Category: Iraq 2003 thru June 2005

This is the best news I could imagine from Iraq. It’s a Reuters report from Michael Georgy in Najaf, saying that Ayatollah Sistani had already reached Basra from Kuwait in a ground convoy… And Sistani’s asking all Iraqis to join him in a march to Najaf.
It will be so interesting to see (a) how many thousands of Iraqis do this, (b) whether the march will be nonviolent, and (c) how they arrange the logistics of getting into the city through the US lines.
I have seen signs before that Sistani has some interest in the power of nonviolent mass organizing. This project he is launching now could (though we don’t know yet) be a major project in this genre.
Here’s what Georgy writes:

“We ask all believers to volunteer to go with us to Najaf,” Sistani said in a statement read out on his behalf in Basra by his aide Hayder al-Safi. “I have come for the sake of Najaf and I will stay in Najaf until the crisis ends.”
Sistani’s aides said he would leave for Najaf at 7 a.m. (4 a.m. British time) on Thursday with his supporters. They urged the militia to leave the mosque and U.S. forces not to interfere…

As for the Sadrists:

Continue reading “Can Sistani save the situation?”

Tragic folly. Tragic folly.
Why do the US tanks prowling round Najaf look so like the Israeli tanks prowling round Ramallah? Why do US tanks in Sadr City look like Israeli tanks in Gaza?
(Maybe because they are all embodiments of the same, extremely bullying mindset?)
But why, oh why, does anyone in the US chain of command think that such a naked use of crushing military force could even possibly be a way to build a lasting peace in Iraq?
Indeed, is any actual strategic “thinking” going on, on the American side, at all? Or is it simply that people up and down the chain of command are all just driven by the same childish desire to “put a major hurt” on Sadr’s supporters that was expressed by Marine Maj. Holahan on Tuesday?
That is a distinct possibility. It is also a very scary thought.

Yesterday evening I started to tease apart some of the political stuff that’s been happening in Iraq, over the now-linked issues of Moqtada’s stand-off in Najaf and the National Conference going ahead in Baghdad. Overnight, I started wondering about the decisionmaking on the US-forces side.
Who on the US side had made the decision to start and then maintain the confrontation against Moqtada? I wondered. The answers that are now starting to become available make depressing reading, and portray a command system for the US forces in Iraq that looks seriously broken.
These answers–which are still not totally complete–come in an informative piece in the NYT by Alex Berenson and John F. Burns. Datelined from Najaf, and citing officers in the local commands of the Marines and US Army right there in the city, the two men write:

Acting without the approval of the Pentagon or senior Iraqi officials, the Marine officers said in recent interviews, they turned a firefight with Mr. Sadr’s forces on Thursday, Aug. 5, into a eight-day pitched battle…

They continue by noting that:

Fighting here continues, and what the Marines had hoped would be a quick, decisive action has bogged down into a grinding battle that appears to have strengthened the hand of Mr. Sadr, whose stature rises each time he survives a confrontation with the American military. It may have weakened the credibility of the interim Iraqi government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, showing him, many Iraqis say, to be alternately rash and indecisive, as well as ultimately beholden to American overrule on crucial military and political matters.

Actually, I would describe the negative political consequences of that unbelievably rash decision by the local Marines commanders in much stronger terms than Berenson and Burns do.
Compared with the situation back on August 1, before the present round of escalation in Najaf, I think (for the reasons I indicated yesterday, and earlier) it is indubitably the case that Moqtada has become politically stronger inside Iraq, and Allawi weaker.
In addition, the all-important plan to rebuild a viable Iraqi security force has been set back considerably once again. And once again, as in the April round of escalations, the decomposing of a large chunk of the Iraqi security force has been caused by the US Marines going all gung-ho into a quite unnecessary local military confrontation and then–since they require a local Iraqi-force “cover–forcing the still-fragile Iraqi forces to join them and thus forcing the Iraqi forces into an unnecessary and politically challenging battle long before they are militarily or politically ready for any such test.
Is it any wonder that the fledgling Iraqi forces fell apart once again, when faced with such a test? Do the Marines have no learning curve at all, I wonder?
In both cases–April, Fallujah, and August, Najaf–these confrontations came almost immediately after the Marines, deploying to replace US Army units, decided unilaterally to change the “rules of engagement” under which the Army had operated, which in both cases had previously kept the Army units out of the known geographic areas where their presence would be seen as immediately provocative.
So here’s my second question: Why on earth would decisions like changing the existing rules of engagement be left to the local officers, rather than requiring authorization from higher up the chain of command?
The concept of “fire control” is a crucial one in the conduct of any military operations. At the small-unit level, it has to do with using resources efficiantly in order to achieve the objectives. At a larger-unit level it becomes more strategic and political, as well.
Did those escalatory, gung-ho decisions made by the local Marines officers serve or dis-serve the broad strategic objectives of the US in Iraq?

Continue reading “Najaf: US command chain broken”

The delegation from Baghdad did not get to meet Moqtada Sadr Tuesday. (I
wonder if that had anything to do with the possibility that the delegates
flew into Najaf on a US Blackhawk chopper, as Jazeera reported?) But
the news is that the delegation will try again Wednesday or Thursday …
Even more importantly, we should all be looking at the many signs there are
that a lively political process is currently underway inside Iraq today
. That, despite all the moves the US forces are constantly making
to try to escalate the military/insecurity situation.

It’s still hard to say how this political process will turn out. Contrary
to what some pro-Allawist people have continued to try to say, Moqtada is
nowhere near being “run out of town on a rail” (in the infelicitous phrasing
of US journo Chris Allbritton.)
Indeed, Moqtada has been doing really well, politically, over the
past ten days. Not least, he has forced the whole 1,300-member
Iraqi “National Conference” to focus almost totally on his issue, rather
than on the planned agenda of signing smoothly off on the election-prep plans
previously cooked up by Allawi and his cronies.

To try to get a reading on the political situation inside the
country, I’ve been doing a little search in “all the usual sources”–mostly in English,
but also Al-Hayat in Arabic. I found some very interesting items,
which I’ll just quickly list here.

Continue reading “Politics in Iraq”

I want to go back briefly
to the
judgment
Juan Cole made Monday when he compared the coverage of the NatConf in
that day’s NYT and WaPo. Unlike me, he strongly preferred John Burns’s
coverage in the NYT, noting that portrayed the NatConf mainly as, “a mess,
disrupted by repeated mortar fire and by angry delegates who stormed the
stage to denounce the Allawi government and demand it cease military operations
in Najaf.” Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s
coverage
in the WaPo Cole described, by contrast, as:

an almost panglossian story of the triumph of democracy– noisy,
disruptive, but still triumphant. He reports that the delegates said they
had secured from Allawi a promise to suspend military action until further
negotiations could take place, and he seems even to believe that Allawi
gave such an undertaking and would abide by it!

Well, I read both stories carefully. What distinguished Chandra’s
for me was the wealth of useful and illustrative detail in it. You got
the sense not only that he’d been in the convention hall, but also that he’d
talked with delegates and generally understood what was going on. There were quotes from participants; there was the explanation of the voting system being deliberated on; etc etc. Burns
gave none of that. So I stand by my earlier judgment.
And it
rapidly became clear during the day Monday (as I noted
here
) (a) that most Iraqi forces had indeed stopped participating in the US
assault on Fallujah, and (b) that the delegates whad indeed won a commitment
from Allawi to allow some form of tnegotiation with Sadr to proceed.

So no, Chandra’s story was not a “panglossian story of the triumph
of democracy”. But it was fairly well-informed description of the
messy process of real politics that was starting to play out on the
conference floor. As I’ve noted before, not perfect, or perfectly
democratic politics. But real politics; and a process far, far preferable
to Allawi’s earlier pursuit of a “take no hostages” assault against Moqtada.

And, while I’m in a refuting kind of a mood, I’ll just spend a moment on
Chris Allbritton, a young US journo who once went to Iraq as a free-floating
blog-espondent but has now ended up working for Time magazine as well…

Continue reading “Iraq: notes on (journalistic) sources”

Friends, Faiza of A Family in Baghdad has a wonderful post up today, describing events in her life between August 11 and August 14–in English.
(She’s had it up in Arabic since 8/14; and I struggled to read it, realizing it’s extremely interesting and informative. Big thanks to “May” who does the translations for her!)
One of the things Faiza (and May) give us is a close-up description of one of the preparatory gatherings that were held before the big nationwide election-prep conference that started Sunday. It indicates that the level of democratic practice used in the whole election-preparation-preparation process has been very low. And therefore, the general political legitimacy–among Iraqis, who are, after all, the people whose views are central to this–of the whole process risks being correspondingly low.
This is what Faiza tells us she did last Wednesday:

I took the day off today, and went in the morning to the Professional’s Union Conference, with my Doctor friend, whom I was acquainted with during the Business women Society. She is an active, educated member; I like her personality, and respect her experience. The Conference was held in Al-Elwiya Club Hall, and on our way we passed the most dangerous area, the Conference Palace, where you can see a fortress of fortifications, the American Army, and the new Iraqi Army Volunteering Centers, where we always hear about trapped cars exploding beside them…
We entered the Hall, there weren’t many people present. The subject of the gathering was a dialogue, and an attempt to contribute in the Democratic Process in Iraq. A National Conference will be held soon, and the Unions think they were given a small percentage of representation in it, and this gathering is an attempt to raise voices to the coordinating authority of that Conference. Our gathering will be attended by the State Minster of Civilian Organizations. Every Union chairman talked about his Union, its history, and the importance of its role in society, the Doctor’s Union, the Dentist’s Union, the Pharmaceutics’ Union, the Engineer’s Union, the Agricultural Engineers, the Geological Engineers, Teachers, writers, and the Assisting Paramedics Unions…
They demanded to be given seats by new percentages in the on coming Conference, in accordance with the volume of these Unions in society.
The Teachers Union represents (500,000) members, the Engineer’s Union (120,000), the Doctor’s Union (27,000), the Dentist’s (7,000), , the Agricultural Engineers (36,000)… The Teachers Union was established in 1935, , the Engineer’s Union in 1938. [HC note: this might appear to give them more legitimacy among their members than the present interim ‘government’?]
Then the Minister spoke, said he had listened to the view points, and will take them in consideration , that he is willing in his Ministry to receive any comments or complaints from any Organization working in Iraq. Then he gathered up his papers and left the Hall.
A delegation of two people came, and the conference chairman announced that they were a delegation sent from the coordinating authority of the National Conference, to speak about its organization, and answer our questions.
One of the delegation members spoke, said that the Conference has chosen about 1000-1200 Iraqi people, and those will elect a temporary National Council of 100 people, 20 seats of them belonging to members of the former Governing Council, which means only 80 people will be elected. Next Saturday is the date for the conference–voices rose in the Hall, and objections, when everyone was surprised by this news–, discussions were opened, and members of different unions spoke about not making known the date of the Conference to the public, nor was it clearly announced in newspapers or on T.V., that it resembles a dish cooked in the kitchen without the knowledge of the people– and this is a non-possible shame in the time of democracy.
They distributed a news journal in the name of the Conference, bearing a broad, red inked headline: The United Nation’s Delegate says that this Conference will be the first step on the road to democracy in Iraq.
I took the journal, then raised my hand, asking permission to join in the discussion, the man responsible for organizing the session signaled his agreement, so I came forward, the journal folded in my hand, announced my name and career, then started talking about the journal’s headline. I said: If this headline was true, where is the Democracy? We heard today about the Conference and its date, and that is two or three days ahead, so, what is the point in our gathering today? What shall be the outcome of our discussion? If every thing was pre-arranged and prepared, then what are we doing now? The Iraqis lived long years in the dark, now has come the time for them to practice Democracy, and this practice needs the people to be educated, for long months and years, the Conference should be talked about, the Iraqi’s right to participate in it should be made clear, because the Iraqi does not know his rights. That process of explaining and clarifying should have taken place in meetings, in all areas, organizations, and unions, and the security conditions should not have been taken as an excuse to run away from this responsibility, this transparency… This is the first step??? Such a full-of-mistakes -first-step, the Iraqis will spend coming years trying to correct the mistakes that are happening now. Then I repeat my question, what are we doing here today??

Continue reading “Faiza’s view: read it!”

The inimitable Yankeedoodle today cites a great little bit of Knight-Ridder reporting from Iraq about the scale of desertions from the Iraqi front-line forces who were asked to join the US forces in storming downtown Najaf.
He was also kind enough to post a comment with the nub of that story onto my post here yesterday.
I went to that link, which was to a dateline-Sunday story by Hannah Allam, Tom Lasseter and Dogen Hannah from Baghdad. There were a couple of other great vignettes in there which give more texture to the picture of what’s happening at different levels of the “Iraqi” forces as they confront the possibility of having to strike against the Sadrists in Najaf.
First, this:

Sober-faced Iraqi colonels gathered inside the defense ministry command center, their cell phones ringing with continuous updates from the battlefield. American military advisers wandered in and out of the room, located at the end of a marble hallway in the massive, heavily guarded palace that serves as headquarters for U.S.-led forces and American civilian administrators.
“Aziz is trapped in the ancient fortress with two wounded men and two of his vehicles surrounded!” shouted one Iraqi officer.
The officers, most of them decorated veterans from the former regime, shook their heads at the thought of Iraqis battling Iraqis on sacred soil. Several said they would resign immediately if senior officers ordered them to serve in Najaf. They asked to withhold their names for fear of reprimand.
“I’m ready to fight for my country’s independence and for my country’s stability,” one lieutenant colonel said. “But I won’t fight my own people.”
“No way,” added another officer, who said his brother – a colonel – quit the same day he received orders to serve in the field. “These are my people. Why should I fight someone just because he has a difference in opinion about the future of the country?”

The story does also refer to, “an Iraqi military analyst inside the ministry [who] defended the assault, saying that crushing al-Sadr’s militia would finally bring stability to the volatile southern Shiite region and smooth the way to national elections.”
That guy apparently was not a serving military officer. (If he had been, presumably he’d have been referred to as such.) The KR report did not say how many people who were serving officers were in the group previously described. But the fact that they showed themselves so ready to express their opinions to, presumably, one of those three KR journalists, in a fairly public setting–and inside the defense ministry command center, no less–means that what we’re talking about inside Allawi’s new “army” is much, much more serious than just a few front-line units getting queasy.
… This certainly brings to mind what happened to the “new national army” that the US and its allies in Lebanon were trying to put together back during a certain portion of that country’s protracted civil war, in 1982-84…
In that army, too, a majority of the (conscripted) regular soldiers–and a fair number of their officers–were Shi-ites. And the Americans were trying to use their local allies and the recently re-formed national army to contain and beat back the newly emergent Shi-ite political power. (A politicial power that, there as in Iraq, had become hugely energized as the result of a humiliating recent foreign invasion and occupation…. In that instance, the original invasion was Israeli, but the occupation was sort of joint, Israeli-US… )
In this JWN post last November I referred back to the chapter of my 1985 book The Making of Modern Lebanon (pp.204-205) where I wrote about how, after the Lebanese army “loosed a heavy barrage of tank and artillery fire into heavily-peopled apartment buildings” in a mainly Shi-ite area of Beirut, the majority-Shi-ite units of the army simply defected en masse to the Shi-ite militia there…
Just three days after that happened, Reagan announced his decision to “redeploy offshore” all the US Marines who’d been in Beirut. In other words, withdraw.
Quite evidently, without the “cover” provided by a compliant “Lebanese” army, the US position was vastly over-exposed, and the Reaganites realized that. They had already, just the previous October, suffered the massive losses of the bombing of the Marines barracks there.
Can we expect a rapid and similar decision to withdraw to be taken now, with regard to Iraq? I think not, for a number of reasons…

Continue reading “More re “Iraqi” forces and Najaf”

There are many hotspots of confrontation in Iraq these days–let’s say, in practically every major city. But easily the most politically potent, right now, is the one in Najaf.
In today’s (Sunday’s) WaPo, there was a long story about how the still-rebuilding Iraqi forces were going to be taking the lead in fighting the Sadrist forces in Najaf. Then, on AP at 20:26 this evening, I read this:

U.S. tanks and troops rolled back into the center of Najaf and battled with Shiite militants Sunday, reigniting violence in the holy city just as delegates in Baghdad opened a conference meant to be a landmark in the country’s movement toward democracy.

Okay. First question: What happened to the supposed “Iraqi” forces? Did they refuse, at the small-unit level, to do the job the US had assigned to them? Or, did the orders for them not to undertake the mission come from higher up their chain of command?
Quite possibly, it was some fairly chaotic combination of the two things?
Or maybe Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s account in Monday’s WaPo of the “election-prep” conference in Baghdad gave the best explanation of what had happened in Najaf. (This seems like some really world-class reporting he has there, by the way.)
Chandra wrote that early in the conference:

dozens of Shiite delegates jumped to their feet in a loud protest of the interim government’s decision to mount military operations to evict followers of the cleric, Moqtada Sadr, from a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Najaf. Chanting “Yes to Najaf!” and raising their fists, the Shiite dissenters demanded that the participants call on the interim prime minister and Sadr’s followers to refrain from violence and for a special committee of delegates to negotiate a solution to the crisis.
The outburst triggered a succession of events that quickly reshaped government policy toward Najaf and instilled the first measure of checks-and-balances in Iraq’s nascent political system. The Shiite protesters, along with several non-Shiite participants, caucused and drafted a letter to interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his cabinet that called for a dialogue with Sadr and “an immediate cease-fire and cessation of all military activities in Najaf and other Iraqi cities.”
A four-person delegation from the conference then met with Allawi. When the meeting was over, the government announced that its plans to use force to expel Sadr from the Imam Ali shrine were on hold. In a reversal from its position a day earlier, Allawi’s cabinet issued a statement pledging to refrain from military action against Sadr’s militiamen and to keep an “open door” to a negotiated settlement.
“This is democracy in action,” said Ibrahim Nawar, a U.N. adviser who helped organize the conference. “For now, at least, they have succeeded in changing the government’s approach toward the situation in Najaf.”

Okay, so maybe it was Allawi, under pressure from the conference delegates, who changed the policy on the Iraqi forces intervening.
But then, what were the American forces doing going ahead to intervene on their own account??
This seems like a completely politically suicidal decision.
If indeed they did send US forces into Najaf without any “cover” from Allawist forces–then Moqtada Sadr indeed has the Americans exactly where he wants them… If US forces go ahead and storm the Najaf shrines complex, then even Iyad Allawi will find it hard to stay in any kind of a political relationship with them.
What the heck body part are the US commanders “thinking” with? Their elbows?
Anyway, here’s some more of Chandra’s great reporting from the conference:

Continue reading “Eyes on Najaf”

** Newsflash!** While I was writing the following, the first reports came in of the breakdown of the Sadr-Allawi peace talks. That doesn’t alter much of the following, and I’ve commented on some possible implications of the talks breakdown at the end of the post.
Following up on this post here Thursday, it now seems clear to me that in forcing the confrontation against the Mahdi Army in Najaf, the US-Allawi forces seriously overplayed their hand. And over the next few days we will see what consequences they have to take for that.
My evidence for this judgment is the continuation/acceleration of the same process of political erosion of Allawi’s support that I wrote about Thursday.
(A note to US strategic planners in Iraq–if indeed, there are any: “It’s about the politics, stupid!” Another note: “Ever read Clausewitz?”)
The prime evidence I saw Friday for Allawi’s political erosion was twofold:
Firstly, some fascinating AP photos on my AOL feed showing a massive, anti-Allawi pray-in that the Sadrists had organized at the gates of the Green Zone in Baghdad. They didn’t say how many thousands of Sadrist men had joined the action, but it looked like many thousands. To get there, they had had to walk, many of them, in from Sadr City (ever wonder why there’s no massive urban neighborhood in Iraq called Allawi City?), cross one of the bridges across the Tigris, and then get to the place where they prayed. Disciplined, in straight rows, they prayed, as Muslim men and boys learn to do at a young age.
I can’t put in a link to these photos from my AOL feed. I looked for them in today’s WaPo and NYT, but couldn’t find them. Why not? I guess the editors there don’t understand the importance of that story… They mentioned the pray-in only ways, ways down in a story dominated by the military confrontation… Maybe they should read Clausewitz, as well?
Secondly, news on Aljazeera.net, also on various western newswires, saying that Sayed Muhammad Bahr al-Uloum, the respected, Najaf-based Shi-ite cleric whom Bremer had put on the IGC, said that because of the US attack on Najaf, he has lost his trust in the Americans:

“The Americans have turned the holy city into a ghost town. They are now seen as full of hatred against Najaf and the Shia. Nothing I know of will change this,” the former president of the now defunct council said on Friday.
“I do not understand why America craves crisis. A peaceful solution to the confrontation with Muqtada could have been reached. We were hoping that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would lead the way, but he sided with oppression.”

Well, friends, I don’t understand why the people currently ruling the US crave crisis in Iraq, either. But that certainly seems to be the case.
Today, there has already been more news indicating the collapse of Allawi’s political-strategic position. AP reported that,

Thousands of demonstrators descended on Najaf to show their support Saturday for Shiite militants battling U.S. forces in the holy city as the provincial governor expressed optimism that the crisis would end within the next two days…
About 10,000 demonstrators, some in buses, others on foot, arrived in Najaf on Saturday to show their solidarity with the militants and act as human shields to protect the city.
Many of the demonstrators arrived from as far away as Baghdad, as well as the southern cities of Amarah and Nasiriyah, demanding the interim government’s resignation and an end to the offensive here.

This, remember, after the US/Allawists called early last week for civilians to leave Najaf. And after the US claimed that its forces had placed a complete security cordon around the city.
… Well, I have just read the latest reports of the breakdown of the latest peace talks over Najaf.
This means the election-planning conference the Allawists were planning for Sunday will be either rescheduled or a fiasco–or both. It means there are probably about 10,000 more people inside Najaf willing to fight the US forces than there were on Thursday…

Continue reading “US/Allawi have overplayed their hand”

One week into the present Battle of Najaf it seems clearer than ever that Allawi and his US backers are determined to win this battle in a way that imposes a humiliating defeat on Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army.
From his side Moqtada also seems to have dug in his heels. The possibility of a face-saving-all-round outcome seems to have almost disappeared.
It is not yet clear who will “win” this showdown. Militarily, of course a large, very well-armed US force, backed up by extremely lethal airpower and augmented by some local Iraqi forces would seem to have a large advantage over a few hundred– perhaps 1,500 at most–lightly armed Mahdi fighters. (Urban fighting, however, can be really brutal. Do the US Marines there really have the guts for it?)
But as every first lieutenant should understand, the “Battle” of Najaf will not be won on the military battlefield. It will be won in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and in that arena the US/Allawi forces are almost bound to lose any all-out showdown.
This morning, Najaf’s deputy governor, Jawdat Kadam Najim al-Kuraishi, resigned in protest at the US/Allawi actions in his city. The governor, Adnan Zurufi, is a former Iraqi exile who was installed as governor by Bremer, back in early May. He has not resigned. But today, according to this story in Aljazeera.net a majority of the members of the provincial council also joined Kuraishi in reisgning.
Aljazeera also reported that,

the director of tribal affairs at the Iraqi Interior ministry announced his resignation through Aljazeera and said he could no longer work with the interim government in good faith given the ‘carnage and barbaric aggression of the US-led forces in Najaf’…
Meanwhile, Basra’s deputy governor for administrative affairs, Hajj Salam Awdeh al-Maliky, warned that he may openly join al-Sadr’s fight if his offer to send 1000 Iraqi police, special security and national guardsmen to Najaf is refused by the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Some national guardsmen in Basra had even said they would not hesitate to join al-Sadr’s militia if al-Maliky’s offer was rejected.

On the BBC-TV news tonight, we saw Iraqi Vice-President Ibrahim Jafaari decrying the violence… And on the religious-affairs front, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is quoted on the BBC website as saying (through a spokesman) that, “he would not have left Najaf if he knew how bad things would get.”
Altogether, I would say, extremely inauspicious circumstances for Iraq to be holding its nationwide, 1,000-person confab on how the next step in preparing the elections gets organized. That confab is scheduled for this Sunday! It has been delayed once; but this time Allawi is insisting it go ahead without further delay. It seems truly bizarre and extremely politically counter-productive to be doing that in the middle of a confrontation as momentous as the one in Najaf.
Sistani, I should note, is probably one of the best hopes left for helping to mediate a negotiated climbdown from the present escalation (if such is still possible)…

Continue reading “Najaf: turning point for whom?”