. Was it illegal to take vouchers?Yes. If individuals and companies knowingly received profits from oil sales not approved by the Oil-for-Food program, they broke the rules of that program and violated the terms of UN Security Resolutions that established the program and the sanctions against Iraq, say investigators from the House International Relations Committee. In the case of UN employees, accepting bribes would also violate the rules of that body, experts say. Whether individuals on the list will be prosecuted, however, would, in most cases, be the decision of their own governments and subject to the domestic laws of each nation. In the United States, as in some other nations, the sanctions became part of domestic law. Another key question in the American context would be whether these vouchers truly served as bribes that caused individuals to work on Saddam Hussein’s behalf to modify U.S. policy. A series of laws, including the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, regulates the overseas business practices of American citizens. In addition, U.S. firms could be prosecuted if they failed to receive the required approval from the U.S. Department of Treasury to purchase Iraqi oil.  What are the details of the allegations against UN Oil-for-Food chief Sevan?The Duelfer report states that as Sevan was administering the UN’s program, he accepted Iraqi oil vouchers through various companies that he recommended to the Iraqi government. An investigation by the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council uncovered a letter linking Sevan to a Panamanian-registered company called the African Middle East Petroleum Company, which set up an oil deal on his behalf, the report states. Some 7.3 million barrels were allegedly sold by Sevan before 2003, which could have netted him between $730,000 to $2 million, depending on market conditions. How did Saddam earn his illicit funds?The voucher system may have given Saddam Hussein political influence over world leaders and companies, but it didn’t bring in much cash to the regime. To accomplish that, Saddam Hussein tacked kickbacks and surcharges onto some Oil-for-Food transactions. For example, in some cases he asked that the suppliers of humanitarian goods provide 10 percent kickbacks to the regime in order to be selected as the vendor. This brought $1.5 billion to the regime, the Duelfer report states. Another $228 million was earned through collecting illegal surcharges of twenty-five to thirty cents per barrel to some companies that wished to buy Iraqi oil. However, the bulk of Saddam Hussein’s $11 billion in illegal revenue, collected from 1990 and through 2003, came from illicit cross-border trade and oil sales to countries in the region. Some $8 billion of that total was earned through illegal oil sales and other trade with Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria. The regime also earned $1.2 billion from unsanctioned oil sales to private companies outside of the voucher system and the Oil-for-Food program, the report states. Members of the UN Security Council, including the United States, often knew about these transactions. What did Iraq buy with the money?The Duelfer report says that Iraq went to great lengths to build a missile system that exceeded the range limits imposed by the United Nations. Companies from China and Russia sold, or negotiated to sell, missile guidance systems, the report says. A Polish company supplied a propulsion system. An Indian company built and sold Iraq a missile-fuel processing plant. All in all, the report alleges that six governments and private companies from a dozen other nations were willing to ignore sanctions prohibiting arms sales. Among European allies, France’s military industry had extensive contacts with Iraqi officials. The report describes, for example, repeated trips by an executive from the French company Lura, which sold Iraq a tank carrier.

Noah Feldman, an expert on Islam and democracy, and a former constitutional adviser in Baghdad, says the fact that Sunnis are expressing more interest in elections and politics is “definitely a good thing.” But he says that “the $64,000 question” is whether the Sunni leadership will be able to curb the insurgent violence, carried out in part by former Sunni Baathist officials.Feldman also says it will take time for real democracy to take hold in Iraq, and it is critical for the United States to stay the course as long as needed. “Until there is that kind of stability and security in Iraq, until the Iraqi military is capable of defending itself and defending the country, until there is a police force that is capable of policing and keeping the peace, the United States really can’t—again consistent with its interests and values—simply say we made a mistake in Iraq, too bad, now we’re going home.”Feldman, professor of law at New York University Law School, was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on October 26, 2005. The results of the Iraqi constitutional referendum have just come out. As expected, it passed overwhelmingly in Shiite and Kurdish areas, but in the Sunni populated areas, it was rejected by more than two-thirds in two provinces and barely squeaked by. In other words, a majority opposed it in the third province, but it didn’t get the two-thirds needed to block it, so therefore the constitution was ratified. What do you make of these results?Well, the first and most significant fact is that there was some significant amount of Sunni participation in the referendum. There wasn’t an overarching boycott, and that’s good news. Because the more Sunnis vote, the more we are moving in the direction of elections being recognized as a crucial part of political practice. That said, the fact so many Sunnis voted “no” but were unable to reach the margin necessary to shoot down the constitution is cause for serious concern. If the lessons Sunnis take away is that “we almost made it this time, and if we come out and vote next time we may be able to really change the balance of power,” then that’s great—that’s the lesson you would want them to learn. If, on the other hand, the lesson they take away is that as a minority you can run in elections and still not have very much impact that would obviously be much more worrisome. Today, following up on the announcement of the referendum results, three parties—the Iraqi People’s Gathering, the Iraqi Islamic Party, and the Iraqi National Dialogue—have come together in an alliance pledged to participate in the December 15 elections for the new national assembly to get the Sunni point of view across. I assume that’s a good thing?It’s definitely a good thing. I say that not because I particularly like their platform but because it suggests we’re moving toward the election of a representative and legitimate group of Sunnis that can speak on behalf of the Sunni community and thereby eventually serve as a bridge to at least some of the more reasonable people who are involved in the insurgency. So, if we get those people showing up with a big Sunni turnout in the next set of elections that would be fantastic. It’s not the end of the game by any stretch, but it’s an important step toward making politics a regular part of how you express your perspective in Iraq.Now, let’s take into account what’s in the constitution and what the Sunnis don’t like about it. What would be the Sunni platform?The main Sunni concerns have been the question of federalism: To what extent can regions be formed, very powerful regions be formed. So, one program, one thing they’ve been interested in is trying to avoid the possibility of a mega-Shiite region with nine of Iraq’s eighteen provinces belonging to it. Another major concern has been de-Baathification. Many Sunnis, especially political elites who may themselves be barred from office under de-Baathification provisions, are concerned that de-Baathification is designed to punish Sunnis to a great extent, and they want to see a scaling back of the powers of the de-Baathification commission. And last but not least, Sunnis—for the most part although they’re not unequivocal on this—have been talking about timetables for a U.S. withdrawal. And I think that’s going to be a recurrent issue in the Sunni areas where there is a great deal more resentment toward the United States even than there is in Shiite areas. Now, what is the relationship—and this comes to the guts of the security situation—between the Sunni leadership and the insurgents?At present, I don’t think anyone can give a definitively correct answer to that question because the insurgency itself has to be at least bifurcated, in terms of at least two parts. One part is the sort of ex-military, ex-Baathist Iraqi domestic part of the insurgency that has seen itself as behaving in a very sophisticated and strategic way with the aim of maximizing the Sunni power and, if at all possible, forcing U.S. withdrawal under conditions that would put Sunnis in a better position than they presently are in the society. The other half of the insurgency—and I don’t mean to say they’re of equal size—is a jihadi—perspective insurgency that’s got some local Iraqis but has a substantial number of foreigners participating in it. And it does not have an interest in the long run of enhancing Sunni power. Its goal is to keep the United States present in Iraq to extend the jihad to a global scale eventually to defeat the United States and ultimately, in a highly theoretical way, once the United States is kicked out to establish the rule of some sort of Islamic Sunni-dominated state in the country. But that obviously is quite speculative, even from their perspective. That’s sort of their pie-in-the-sky, best-case scenario.Are there Sunni and Shiites and Kurds who get along with each other? They’re all politicians I guess. Can they sit down at a table and actually carve out compromises? There is no doubt some of the politicians—in the case of the Sunnis, they have mostly been unelected politician—who are able to negotiate outcomes in ways that serve the interests of the different players. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. So I think the first key point to have in mind is that what we need are the Sunni elites, who have done some negotiating already, to be able to speak on behalf of the more moderate or reasonable side of the insurgency. If they can do that—since these guys are people who know how to negotiate and know how to cut deals—it may be possible to cut some deals that will amount to an emergence of a national pact between Shiites and Sunnis. So there are people who are capable of negotiating, but what we don’t know so far is whether those who are going to negotiate on the Sunnis’ behalf can deliver some component of the insurgency as one of their guarantees. That’s really the $64,000 question. Now, the original election for the national assembly back in January was proportional representation on national tickets, which gave the Shiites—because they were the main parties voting—very large majorities besides the Kurds. The next election, I gather, is by province or district?It’s going to be province-based. We’re not going to have a proportional representation system used in the winter elections but a modified province-based approach that will encourage the likelihood of some Sunnis being elected.So you can expect in the three predominantly Sunni provinces there will be large number of Sunnis elected to the national legislature?Some significant number, one can certainly expect, yes. That will give them their voice in the parliament, if not a majority voice. Will there be efforts to form coalitions with the Kurds. If the Sunnis are now in this national parliament, they will be looking obviously to strike deals with parts of the Kurds, as well as the Shites, right?Yes. I do think we can expect deal-making to take place across the political spectrum. But again, the question is not so much if it will be easy for Sunni elected politicians to cut deals, but the tapping down of the violence. Really the thing the Sunnis can really bring to the table as their bargaining chip is not just coalition-building in the government, although it will be that, but also substantial reductions in the insurgent violence and that’s what the Shiites and Kurds are looking for from them. Unless they can deliver that, the Shiites and the Kurds are going to be unwilling to cut deals with them.You were in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) back in 2003. What was the thinking in that group that led to the banning of the Baathist Party and the banning from jobs of people who had been Baathists?You mean the de-Baathification provisions? The de-Baathification provisions were produced in a combination of coalition-policy preference and the preference of primarily Iraqi exiles, primarily the former INC [Iraqi National Congress] folks. As ultimately formulated, despite the fact there was some internal discussion in the CPA, in which some people advocated a more moderate view, what was adopted was a fairly strong formulation in which quite a large number of people were disqualified of some government office of some form. Obviously, that’s not the only factor that’s led to the Sunni disaffection, but it’s a factor that at more than a symbolic level has been significant in that respect.Also, I guess the other issue you hear about was the disbanding of the whole Iraqi Army. Is that in the same category?I think that’s an even more important category. The disbanding of the army played an even more central role in the subsequent grave difficulty theUnited Stateshas had in reestablishing any kind of order. This is taking a long time in large part because we have to train and recreate a military from scratch. It’s a very long and difficult process. There was a reason for not doing that before; it was the concern that the army as preserved would eventually play a role in overturning the government sometime in the future. But I think that risk, though real, was a risk that had to be taken because the downside of abolishing the army was this problem of disorder, especially considering the small number of troops that we had. So you could have a lot of American troops and abolish the army, or you could have very few American troops, in which case you had to keep the army, but what you couldn’t do is what we did do, which was to have a very small number of American troops and abolish the army.Who drove that decision to abolish the army? Was that [former CPA administrator] L. Paul Bremer’s idea?I think the decision was made so early in Bremer’s term that it’s unlikely it would be reasonable to attribute the decision ultimately to him. I think that decision had much more of a Washington-based focus. The decision was made within the first two weeks of his arrival on the ground in Iraq.And, of course, he and others have complained we didn’t have enough troops, and that’s self-evident now. It’s been self-evident from day one in my view.You were there in April of 2003. It must have been horrible seeing all the looting.The aftermath of the looting was really incredibly depressing, but there was still a three or four month period during which there was no significant or organized insurgency. And that suggests there was a window of opportunity in which it would have been possible to consolidate control over the country to get services back up and running and generally establish some kind of order and that did not happen. I think the small number of U.S. troops took a while to be appreciated by the insurgents, but once the insurgency was in a position to realize what was going on, it was downhill from there.You’ve made the point that Islam itself is not un-conducive to democracy. This administration, of course, has been pushing hard for democracy throughout the Middle East. Do you think if the Iraqi elections work out in December, we can begin to see something like democracy take hold in the region?I think that it will be still too soon to speak of at the broader level. I think though that the production of democratic institutions that succeed is a very slow, piece-meal affair, it’s not achieved overnight, and it’s not achieved just by getting rid of undemocratic governments; nor is it achieved by just one or two elections. But each election inIraqthat garners significant participation and each move away from violence—which we have not yet seen in Iraq at all, but if we did see significant movement away from it—would be meaningful. Each move in that direction is a step toward the possibility of the production of some reasonably democratic, reasonably stable state. And I think it’s a huge mistake to think any one milestone is going to tell us that we’re there. It’s going to take years. We’ll know if we’re not there if the violence continues. Meanwhile, other countries in the region are watching very closely what’s going on inIraqand they’re wondering whether democratization is a viable strategy or whether the dangers of democratization, specifically in the form of radical instability, are worth the risk. So, if Iraq can begin to stabilize, that will be a lesson to democratizing individuals or governments that maybe democracy is not the end of the world, that you can have effective and functioning democracy in the region. But, if violence in Iraq continues, and even as elections go on, the message will be that you might be able to have a democracy, but it comes at such a degree of instability and loss of life and violence that it’s not worth taking the chance of democratizing. So, over the next five years, what happens in Iraq will be hugely significant for the twenty-five-year process of seeing whether democracy is going to take root in the Middle East. I certainly continue to believe broader democratization is possible, but it has to be democratization that shows ordinary people that there’s something in it for them. And most ordinary people are not going to want democracy if it comes with an increased degree of violence in their daily lives. Yesterday in Congress and elsewhere on the occasion of the recording of the 2000th U.S. military death in Iraq, there was a lot of speech-making about a failed policy and the need to get U.S. troops home as soon as possible. What do you think about that?I was on Capitol Hill about a month ago and noticed that. One of the problems that always dogs U.S. foreign policy is the argument we’re too short term in our orientation to complete substantial projects; that because of the election cycle that is brewing right now, we have a short-term view of foreign policy instead of a long-term view. And it’s crucial if we’re going to undertake foreign-policy projects with any kind of ambition that we be able to maintain commitment to projects that we’ve begun. Now you may think the Iraq war was a terrible idea, a lot of people on Congress do. Even if that were the case, it doesn’t follow that the United States can, consistent with its own interests or values, walk away from a place like Iraq. So, it’s all well and good to want to have a strategy to reduce the number of troops—obviously everyone wants that, myself included—but that has to come via the creation of a relatively stable situation in Iraq where peacekeeping troops from other countries can be brought in and our own troops could be reduced in numbers. Until there is that kind of stability and security in Iraq, until the Iraqi military is capable of defending itself and defending the country, until there is a police force that is capable of policing and keeping the peace, the United States really can’t, again consistent with its interests and values, simply say we made a mistake in Iraq, too bad, now we’re going home. The costs locally will be a civil war; the civil war will spill over regionally, a lot of people will die, and it will be our fault for having taken a half-measure, not a full-measure. That’s not acceptable with respect to the prestige of the United States in the world, our capacity to get things done, and it’s certainly not acceptable from an ethical perspective because we were the ones who went into Iraq by choice; we did not have to go into Iraq and we did it, and we didn’t have to depose Saddam but we did it. So now we have a responsibility, a deep responsibility to the people in Iraq.

This publication is now archived. Reaching 2,000In military terms, flag rank officers, defense analysts, and many pundits tend to agree that the “2,000 death milestone” for U.S. military personnel in Iraq really is no milestone at all. The Pentagon argues that the number is irrelevant both to the conduct of the war and to U.S. policy goals there. But others, generally ceding the military point, argue that the nature of the Iraq conflict—an insurgency with no clear end and difficult metrics—has profoundly changed American policy options in such diverse areas as Iran, North Korea, and Islamic terrorism. Further, they see more significance than the Pentagon is willing to concede in the reaction of the U.S. public to the 2,000 death figure, reached on October 25, 2005. The Pentagon’s viewU.S. military officials from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on down repeatedly have described the pace of U.S. casualties as regrettable but “sustainable.” Earlier this week, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, director of the military’s combined press center, told the Associated Press the number as an “artificial mark on the wall.” “I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq ,” Boylan said in an e-mail. "The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."His point, and that of other like-minded analysts, is that the 2,000 death milestone is a journalistic creation with no military meaning akin to the stories traditionally written about new American presidents after their first 100 days in office. As Retired Marine Corps Major General Bernard Trainor notes, more American deaths occurred at Omaha Beach in 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge in early 1945, and during a bad month in Vietnam than in all of the war in Iraq. Public perception mattersYet Trainor, who wrote a seminal book on the Gulf War with Michael R. Gordon, The General’s War, and is just finishing a book on the Iraqi insurgency, says the Pentagon is missing the larger point. “In terms of psychological significance for the American public, it is very large. This calls people’s attention to the fact that the war is still going on and that a lot of people are dying. That can’t be insignificant.”As the military and political analyst John Mueller argues in the current edition of Foreign Affairs in his piece “The Iraq Syndrome,” public support for the war has fallen off precipitously when compared to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. “The lower tolerance for casualties is largely due to the fact that the American public places far less value on the stakes in Iraq than it did on those in Korea and Vietnam.” When weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s alleged links to al-Qaeda proved illusory, “the Iraq war is left as something of a humanitarian venture.” Trainor suggests the U.S. military itself is to blame for the public’s new perception of casualties. “For decades, the military has been selling the idea that we now had a high-tech capability to fight clean wars, that only the other guy would bleed,” Trainor says. “This idea that we suddenly had a clinical industrial enterprise rather than what war really is, an act of mayhem, has come home to roost. Now people find out we can’t fight a clean war. An insurgency is nasty stuff, and so now the military is paying the consequences.” Longer-term implicationsDan Goure, a former Reagan administration defense official now with the Lexington Institute, agrees. “Rather than look at the number being 2,000, you should consider the fact that the casualty rate has remained relatively stable even as the adversary has gained in strength and cleverness. “That, added to the successful passage of a new constitution, implies that significant progress is being made.”But, like others, Goure sees implications beyond those visible to commanders on the ground in Iraq. Recruitment, particularly in the hard-hit Army National Guard and Army Reserves, has been difficult. The pace of operations, too, has been grueling, wearing out soldiers and their equipment and probably impacting many individuals’ long-term career commitment. Goure suggests the 2,000 death figure may be more relevant to future conflicts than the current one inIraq. “It really suggests, in the end, that the U.S. is very good at winning wars and not very good at winning the peace,” he says. It’s not just [former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Chairman Paul] Bremer’s fault or the CPA’s fault. It seems to me Americans are constitutionally or spiritually or somehow incapable of the kinds of efforts that Haiti required, and that has been a failure, that the Balkans required, and that’s not sealed up year, and now we see that Afghanistan and Iraq need, too.”  

This publication is now archived. IntroductionThe decision by the Arab League to empower its secretary-general, the former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa, to organize a conference on national reconciliation in Iraq is being viewed with cautious optimism. Sunnis in Iraq, suddenly on the outside after decades of running the country, welcome the initiative. But longstanding suspicions among Shiites and Kurds about the Sunni-dominated Arab League’s agenda may limit Moussa’s ability to affect the debate. One way or another, experts view the October 2005 initiative as something of a shift in the Arab world’s perspective on Iraq. Where previously the Arab League had been largely silent on post-Saddam Iraq, Moussa’s trip is seen as an indication that the Arab world is beginning to grapple with the implications of a democratic Iraq run by Shiites, a prospect viewed with concern by some of the Arab world’s governments. What is the Arab League?The twenty-two-member League of Arab States (including “Palestine”) grew out of a British initiative during World War II to create a platform for Arab nationalism that would be resistant to Axis overtures. The League soon overtook its colonial foster parent, however, and by the end of the war in 1945, it was devoting most of its energies to preventing the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine and to containing the influence of the West. The seven founding members in March 1945 were still under some form of British or French administration: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. What states comprise the Arab League? Besides the seven founding states, the League includes Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Mauritania, Somalia, Palestine (a seat formerly held by the Palestine Liberation Organization), Djibouti, and the Comoros. What has the Arab League done with regard to the Iraq war? The Iraq War that began in 2003 badly split the Arab League generally along the same lines that the Arab world divided during the Gulf War of 1990-91. The states of the Arabian Gulf—Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, supported or at least refused to publicly object to the U.S.-led military deployments ahead of the war. Several, including Syria and the Palestinian Authority, are deeply opposed. The League itself, as is often the case, thus is unable to coordinate Arab policy.In September 2003, five months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Arab League extended diplomatic recognition to the interim Iraqi government. However, none of these states has yet established a permanent diplomatic mission in Iraq, a sore point in relations with Baghdad. How is the Arab League viewed in Iraq?Iraq’s government has complained bitterly about the Arab League’s inaction since the fall of Saddam’s regime. A recent flare-up came on September 5, when Iraqi President Jalal Talabani complained that none of the Arab world’s leaders had expressed sympathy or offered aid in the wake of a stampede of religious pilgrims in Baghdad that left nearly 1,000 dead. Talabani’s remarks underscored ethnic and religious suspicions that Iraqi Kurds and Shiites feel toward the Arab League, most of whose twenty-two member states are ruled by Sunni Arabs. Talabani, a Kurd, told reporters in September that Arab League statements demanding that Iraq’s constitution declare itself an Islamic and Arab country demonstrated a bias. “The other [Arab constitutions] do not have this text…Why do they not make such a demand from Sudan? Why this insistence on demanding it from Iraq? They know Iraq is a multinational country,” he said. Among the Iraqi Sunni minority, however, the Arab League is viewed as more sympathetic to their plight. What is the significance of Amr Moussa’s visit?Experts suggest that the Arab League’s decision to raise its level of engagement in Iraq suggests that the wider Arab world is beginning to worry about the affects of a Shiite-controlled Iraq at the top of the Persian Gulf as a proxy for Iran’s interests. This is partly tied, they say, to Iran. Britain already has formally demanded that Iran stop its interference in the Basra region, which British army intelligence has detected behind a rash of attacks on United Kingdom (UK) forces.Iraq’s Arab neighbors also know all too well that a major faction within the raging insurgency there is al-Qaeda, an organization as happy to shed the blood of apostate Arab dictators as crusaders and Jews.“This really reinforces what the U.S. is already trying to do,” says Ken Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service. “Obviously, these states are mostly led by Sunnis, and there is a major concern among them that Sunnis in Iraq have been marginalized.” How has the United States reacted?On October 3, State Department Spokesman Scott McCormack said: “It’s a positive development where the Arab League has decided that they are going to send a diplomatic mission to Baghdad and to show their support for the Iraqi people. We would certainly encourage the Arab League as well as its member-states to think about other steps that they might take to support the Iraqi people.” (Full Briefing) What can the Arab League offer Iraq’s Shiite majority and Kurds? For the Kurds, who are enjoying influence in Baghdad undreamed of before Saddam’s fall, there is no great desire to see Iran rule Iraq by proxy—a “devil you know” attitude that Moussa may be able to exploit. Moussa may also seek to bridge the gap between the Shiites currently holding the balance of power and those Sunnis who, to date, have refused to have anything to do with them. As Katzman notes, there is some fear among the newly empowered Shiites that the negotiations over the constitution’s many mechanisms may, in the end, turn out to be a debate about which form of government will be toppled by the insurgents when the Americans leave. “There’s a view in some places that the insurgency is having some success, and maybe now the Arab League feels it will have a bit leverage on the Kurds and Shiites,” he says.The insurgents themselves extended some “street cred” to Moussa’s project when they attacked a convoy carrying his advance team in Baghdad October 10. The attack killed three policemen escorting the convoy, but Moussa vowed not to let it prevent him from pursuing the initiative. However, skepticism remains. Prominent Kurdish and Shiite officials have pointed out that the Arab League long refused to meet with their representatives during Saddam’s years in power and failed to raise objections to his regime’s brutal treatment of dissenters. Iraqi President Talabani, who met with Moussa’s advance team, termed the visit “better than nothing, although it came late.” Who is Amr Moussa? Moussa is a former Egyptian foreign minister whom Time magazine has called “the most adored public servant in the Arab world.” Viewed as something of a rival by his old boss, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, Moussa took over the secretary-general’s post in 2001. Since then, he has shaken up the Arab League’s bureaucracy, which had been regarded as something of a retirement home for Arab diplomats. The League’s decision to endorse a 2002 Saudi Middle East peace plan that would recognize Israel’s right to exist was viewed as a break from the past and credited to Moussa’s leadership.Moussa also has risked the anger of some member states by speaking forthrightly on Iraq. He has repeatedly countered the Arab argument that it is the American presence there that is to blame for everything. Answering a question from an Arab television reporter earlier this year, he insisted Iraq’s violence stems from forces far more complex than simply the foreign military presence in the country. “There is another cause: It is the ongoing manipulation of sectarian sentiments,” he said. “It is not merely the occupation—perhaps because there is an understanding with the current Iraqi authority over the presence of the foreign troops, or perhaps because the foreign presence is so far backed by a UN Security Council resolution….There is another cause for the violence, namely, the manipulation of sectarian and religious tendencies.”

Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council expert on Iraq, who was a leading advocate of the forceful overthrow of Saddam Hussein, says that the just-concluded constitutional referendum was “an important step” but he says it only amounted to “dodging a bullet than actually making real progress toward the goals of stability and democracy in Iraq.”Pollack says the United States tends to focus on such political developments and on publicized attacks on the Sunni triangle, but “what concerns me is my fear that what really matters in Iraq are other issues which we have badly neglected: the security of the Iraqi people more broadly; the problems that the security vacuum we’ve created is creating for their political structure; the growth of the rise of Iraq’s militias; and the growing disconnectedness between the average Iraqi and this political process that’s taking place inside the Green Zone in Baghdad.”Pollack, director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, was interviewed by Bernard Gwrtzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on October 17, 2005.Iraqis have just voted in their constitutional referendum and the early signs are that it’s going to be approved because not enough Sunnis voted against it in the three provinces that could have turned the tide against ratification. The Bush administration has hailed this as a major accomplishment but is this demonstrably a good thing or are there still major problems ahead that we’re not focusing on? I think it was obviously an important step and it’s good that it happened. But I see it more as dodging a bullet than actually making real progress toward the goals of stability and democracy in Iraq. In particular, my great concern is that we, in the United States, have typically focused on those aspects of Iraqi reconstruction where we’re involved, the counterinsurgent offensives against the Sunni triangle and the political process unfolding in Baghdad. But what concerns me is my fear that what really matters in Iraq are other issues which we have badly neglected: the security of the Iraqi people more broadly; the problems that the security vacuum we’ve created is creating for their political structure; the growth of the rise of Iraq’s militias; and the growing disconnectedness between the average Iraqi and this political process that’s taking place inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. Those are interesting problems you’ve just raised. How do you go about fixing them? Well obviously, each one in and of itself is a major undertaking. To a certain sense, I fear that it’s one of the reasons why we haven’t tried to tackle them. Even though they are much more important, we’ve focused on other things because they lend themselves to solutions much more easily, even though they might not solve the problems of Iraq. On the military side, we need to remember, even though it is true that solving the problems of Iraq are going to require military, political, and economic solutions, it all does begin with security. The security vacuum that we created in April 2003 has never been appropriately filled. And that security vacuum undermines every other thing going on in Iraq.You mean the fact that we didn’t have enough troops on the ground at the start?Certainly that was a major element of it, but also that we didn’t use those troops that we had to bring security to the Iraqi people. We didn’t try to stop the looting. We haven’t tried to deal with the problems of just day-to-day crime that plague the Iraqi people, that cripple their economy, and that are distorting their political process. I think most Americans believe the biggest security problems Iraqis face is from the insurgency. But if you actually speak to Iraqis, particularly the Shiite and the urban Sunnis who are not really involved with the insurgency itself, what they will tell you repeatedly is that their biggest problems are just from simple crime—organized and unorganized crime. Iraq has far and away the highest crime rates in the entire Arab world and these are the things that are crippling the Iraqi people, making it so Iraqis don’t like to send their daughters out onto the streets and typically when the women do go out they’re very, very concerned about their safety. Oftentimes they have to be escorted by men because there are these kidnapping rings. There are constant problems with car-jackings and hijackings and people getting held-up; women getting kidnapped and then held for ransom; businesses not being able to move goods on the road. You may order something from Kuwait but it never makes its way up to Baghdad because it gets hijacked along the road; problems of people breaking in and looting power plants, electrical lines. It’s not just the insurgency that’s going after the infrastructure; a lot of the problems in the infrastructure are just about looting, theft, etc. These are the problems that are really crippling Iraqi society, as you can imagine. These are the problems that are really undermining the economy. How do you get investment into Iraq if you can’t guarantee that there’s going to be electricity for a factory or that there are going to be goods for people to actually start working on? Or that the goods can move from a factory to where they’re going to be sold? Or that the people can be safe when they come to work on the factory floor?How do you begin to deal with this? We’ve been talking about training police for years. Certainly that is the right answer. But what we need to recognize is that training the Iraqis to do these jobs is a very long-term process. It’s not just twelve or sixteen weeks of training. Often it takes a year or two to get a battalion to the point where it really has a sense of cohesion and can function out there and can operate on its own; it’s one of the reasons why two years after the invasion we have maybe 30,000 Iraqi troops who can actually handle these kinds of missions. So I think given the fact that Iraqis are still a very long way from being able to take on these missions, we need to recognize that only the United States and the other members of the coalition can really take on these burdens. And for me, that’s part of the mistake we’ve been making all along. I think that we have to put a much bigger emphasis on protecting Iraqis, protecting the Shiite and the urban Sunnis who want no part of the insurgency. And one of our faults has been that we’ve devoted too many of our troops, our resources, our effort, our attention to trying to pacify the Sunni triangle, which to tell the truth, is going to take a very, very long time if it’s ever possible because they’re the people who don’t support reconstruction. And because we’ve shifted so much of our effort and resources toward the Sunni triangle it’s meant that we have left the security vacuum elsewhere in Iraq. So one of the things I’d like to see us do is diminish, de-emphasize our operations in the Sunni triangle and instead emphasize security on the vast bulk of Iraq’s populations, which live in central and southern Iraq.How would you do that? The first thing I’d do is I’d start moving troops. I’d pull out a lot of the big units that are spending all of their time and effort trying to pacify and hold down towns like Fallujah and Tal Afar, which are not terribly important towns—they’re actually fairly small. Not much of Iraq’s population is located in the Sunni triangle. I’d pull all of those units out and I’d move them to central and southern Iraq and I would give them the mission of actually patrolling the streets, jointly with whatever Iraq units are on hand, until you can, in several years, train up Iraqis who can do the job for you.Of course, a lot of people have been arguing the contrary—to get the Americans off the streets because they’re so unpopular. I think that’s a real misreading of Iraqi public opinion. There are a lot of Iraqis who are very angry at the United States, and don’t get me wrong: There are certainly a lot of Iraqis who just want us out. But what we’ve seen very consistently from the public opinion polls, from the focus groups, and also anecdotally when you talk to Iraqis—typically, once you get past Iraqi anger—what you generally find is that what Iraqis want is for the United States to actually do something for them. A great deal of their anger at the American presence is that they feel like we’re there, we’re running their country, we’re making their lives unpleasant, and we’re not doing anything for them. Often when you can get Iraqis past this initial anger, what they’ll say to you is, “I would grudgingly accept American troops on my streets if I thought that the Americans were actually there to help me, to protect me and my family, to protect the infrastructure, and to create a safe environment.” Again, that’s not a universal sentiment in Iraq, but as best as I can tell and as best as anyone can tell, that certainly is the majority impression.So you would focus the security emphasis on the areas that are more or less under control to strengthen the anti-crime, etc., rather than to keep looking to prevent the insurgents from going to other places? Exactly. This is one of the constant lessons of a counterinsurgency: It’s very different from conventional military operations. In a conventional military operation, you want to seek out where the bad guy is strongest and try to crush him. In counterinsurgency operations, you want to figure out where you are strongest, where the people are most supportive, and reinforce that support and success. The problem is that what we’ve been doing is reinforcing the failures. We have been putting all of our time and attention, too much of our troops and our resources into these areas where the people don’t support us. But what you find with the British in Malaya, in Kenya, in Northern Ireland, what you’ve seen from the United States in Vietnam when we did it right, is that when you make an effort to provide security for those people who are at least agnostic, you can use that security to build up a local economy that thrives and you can use it to build a local political system that works. Under those circumstances, people become very supportive of the counterinsurgency effort. And again, what we’ve seen in these samplings of public opinion, whether they’re polls or focus groups or just anecdotal reporting, is that that’s what the Iraqis want.Let’s go back to the politics a bit. Do the Iraqis also want a strong government?That of course varies from Iraqi to Iraqi. Most of them will axiomatically say they want a strong government because it’s what they’ve always known and because there are elements of Arab culture in particular that push them in this direction. There’s an old Arab saying that goes, “Better a hundred years of tyranny than a year of chaos.” That’s very strongly engrained in Iraqi society, and given the fact that they’ve been forced to live with near chaos the last two years, I think you’re going to get a lot of Iraqis saying that. That said, you also do have a growing number of Iraqis even outside the Kurdish regions that are becoming more and more enamored with ideas of regional autonomy. It was surprising to many people when one of the leading Shiite groups, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, came out and advocated these regional arrangements, which are now enshrined in the new constitution, which it looks like they’re going to try and use to create a Shiite regional government of some kind. What that suggests is that you’ve got a bunch of people inside of Iraq who, for various reasons, are moving in this direction. In the case of the political leaders, it’s because they think they will be able to maximize their own power—military, political, and economic. It also reflects the fact that you’ve got lots and lots of Iraqi people who are growing more and more disaffected with the central government. The central government, unfortunately, has become deeply corrupt. It is very much involved in navel gazing, these political machinations, which, again, are so important to the United States and to the American press but which much of the time to the Iraqis, seem utterly irrelevant to what’s going on in their lives. You get lots of Iraqis who basically say, “The central government in Baghdad, they’re in it for themselves. It’s a bunch of corrupt politicians who just want to carve up the country and the best thing we can do is distance ourselves from what’s going on in Baghdad and maybe set up a regional government that actually will do the things that we need—like provide security in the streets and clean the water and get gasoline and electricity running and find us jobs.”That comes back to the question about what to do about the Sunnis in the center. Do you think this new election in December may do something positive?It’s certainly a possibility. Again, I think we need to be very careful about this. This is a political process which needs to succeed because, if it fails, that in and of itself could plunge the country into civil war. But I think we need to be very careful about assuming that this political process can solve all the problems. What we’re going to get is elections now in December, and I think everyone’s hope is that you will get a new [National] Assembly that will be much more representative of the Iraqi population and in particular will bring in Sunni politicians, which will diminish the support in the Sunni tribal community for the insurgency and suggest to them that there is another, more peaceful way to go about this. All that is entirely possible, but we need to recognize that we’ve got a number of Shiite politicians in particular, maybe even some Kurds, who very much want to exclude the Sunnis, who don’t want to give the Sunnis what the Sunnis would consider their rightful place. And by the same token, there are many Sunni leaders who believe that they’re entitled to something far beyond what I think any objective observer would actually say they are entitled to. So you have the potential that, even if you have good elections and get a good assembly in December, this whole process could break down. And beyond that again, not to sound like a broken record, we always need to keep in mind that what’s going on in Baghdad is only one part of what’s going on in Iraq. And in particular, for the Iraqi people, they’ve now seen four or five different governments since the fall of Saddam Hussein. You’ve had [Lieutenant-General] Jay Gardner’s ORHA [Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance], Paul Bremer’s CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority], Ayad Allawi’s interim government, now Ibrahim Jaafari’s transitional government—this will now be the fifth, but if you count the Iraqi governing council, that could be a fifth and so this one would be a sixth. Their feeling is that they’ve been disappointed by every one of these governments. Every time they’ve had a new government, every time they thought that the new government would deliver on those things I just mentioned—the things that are most important to them: security, clean water, running electricity, jobs, gasoline, those kinds of things—every government has singularly failed to do so. What’s happening is you’re getting larger and larger numbers of Iraqis who are basically saying to themselves, “The central government’s never going to do it for us and so we now need to look to others to do it.” As a result, you’re seeing the growth of militias all across Iraq. Not just in the Sunni triangle, but in the south and in the center where the Shiite and the urban Sunnis live, people are increasingly becoming uncomfortable that the central government can do anything for them and looking to these local militia leaders, sheiks, clerics, etc. to try and do it for them. And that fragmentation is very dangerous. What’s the role of Iran in the south, now? Many Sunnis have been accusing Iran of trying to take over the south. Iran is very active in the south, and in the center for that matter. The problem with Iran, as always, is that their involvement is very complicated. The Iranians do have a lot of friends among various Shiite groups and there’s no question that the Iranians are funneling huge amounts of money and supplies and weaponry and other things to different groups to try and help their friends inside of Iraq. By the same token, what we’ve seen the Iranians doing, by and large, is telling their various friends to participate in the political process and to basically help the process of reconstruction that the United States is leading. From the Iranian perspective, that would be the best plausible scenario for the future of Iraq. And in fact, the Iranians are terrified of civil war and they’ve been very, very good about telling their allies inside of Iraq not to go after the Sunnis and not to go after each other because they are so frightened of civil war. So there’s a very, very mixed role for the Iranians inside of Iraq. On the one hand, they are supporting their own people and there are rumors that they’ve been helping particular Iraqi groups go after certain Sunni leaders, participating in some assassinations. On the other hand, they’ve mostly dampened the move toward civil war and that’s been very helpful to us.Let me touch on a couple of other things: This week is supposed to be the start of the trial of Saddam Hussein. How will that play? You’ve got all these swirling different issues all through Iraq, like growing chaos in parts and growing stability in others, and you kind of dump in a major event like Saddam Hussein’s trial and you just have no idea what will happen. I tend to suspect that a lot of how Saddam’s trial is perceived by the Iraqi people is going to be determined in the context of the referendum. In other words, we still don’t yet know what Iraqis think of the referendum. We know how they voted, but we don’t know how it’s going to be perceived by different Iraqi communities. Are the Shiites going to see this as the beginning of a new shot at reconciliation with the Sunnis or their chance now to impose the rules that they always wanted on the country? Are the Sunnis going to look at this as a major defeat because they couldn’t get a constitution they didn’t like turned down, or will it indicate to them that there really is a way to deal with their grievances through the political process? So we’re still waiting to see how the Iraqis react to the referendum. There are also, obviously, possibilities for real security problems to crop up here and there and I suspect that reaction to Saddam’s trial is going to be very much determined by these other things. If Iraqis are unhappy, afraid, fearful, then Saddam’s trial could be very volatile. It could arouse the Sunnis to greater resistance and anger, it could arouse certain Shiite groups to push back on the Sunnis, and maybe it will remind them of their grievances and lead them to seek out personal vengeance. On the other hand, if people have a positive sense about where things are going, they could look at the Saddam trial in a very different light if there is a triumph of the rule of law and the idea that this is the way people ought to be solving their problems.Are they going to televise this trial? That seems to be the direction they’re headed in, but I think it’s entirely possible you could have a last-minute decision about this. If there’s some major security problem, a major attack or massacre of some kind, and the authorities feel like televising Saddam’s trial is going to further inflame already frayed nerves, they might suddenly decide it’s better not to.So summing up—I’m coming back to the referendum—is there any light at the end of the tunnel as a result of the referendum or is that just really a figment of American imagination? I don’t think we should see the referendum as being the beginning of the end, at least not in the positive sense of bringing us a giant step closer toward stability and democracy in Iraq. I tend to see it more as dodging a bullet. This is an event that could have gone very badly; it didn’t and that’s important. It leaves open the opportunity to deal with all these other problems, which is very important to us. But again, I don’t see the referendum as being the solution to any of these other problems and for me that’s the key.

This publication is now archived. Who are Iraq’s Sunnis?The divisions among Sunnis that surfaced in the run-up to the October 15 referendum highlight both the fractiousness of the Sunni leadership and the various ethnic, political, and geographic divisions within the Sunni community. Sunnis, who comprise around 20 percent of Iraq’s population, are far from a monolithic group. The majority of them are ethnic Arabs, but there are also Sunni Turkmen, Kurds, and other minorities thrown into the mix. They share different political goals as well: some secular, highly nationalistic ex-Baathists, who favor restoring a strong, centralized state. These include members of the insurgency and those sympathetic to the insurgents’ goals, if not their violent methods. Others are more religious, parochial, and motivated by tribal interests. Not all Sunni Arabs support the Sunni-led insurgency, but nearly all agree Iraq should remain a unified state. Where are they located?Most Sunni Arabs reside in central Iraq, including the so-called Sunni Triangle, an area that stretches northwest of Baghdad and encompasses insurgent strongholds like Tikrit (Saddam’s hometown), Ramadi, Samarra, and Fallujah. At least half of Iraq’s Sunni community live in cities, such as Baghdad or Mosul, and form the backbone of Iraq’s educated middle class, working as lawyers, doctors, and bureaucrats. It is not uncommon for these Sunnis to intermarry with ethnic Shiites. Urbanized Sunnis are also secular, in large part because Saddam’s Baath Party emphasized a socialist, non-religious Iraqi state. Many of these Sunnis say the constitution offers too much authority to sharia, or Islamic law, which is favored by Iraq’s highly influential Shiite clerics. Recent polls by Zogby International indicate that roughly three-quarters of Iraq’s Sunnis favor a secular state. Sunnis who reside in the countryside are less educated but more diverse, motivated more by family, clan, or regional interests. “Tribal politics is the overwhelming interest,” says Judith Yaphe, senior fellow at the National Defense University. Sunnis living near the Syrian border are believed to be helping the Sunni insurgents and foreign jihadis holed up in the region. For instance, in Tal Afar, which is 70 percent Sunni Turkmen, the local Sunni population was suspected of aiding the Sunni Arab guerillas in the region prior to a recent sweep of the city by U.S. and Iraqi forces. What are the Sunnis’ main political affiliations?During the Ottoman and British rule of Iraq, Sunnis were the dominant political entity. The same was true after Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party took power in a military coup in 1968. These days, with Saddam behind bars, experts say the Sunni leadership is much more fractured and incoherent, and increasingly turning off Sunni voters. Sunnis were instructed to boycott the parliamentary elections, which only hurt their political influence. Some Sunni leaders are looking ahead to December’s parliamentary elections to re-stake their claim in Iraqi politics. Iraq’s Sunni leadership comprises a number of parties, coalitions, and other political associations. Among them are:Iraqi Islamic Party. Loosely associated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Iraqi Islamic Party was the sole Sunni group that briefly participated in the interim parliamentary elections in January. More recently, the party has indicated it will urge its members to vote “yes” on the referendum after last-minute concessions on reforming the constitution were made by Kurdish and Shiite leaders. Muslim Clerics Association. Formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, this hard-line, influential group of Islamic clerics is composed of both Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds. The association, which is neither pro-insurgency nor pro-United States, has good relations with Shiite clerical leaders, including Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Its clerical leadership says the constitution may split up Iraq and weaken the country’s Arab identity. The group’s influence is the strongest in the western parts of the Anbar province west of Baghdad, one of Iraq’s two governorates expected to vote down the constitution. Iraqi Council of National Dialogue. A powerful bloc of Sunni parties, the Iraqi Council of National Dialogue boycotted January’s parliamentary elections. The coalition is split on whether to boycott the referendum or vote “no.” The group has said the constitution gives too much power and oil revenues to the majority Shiites and Kurds. Conference of the People of Iraq. Formerly called the General Conference for Sunnis in Iraq, this coalition of political parties also opposes the constitution. Led by Adnan Dulaimi, a powerful Sunni leader who has criticized the constitution’s language on federalism, the Conference of the People of Iraq has strongly criticized anti-Shiite terrorist attacks in Iraq and called for more national reconciliation.