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The legacy of the occupation: what’s being
handed over on 30 June?
Tony Blair's message to the Iraqi people, 8 April 2003 What happened: Coalition military leaders now
recognise that a substantial sector of the Iraqi population has been
engaged in preparing and fighting an insurgency against the Coalition
from the very start of the occupation. At first, many thought that stability
could be achieved simply by taking out the leaders of anti-Coalition
paramilitary groups. The Coalition leaders talked about and planned
"mopping up operations". From September 2003, Coalition leaders begin to think
of the on-going violence as a broadly-based insurgency. The first idea
was to borrow a model of counter-insurgency from the British campaign
in Malaya. They later abandoned this when they realised that this model
would take years to pacify the Iraqi insurgents. Instead, a new, more
vigorous attempt to defeat the insurgency was put in place in November,
at Washington's insistence, aiming to bring it to a complete halt within
a year, in time for the US Presidential elections. What comes next: Security remains the key problem for the Coalition, as the bombings on Thursday - which killed 100 people - showed. Some of the insurgents remain popular: Muqtada al-Sadr, who declared open conflict on the Coalition in April, was found to be the single most popular Iraqi politician in a recent poll, with 68% of the population voicing some or full support for him. As Sadr is refusing to participate in the Coalition-sponsored process after 30 June, the potential for heightened disorder remains real.
What we promised: "For the first time
in decades, Iraqis will soon choose their own representative government." Joint statement of Tony Blair and George Bush, 8 April
2003 What happened: Plans for national elections
in Iraq were sidelined very soon after the occupation commenced. Since
then, plans for a first democratic step have vacillated between drawing
up a constitution, holding local caucuses, and creating an Iraqi loya
jirga. None of these proposals have yet been put into practice. The
result is that few Iraqis understand the plans - even senior Coalition
military officers admit they didn't understand the caucus idea - and
fewer still believe that the Coalition will hold to them. The current plan, in the interim constitution, is to
hold a grand conference of selected Iraqis soon, but to give it no decision-making
role; and to follow this through with national elections in January
2005. A senior UK diplomat recently referred to these elections as "being
stuck together with string and sellotape", due to the lack of adequate
preparations. The first full elections are scheduled for December 2005
– almost 3 years after the occupation began. There have been some
local democracy initiatives, but these have been launched in largely
ad hoc ways, on the initiative of Coalition officials in hospitable
towns. The Research Triangle Institute, which the US contracted to manage
the democratisation programme, has not been able to undertake any activities
in four of Iraq's crucial governorates, due to the strength of local
opposition to them. What comes next: International officials involved with the political process within Iraq now acknowledge that plans for installing democratic government have fallen off their agendas. It will be left to the interim government - made up largely of people who have not been associated with democratic movements in the past - to decide how strictly they hold to the timetable for elections in 2005 set by the Coalition.
What we promised: "We will help you
build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights
of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave." George Bush's message to the Iraqi people, 10 April
2003 What happened: The only official organised military
force in Iraq is that of the Coalition. The Iraqi army was disbanded
in May 2003. This put 400,000 young men out of work, and meant that
there was no Iraqi force that could be used against insurgents. There
are also around 30 significant Iraqi militias inside the country, such
as the Kurdish peshmerga in the north and Sadr's Mahdi's army in the
south and east. The Coalition set about creating a new Iraqi army.
However, at the insistence of Walter Slocombe, the US official who undertook
that disbandment of the old army, the new Iraqi army is not allowed
by law to act to preserve internal security. Anti-insurgency work was
left to the Coalition, resulting in politically unacceptable costs in
terms of US casualties. The Coalition eventually created a new Iraqi
outfit, the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps, which could be used against insurgents.
Due to the shortage of recruits, they drew heavily upon the militias
of supportive political parties. Coalition leaders accept that the old
chains of command from the militias have been imported into the ICDC.
This meant that when the Coalition tried to use the ICDC against insurgents
in Falluja in April, the political parties from which ICDC members came
were able to order their followers not to participate. Militias still have a major role outside of the ICDC,
but there have been some attempts to bring their curtailment at the
very end of the occupation. What comes next: even those Iraqi political parties allied with the US have jealously guarded their abilities to maintain unofficial armed militias, and prevent them from being incorporated fully into a national army. As part of the new government, they will be better placed to maintain these forces, and so attempts to disband the irregular militias are unlikely to be successful.
What we promised: "Iraq, unlike Afghanistan,
is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong
to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has
to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction." White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, 18 February
2003 What happened: Huge US budgetary allocations
have been necessary to keep the finance the Iraq occupation: the entire
US expenditure in Iraq, for both troops and development, has been estimated
at well over $100 billion. This level of expenditure has been necessary
partly because the revenue from Iraq's oil sales has been smaller than
expected. Paramilitary acts against pipelines have periodically shut
Iraq’s capacity to export its crude oil, with the 16,000 troops
protecting Iraq's oil infrastructure proving relatively ineffective.
Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves in the world, has become
an importer of oil in order for its own population to have enough fuel
for their cars. Furthermore, the management of oil revenues have been
criticised by UN-mandated auditors, KPMG, for lack of transparency:
it has become highly unclear what the oil revenues that have been generated
are being used for, and if corruption exists on any substantial scale.
What comes next: As long as the insurgents continue
to target the oil facilities, Iraq will not be able to pay for its development
without international aid. The lack of transparency also will harm prospects
for much needed international investment in Iraq's oil sector.
What we promised: "we expect to produce
enough electricity for all Iraqis to have electrical service 24 hours
daily—something essential to their hopes for the future." Paul Bremer, US Administrator in Iraq, 9 October 2003
What we promised: "Today [Iraq] is
impoverished, 60% of its population dependent on Food Aid. Thousands
of children die needlessly every year from lack of food and medicine." Tony Blair, to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003 What happened: Food security remains precarious
in Iraq, with the level of dependence on the food ration undiminished.
In 2003, the Coalition floated the idea of "monetising" the
food ration – providing a monthly stipend to families rather than
a food basket. The proposal was abandoned when policymakers realised
how there was little infrastructure for distributing food through any
route other than through the rationing system. $7m worth of food is
still being lost every month through theft, and the Coalition has taken
to importing grain on a large scale through Jordan. What comes next: the new Iraqi government will have to engage with the problem of ration dependency, an issue the Coalition has avoided due to the political problems it would cause. The experience of many other countries indicates that social disorder may be one possible result.
What we promised: "We have got teams
of people however who are being tasked with interviewing the scientists
and experts who worked on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programme
... over the coming weeks and months we will assemble this evidence
and then we will give it to people. And I have no doubt whatever that the evidence
of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there." Tony Blair, 31 May 2003 What happened: Neither weapons of mass destruction - the stated reason for the war - nor programmes for their production have been found by the inspectors introduced by the US. The Coalition has found it harder to justify its presence in Iraq, either to the world or to the Iraqi people, as a result. |
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Author: Glen Rangwala Back to the Index of Writings |
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