PROGRESS OR CIVIL WAR?
Richard Boegner
October 23, 2006
A few days ago, Vice President Cheney (1) spoke to an assembly of soldiers belonging to the 101st Airborne Division who had just returned from Iraq."
Having been on the ground”, the Vice President said, “all of you know that we’ve made progress-not easily, but steadily. And we can be confident going forward.
Members of our military”, he added, “have worked diligently to make sure that more Iraqi families have police protection and electricity, and water, and sanitation for their homes”.
As a matter of fact, the latest developments emerging from Iraq paint a very different picture.
The security situation, on which everything else hinges, has been steadily deteriorating, particularly since Iraq’s first permanent government was elected.
Even though more than 300,000 (2) Iraqi soldiers and policemen have been trained by US forces, the bodies keep accumulating in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere.
Five months ago, when Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, became Prime Minister, an average of 65 murder victims were collected daily. Today, this tally stands at over 100 (3)…
It has long been US policy to handover responsibility for maintaining peace and order to Iraqi security personnel, once the latter were deemed sufficiently prepared to do so. Then and only then could US troops be gradually withdrawn from the country, US officials explained.
Unfortunately, this policy is failing, as recent events in the city of Balad evince.
Located in Salah al Din province, a predominantly Sunni area, the capital of which is Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, Balad’s population is mainly Shiite.
Last April, responsibility for the security of Balad was transferred to the 3rd Batallion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division.
On October 13 (4), gunmen seized 17 Shiite farm workers and beheaded them.
The next day, Shiite forces responded vigorously, hastily erecting checkpoints, abducting Sunnis, torturing some, killing all, then discarding their bodies in the streets. Scores of Sunnis from the near-by town of Duluiyah were thus killed in retaliation (5)…
The violence continued for several days, and some reports indicate that as many as 100 (6) Sunnis were killed as Shiite militias swept through the area. In Balad, the remaining Sunnis were given two hours to leave the city (7)…
The inability of US-trained Iraqi security forces to maintain order in a tense region was made manifest. Furthermore, local police officials (8) accused Iraqi National Police personnel of participating in the bloodshed alongside Shiite militia members belonging to the Mahdi Army, the militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric and one of the Prime Minister’s most powerful supporters. His faction heads four government ministries, and has 30 seats in Parliament.
In fact, the presence of the Mahdi Army members from Baghdad was urgently requested (9) by Shiite leaders in Balad after the initial massacre. Ignoring the government and its institutions, revenge, not justice was the order of the day.
Furthermore, what infuriated many Iraqis was the lack of reaction of US forces, even though several thousand soldiers are stationed nearby in Camp Anaconda.
People are bewildered because of the weak response by the Americans”, according to a resident of Balad (10), “they used to patrol the city everyday, but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them”.
For senior US commanders, the mayhem in Balad was a “test” (11) of the Maliki government’s ability to respond to sectarian violence, but also a sign that the US is now very reluctant to intervene when the violence is sectarian in nature…
Mr Maliki visibly failed the test.
Hence, Iraqis were left to their own devices, as Iraqi security forces, at least those not directly participating in the rampage, were unable to stop the bloodshed, while US forces sat idly by…Troops had to be dispatched to the scene nevertheless to try and restore order…
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Police dismissed over 3,000 (12) officers for various offences, including dereliction of duty.
No one, it seems, is willing or able to prevent sectarian violence from engulfing Iraq.
In July, according to the Pentagon, the number of sectarian attacks was ten (13) times greater than in January.
Though US forces persist in increasingly relying on the Iraqis for maintaining security in the country wherever feasible, their active presence is still required in the most dangerous areas such as the capital, Baghdad. Recent efforts to quell the violence there (dubbed “Operation Together Forward”) are failing as well. Since late September, the number of attacks has increased by 22% (14).
As a result, US casualties have been mounting at a rate not seen since January 2005, as the insurgency pursues its relentless attacks.
According to Maj. Gen. William Caldwell (15), US military spokesman in Iraq, “in September we did see a rise in sensational attacks…The number of IEDs or improvised explosive devices are also at an all-time high”.
So far, over 70 (16) US soldiers have been killed in Iraq this month alone.
For Jan Egeland (17), the UN’s Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, the violence in Iraq has “spiralled totally out of control”.
The consequences are dire: 1,5 million have been compelled to flee their homes. Another 1,5 million have left the country altogether (18).
Tragically, however, unless the security situation improves, the living conditions of Iraqis will continue to deteriorate.
Sinan Youssef (19), a senior official in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, stated that “nearly 5.6 million Iraqis are living below the poverty line…At least 40% of this number is living in absolute and desperate deteriorated conditions”, a 35% increase since 2003.
The unemployment rate has risen to over 60%, the inflation rate 70% (20)…
Fatah Ahmed (21), vice-president of the NGO Iraqi Aid Association concluded, “if poverty in Iraq is not controlled soon, we are going to have a country that will be compared to Africa in poverty levels”. Yet, there will be no economic growth, no reduction in poverty levels unless the violence ceases.
The Vice President believes that progress is being made in Iraq, and that Mr Maliki’s government is “doing remarkably well” (22)…
The President of the United States claims the violence in the country is being driven by al-Qaeda (23).
Such persistent disregard for the facts is alarming and precludes charting a course of action that may actually have a positive impact on the situation, assuming it is not too late to change strategies.
Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, summed up the situation this way: “If you total up the number of people that are being killed, that are being wounded, that are being displaced and are being forced to leave the country, and the zones in which there is major civil conflict, trying to declare there isn’t civil war borders on the absurd” (24).
This is the reality that now has to be urgently acknowledged and dealt with: civil war and, consequently, an Iraqi society on the verge of disintegration.
Vierzy, October 20, 2006
Richard Boegner, a graduate of the American University of Paris and the Sorbonne, lives and works in northern France.
richard.boegner@orange.fr
Notes:
1) “Cheney: US forces winning support from Iraqis”, AFP, October 16, 2006.
http://labs.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061016/pl_afp/usiraqcheney_061016230828 .
2) Nancy A. Youssef, « Lack of confidence in Maliki government grows », McClatchy Newspapers, October 13, 2006. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/15754382.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
3) See note 2.
4) Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin, “Dozens of Iraqis killed in Reprisals”, Washington Post, October16, 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500206_pf.html
5) See note 4.
6) Nancy A. Youssef, “US forces move to quell sectarian violence in Balad”, McClatchy Newspapers, October17, 2006.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15782387.htm
7) Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin, “Families Flee Iraqi river Towns On 4th Day of Sectarian Warfare”, WP, October 17, 2006.
http://nevadathunder.com/?p=2906
8) See note 7.
9) See note 7.
10) Michael Luo, “Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn’t Intervene in Balad”, NYT, October 16, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=middleeast&pagewanted=print
11) See note 10.
12) “More than 3,000 Iraqi police sacked: ministry spokesman”, AFP, October 17, 2006.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061017/ts_afp/iraqsecurityunrest
13) See note 4.
14) “Baghdad security plan ‘failing’”, TradeArabia, October 20, 2006.
http://www.tradearabia.com/tanews/newsdetails_snDEF_article113140_cnt.html
15) Joshua Leys, “Iraq reality check: the cost in lives lost”, CNN, October 18, 2006.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/17/iraq.reality.check.1/index.html
16) Iraqi Body Count: http://icasualties.org/oif/
17) See note 15.
18) See note 15.
19) “IRAQ: Unemployment and violence increase poverty”, Reuters, October 17, 2006.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/c14c2cc0f6c99e87f284df922a039cad.htm
20) See note 19.
21) See note 19.
22) « Cheney : Iraqi Government Doing ‘Remarkably Well’ “, E&P, October 17, 2006. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003255955
23) Ed O’Keefe, « Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison”, ABC News, October 18, 2006.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=2583579
24) See note 4.
Having been on the ground”, the Vice President said, “all of you know that we’ve made progress-not easily, but steadily. And we can be confident going forward.
Members of our military”, he added, “have worked diligently to make sure that more Iraqi families have police protection and electricity, and water, and sanitation for their homes”.
As a matter of fact, the latest developments emerging from Iraq paint a very different picture.
The security situation, on which everything else hinges, has been steadily deteriorating, particularly since Iraq’s first permanent government was elected.
Even though more than 300,000 (2) Iraqi soldiers and policemen have been trained by US forces, the bodies keep accumulating in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere.
Five months ago, when Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, became Prime Minister, an average of 65 murder victims were collected daily. Today, this tally stands at over 100 (3)…
It has long been US policy to handover responsibility for maintaining peace and order to Iraqi security personnel, once the latter were deemed sufficiently prepared to do so. Then and only then could US troops be gradually withdrawn from the country, US officials explained.
Unfortunately, this policy is failing, as recent events in the city of Balad evince.
Located in Salah al Din province, a predominantly Sunni area, the capital of which is Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, Balad’s population is mainly Shiite.
Last April, responsibility for the security of Balad was transferred to the 3rd Batallion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division.
On October 13 (4), gunmen seized 17 Shiite farm workers and beheaded them.
The next day, Shiite forces responded vigorously, hastily erecting checkpoints, abducting Sunnis, torturing some, killing all, then discarding their bodies in the streets. Scores of Sunnis from the near-by town of Duluiyah were thus killed in retaliation (5)…
The violence continued for several days, and some reports indicate that as many as 100 (6) Sunnis were killed as Shiite militias swept through the area. In Balad, the remaining Sunnis were given two hours to leave the city (7)…
The inability of US-trained Iraqi security forces to maintain order in a tense region was made manifest. Furthermore, local police officials (8) accused Iraqi National Police personnel of participating in the bloodshed alongside Shiite militia members belonging to the Mahdi Army, the militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric and one of the Prime Minister’s most powerful supporters. His faction heads four government ministries, and has 30 seats in Parliament.
In fact, the presence of the Mahdi Army members from Baghdad was urgently requested (9) by Shiite leaders in Balad after the initial massacre. Ignoring the government and its institutions, revenge, not justice was the order of the day.
Furthermore, what infuriated many Iraqis was the lack of reaction of US forces, even though several thousand soldiers are stationed nearby in Camp Anaconda.
People are bewildered because of the weak response by the Americans”, according to a resident of Balad (10), “they used to patrol the city everyday, but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them”.
For senior US commanders, the mayhem in Balad was a “test” (11) of the Maliki government’s ability to respond to sectarian violence, but also a sign that the US is now very reluctant to intervene when the violence is sectarian in nature…
Mr Maliki visibly failed the test.
Hence, Iraqis were left to their own devices, as Iraqi security forces, at least those not directly participating in the rampage, were unable to stop the bloodshed, while US forces sat idly by…Troops had to be dispatched to the scene nevertheless to try and restore order…
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Police dismissed over 3,000 (12) officers for various offences, including dereliction of duty.
No one, it seems, is willing or able to prevent sectarian violence from engulfing Iraq.
In July, according to the Pentagon, the number of sectarian attacks was ten (13) times greater than in January.
Though US forces persist in increasingly relying on the Iraqis for maintaining security in the country wherever feasible, their active presence is still required in the most dangerous areas such as the capital, Baghdad. Recent efforts to quell the violence there (dubbed “Operation Together Forward”) are failing as well. Since late September, the number of attacks has increased by 22% (14).
As a result, US casualties have been mounting at a rate not seen since January 2005, as the insurgency pursues its relentless attacks.
According to Maj. Gen. William Caldwell (15), US military spokesman in Iraq, “in September we did see a rise in sensational attacks…The number of IEDs or improvised explosive devices are also at an all-time high”.
So far, over 70 (16) US soldiers have been killed in Iraq this month alone.
For Jan Egeland (17), the UN’s Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, the violence in Iraq has “spiralled totally out of control”.
The consequences are dire: 1,5 million have been compelled to flee their homes. Another 1,5 million have left the country altogether (18).
Tragically, however, unless the security situation improves, the living conditions of Iraqis will continue to deteriorate.
Sinan Youssef (19), a senior official in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, stated that “nearly 5.6 million Iraqis are living below the poverty line…At least 40% of this number is living in absolute and desperate deteriorated conditions”, a 35% increase since 2003.
The unemployment rate has risen to over 60%, the inflation rate 70% (20)…
Fatah Ahmed (21), vice-president of the NGO Iraqi Aid Association concluded, “if poverty in Iraq is not controlled soon, we are going to have a country that will be compared to Africa in poverty levels”. Yet, there will be no economic growth, no reduction in poverty levels unless the violence ceases.
The Vice President believes that progress is being made in Iraq, and that Mr Maliki’s government is “doing remarkably well” (22)…
The President of the United States claims the violence in the country is being driven by al-Qaeda (23).
Such persistent disregard for the facts is alarming and precludes charting a course of action that may actually have a positive impact on the situation, assuming it is not too late to change strategies.
Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, summed up the situation this way: “If you total up the number of people that are being killed, that are being wounded, that are being displaced and are being forced to leave the country, and the zones in which there is major civil conflict, trying to declare there isn’t civil war borders on the absurd” (24).
This is the reality that now has to be urgently acknowledged and dealt with: civil war and, consequently, an Iraqi society on the verge of disintegration.
Vierzy, October 20, 2006
Richard Boegner, a graduate of the American University of Paris and the Sorbonne, lives and works in northern France.
richard.boegner@orange.fr
Notes:
1) “Cheney: US forces winning support from Iraqis”, AFP, October 16, 2006.
http://labs.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061016/pl_afp/usiraqcheney_061016230828 .
2) Nancy A. Youssef, « Lack of confidence in Maliki government grows », McClatchy Newspapers, October 13, 2006. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/15754382.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
3) See note 2.
4) Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin, “Dozens of Iraqis killed in Reprisals”, Washington Post, October16, 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500206_pf.html
5) See note 4.
6) Nancy A. Youssef, “US forces move to quell sectarian violence in Balad”, McClatchy Newspapers, October17, 2006.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15782387.htm
7) Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin, “Families Flee Iraqi river Towns On 4th Day of Sectarian Warfare”, WP, October 17, 2006.
http://nevadathunder.com/?p=2906
8) See note 7.
9) See note 7.
10) Michael Luo, “Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn’t Intervene in Balad”, NYT, October 16, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=middleeast&pagewanted=print
11) See note 10.
12) “More than 3,000 Iraqi police sacked: ministry spokesman”, AFP, October 17, 2006.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061017/ts_afp/iraqsecurityunrest
13) See note 4.
14) “Baghdad security plan ‘failing’”, TradeArabia, October 20, 2006.
http://www.tradearabia.com/tanews/newsdetails_snDEF_article113140_cnt.html
15) Joshua Leys, “Iraq reality check: the cost in lives lost”, CNN, October 18, 2006.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/17/iraq.reality.check.1/index.html
16) Iraqi Body Count: http://icasualties.org/oif/
17) See note 15.
18) See note 15.
19) “IRAQ: Unemployment and violence increase poverty”, Reuters, October 17, 2006.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/c14c2cc0f6c99e87f284df922a039cad.htm
20) See note 19.
21) See note 19.
22) « Cheney : Iraqi Government Doing ‘Remarkably Well’ “, E&P, October 17, 2006. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003255955
23) Ed O’Keefe, « Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison”, ABC News, October 18, 2006.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=2583579
24) See note 4.
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