On Track in Iraq?
While much has been accomplished, the coalition needs to transfer power to Iraqis and do a better job of telling its story, say experts who've been there.
December 2003
cknowledging that planners had failed to adequately prepare for the likelihood of widespread unrest in post-war Iraq, George F. Ward, director of the Institute's Professional Training Program, told a gathering of administration and congressional staff on Capitol Hill in late October that the United States had only a few months to turn the corner on security and self-governance for Iraq.
The need to expedite the transfer of Iraqi sovereignty has several sources, said Ward: support for the coalition presence among Iraqis is declining, the bombings are frightening away international and non-governmental organizations that are needed in the humanitarian and reconstruction effort, and the American public is unlikely to tolerate indefinitely continuing losses.
Ward, who served as coordinator of humanitarian assistance in Iraq from February to June 2003, spoke at a congressional briefing sponsored by the Institute's Iraq Working Group. Fellow panelists included the former deputy chief of staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority, Michael E. Hess; Institute senior fellow Faleh A. Jabar; and the National Endowment for Democracy's Laith Kubba. Daniel Serwer, director of peace and stability operations at the Institute, served as moderator.
Sources of Violence in Iraq
A U.S. soldier talks with a young Iraqi boy at a security post in Fallujah, 65 kms. west of Baghdad, Iraq.
Jabar, an Iraqi sociologist, focused on the sources of violence in Iraq. While most Iraqis do not support the violence, he said, neither are they effectively opposing it.
Jabar identified the groups he thought responsible for the violence. They come, for the most part, from two enclaves near Baghdad in the provinces of Anbar and Diyala that were favored during the Hussein era, and may include several groups: Hussein loyalists, mostly drawn from his old intelligence-security organizations; Salafis or Wahhabis, a radical Islamic group that believes in waging jihad on any non-Muslim who trespasses on Islamic ground; militant Islamist volunteers from neighboring countries; families and clans of Iraqi soldiers who fell in combat; and, possibly, soldiers of fortune.
Dire Need For Security in Iraq
Ward recommended that the United States accelerate programs to train Iraqi police and security forces. He also proposed that the U.S. progressively turn over authority to the Governing Council, the group of 25 Iraqis from diverse political, ethnic, and religious backgrounds appointed by administrator Paul Bremmer. By spring, the goal should be to have both a credible Iraqi governing structure and a security force in at least two-thirds of the country with an "Iraqi face."
Jabar echoed the need to empower and expand the Governing Council. The council has not been allowed to exercise any real power, he said, which has diminished its potential to provide valuable intelligence. In addition, important and influential social and political groups were excluded from the council. If this situation is not rectified, the council may become irrelevant when it is needed most.
Hess and Kubba provided contrasting assessments of the achievements of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Hess discussed achievements he felt had not been sufficiently recognized. Among them: the reopening—and in many cases, the rebuilding—of thousands of schools nationwide; the partial restoration of utilities damaged by the war and decades of neglect; and the renewal of an active business sector. Kubba, by contrast, argued that the CPA had unnecessarily isolated itself from the people of Iraq and was quickly losing the war for the "hearts and minds" of ordinary Iraqis. He emphasized the need to use Iraqi media to propagate the American message that security and independence were on the horizon.
