Basic services in Iraq: a proposal

I’m crashing on the deadline to write my increasingly lengthy Hizbullah piece for Boston Review. (Celebrated ‘New Years Eve’ at c. 11 p.m. last night. Go figure.)
So today, I was writing about Hizbullah’s impressive work in the provision of basic public services. Since the party was actually born in mid-1980s in the turmoil of a blisteringly destructive war situation, I immediately thought: Hey, why didn’t the Bush administration turn to these experienced pros to do the reconstruction/rebuilding job in Najaf, Sadr City, etc, instead of the US Army and Halliburton??
Okay, silly question, I know. But still, the contrast between H’s record in Lebanon and that of the US reconstruction effort in Iraq is certainly informative.
Here’s a fragment from what I’ve been writing:

    AUB professor Judith Palmer Harik has studied the party [Hizbullah] for many years now. She notes that in the chaotic, civil-war-ridden circumstances in which Hizbullah was born, its ability to provide basic social services in an effective manner– and to provide them to all the residents in its areas of operation, not just to its followers– won it considerable loyalty and respect. She writes that after Hizbullah took over effective control of the south-Beirut Dahiyeh [suburbs] in 1988, it almost immediately started providing a reliable trash-removal service there, and that it was a further five years before the corruption-plagued central government sent any garbage trucks into the Dahiyah at all. Moreover, writing in 2003, she noted that though the government’s trash-removal efforts there still continued on a notably spotty basis, “Hezbollah still trucks out some 300 tons of garbage a day from the dahiyeh and treats it with insecticides to supplement the government’s service.”

    A similar situation existed regarding safe drinking water:

      During General Aoun’s administration (1988-1990), water and electricity services in the dahiyeh were almost completely cut off due to fighting? Several wells dug by UNICEF in the area reportedly failed. With help from the Iranian government RC [the Hizbullah-affiliated “Reconstruction Campaign”, or Jihad al-binaa] resolved this emergency by building 4,000-litre water reservoirs in each district? and filling each of them five times a day from continuously circulating tanker trucks. Generators mounted on trucks also made regular rounds from building to building to provide electricity to pump water from private cisterns? [In August 2001] Hezbollah still provides the major source of drinking water for dahiyeh residents.

    Right across the gamut of human services–whether in the provision of schools, hospitals, public health services, rural development services, revolving loan funds to support small businesses, income support projects for the poor, or low-income housing– the story she tells has been the same: at a time when the Lebanese government was unable or unwilling to provide these services, Hizbullah and its affiliated organizations stepped in to do so; and even where the government did step into the field at a later date, the relevant ministries still relied on the fact that Hizbullah’s organizations continued to actively pick up the slack.
    Harik provides some interesting glimpses into some of these activities, and presents as illustrative a report produced for the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for West Asia in 1999, that looked at the work of a sizeable rural development project run by the RC. She picked out a part of the ESCWA report that identified operational features of the RC project that, she felt, “dramatically collide with stereotypes of fundamentalist organizations as backward and perceptions of their leaders as ignorant fanatics.” These features included:

      Looking at the leadership from technical, human and conceptual skills of the supervisors, the organization seems to be remarkably organized. Their knowledge and ability is based on experience and educational achievement and they are quite aware of management techniques and processes. Their ability to build teamwork is obvious. They are the moral and technical reference of the group.
      Although the number of employees is large (about 100), chains of command are short and communications in both direction strong… Written communication is strong and practised by all staff at all levels… Departments report progress on a weekly basis to the director-general who uses them to set meeting agendas; a four-day retreat which all employees attend is held annually in December…
      A well-known private consulting and engineering company… has been contracted to undertake on-the-job training for technical staff… Linkages with bilateral donors have resulted in training programmes financed by them. All staff is encouraged to attend and participate in all events, workshops, seminars, etc. organized in lebanon by the various NGOs, syndicates, and universities.

    It has recently become very hard to gain direct access to nearly all of Hizbullah’s information resources on the internet. One URL that does still work at time of writing is that for the Hizbullah-affiliated Islamic Health Society, which describes its goal as being, “to bring the Lebanese community to health and social levels conducive to individuals’ happiness and luxury in Lebanon according to the principles of Islam.” The website reports that, acting in coordination with UNICEF and the national Ministries of Health and Education, the IHS was able during the 2001-2002 school year to provide health screenings to nearly 17,000 pupils in government schools and perform nearly 100,000 childhood inoculations in its three areas of operation: the Bekaa, Beirut, and south Lebanon. The site also reports on the provision of basic health services to 59 villages in the “liberated zone” of South Lebanon, and various other activites.
    Harik writes–and the people I talked with Lebanon all confirmed– that Hizbullah’s social-service affiliates and schools provide all their services on a low-cost basis to those Lebanese who need them, whether Muslim or Christian, and that subsidies are available for very low-income users. Many Christian parents send their children to Hizbullah-run schools, especially in the south where many of these schools are often judged to provide the best education available. The budgets for the schools and all the other service-provision organizations are met from a combination of sources: user fees, government subsidies (where available), donations from Iran, support from international development bodies, and allocations from the khums, the one-fifth share of one’s income that a Shiite believer is obligated to pay to Islamic charitable organizations. One researcher told me that Hizbollah-related organizations now control the significant income stream constituted by khums donations made by the numerous Lebanese Shiite emigr

27 thoughts on “Basic services in Iraq: a proposal”

  1. Hi
    This is outrages thoughts, why you ignored the Iraqi people and what they did after Gulf War, do you know after Gulf War 1991 the Iraqi managed to restored the power back after 4 months and the telecommunications restored back after 8 months, this done and the inhuman sanction imposed on Iraq, this was caught by surprise of the western companies originally commissioned these projects while ago, and they so impressed what Iraqi engineers done with a very default time.
    In addition to these two example there were a lot of work done to established and restored the roads and highways and the most important the 126 bridges destroyed during the ware, I believe you don’t know and you underestimated the Iraqi people ability and what they done and the experience they gained to build there destroyed country after Gulf War 1991.
    Now you are giving advice to use Hizbullah to build Iraq. leave Iraq to the Iraqis they knew how to bring it back the only thing they need is help them to do the job with your standard not Hizbullah stand red.

  2. Friend Salah– greetings! You are quite right to note that in 1991 the Iraqi people themselves were able to restore basic services throughout the country in an impressive and effective manner. (The regime also killed a lot of Shiites and Kurds in that time, after the uprisings frivolously provoked by Prez Bush I, and then totally betrayed by him.) Still, your point that the Iraqis themselves can do this is quite valid.
    My “suggestion” that the US draw on the expertise of Hizbullah was not made seriously, i assure you. Mainly I was trying to draw the contrast between the relative effectiveness of Hizbullah’s efforts and the total ineffectiveness of the US efforts.
    What I’m writing about in the article I refer to there is Lebanon, not Iraq. Were I to be writing about the ‘post-war reconstruction’ topic in an Iraqi context, I would certainly bring in the 1991 experiences.
    Come on back to JWN when you can. And be assured: that suggestion was not made seriously. I know quite well that the US is not about to do anything to deal with Hizbullah.
    Personally,I think that’s a pity. I think talking is always better than fighting. But it isn’t about to happen soon.

  3. Dear Helena
    ” (The regime also killed a lot of Shiites and Kurds in that time, after the uprisings frivolously provoked by Prez Bush I, and then totally betrayed by him.”
    Could you and the others stop repeating this again and aging SADDAM GONE for ever and lets live the reality in Iraq, there are 100,000 thousands killed and more than that were injured till now, US also killed the Shiites in Najaf

  4. “SADDAM GONE for ever and lets live the reality in Iraq”
    Saddam is gone forever except for the Bush administration propagandists who keep recycling the myth that the “insurgents” (sic) are “Saddam loyalists” who are working to bring him back.
    So – ummmmm – how are they going to bring him back? Will they break him out of whatever prison the Americans have him in? Maybe they will cook him a Kubbat Mosul with a file inside and give it to the Americans, who will take it to him for his dinner?
    Of course I am joking, Salah. I hope you will make more comments here. I agree with what you have said.

  5. Let’s keep things in perspective. They say Mussolini made the trains run on time. Actually, this is probably just a legend.

    But the point is clear, garbage collection is not what we are worried about when we complain about Hezbollah. No matter how well-organized or mature and temperate the Hezbollah leaders are, they are still a military (terrorist) organization that is an active enemy. And obviously, a mature, popular and well-organized enemy leader might be more of a long-term threat than a horrific nutbag.

    There is the prospect that Hezbollah may get nuclear weapons or dirty bombs from Iran sometime in the next decade. A culture of suicide bombers together with nuclear materials frightens a lot of peopls and could easily result in widespread violence.

  6. they are still a military (terrorist) organization that is an active enemy.
    An active enemy of whom, Warren? Please show us your evidence for this statement. I hope, meanwhile, that you’ve already read this recent JWN post, where I cited– and linked to– some really interesting work by the Jaffee Center’s Daniel Sobelman, in which he remarks on the great discipline and restraint the Hizbullah units in south Lebanon have shown since the IDF’s (near-)total withdrawal in 2000, and the surprising stability of the Israeli-Lebanese sector as a result.
    So an “enemy” of Israel? Yes, in the sense that there has been no peace agreement between the two sides. But there is a remarkably stable situation of mutual deterrence between the two sides there– one that permits, indeed cries out for, longterm peacemaking.
    And are the Hizbullah forces still “actively” hostile– to either the US or Israel– anywhere outside the tiny and unpopulated Shebaa Farms area? I’d like to see the evidence.
    As for your fearmongering re “nuclear bombs or dirty bombs”, I think we all know that there is one recognized nuclear power in the Middle East today, and it happens to be the power that’s “deterring” Hizbullah there along Lebanon’s southern border. So why not get a grip, and start thinking about longterm peacemaking options rather than stoking fears and hatreds that only end up fueling war fever and engulfing whole societies in the turmoil of war?
    On your other point– the Mussolini argument– of course I know that many dictatorships pride themselves on being able to provide services. Hizbullah, however– as you’d know if you’d read that earlier post– has participated in good faith in Lebanon’s electoral system since 1992. It has 12 seats in the country’s parliament and won (and re-won) democratic elections for around 140 municipalities. So it is a much more complex, accountable, and politically legitimate organization than you might realize.

  7. Warren, I know quite a few Israelis who were stationed in Lebanon during Israel’s occupation. Most of them would not agree even then with your characterization of Hizbollah as a terrorist organization. They would insist that Hizbollah was legitimately resisting a foreign occupation. They would call it a legitimate resistance organization.

  8. Appoint Hizbullah to provide basic services? Whether on the West Bank or Iraq, I’d say accept contract bids from any firm or NGO, provided:
    1) They file audited financial statements,
    2) Obtain performance bond assurance from a creditworthy (BBB or better) bank,
    3) Provide evidence of policies to combat money laundering or terrorist financing in compliance with the OECD Financial Action Task Force.
    4) Submit regular accounts of contract performance,
    5) Execute contracts on terms comparable to those utilized by the World Bank.
    I suspect Hibullah might not comply with these usual and customary terms for large contracts.
    No deals on a wink and a nod or a “we don’t need no stinkin’ audits” basis. Even the maligned Halliburton is subject to supervision, has a creidt rating, and even pays fines. By the way, the firm’s KBR unit is losing money (see Moody’s announcement 3-Jan-05).
    To alleviate Iraqi unemployment and utilize local skills, any contractor (whether Iraqi or foreign) would be required to offer jobs or subcontracts first to qualified Iraqi applicants, subject to similar terms and conditions, based on job experience and certified skills, without preference to sect, creed, tribe, gender, ethnicity, or pre-2003 political affiliations. The only strict impediments would be prior criminal convictions: felonies, larceny, criminal frauds.

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