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Sunni vs. Shia: The Real Bloody Battle for Baghdad
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent UK
Tuesday 05 February 2008
A teenage boy was arrested recently for the attempted rape of a girl his own age in a school in west Baghdad. He admitted he had chosen the particular girl as his victim "because I knew she was a Sunni and nobody would protect her". The boy was mistaken in his belief that he was beyond the law, mainly because the girl's uncle was a senior officer in the army. But his words explain why Iraq's Sunni minority feel so vulnerable since they lost power to the Shia majority when Saddam Hussein was overthrown five years ago.
Reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, seen by the US as essential for political
progress in Iraq, is not happening. The difficulty in introducing measures to
conciliate members of the old regime is illustrated by the way in which a new
law, originally designed to ease the path of former Baath party members into
government jobs will, in practice, intensify the purge against them.
The framers of the law wanted Baathists to be able to get their jobs back in
the Iraqi military, security services and elsewhere. But the Iraqi parliament
has a Shia majority, and the legislation signed into law last Sunday will make
it more difficult for the former Baathists to work for the government.
Under the terms of the law, Ahmad Chalabi, the chairman of de-Baathification
commission, said 7,000 senior Iraqi security personnel will be fired. "The
law flatly mandates that all people who were in security such as the Republican
Guard, Special Republican Guard, general security or military intelligence must
go." The new measure will effectively strip the Iraqi army, security and
intelligence organisations of their senior officers.
Mr Chalabi believes it has been unfairly pilloried as a wholesale attack on
anybody connected to the old regime. "The Baath party had 1,200,000 members
of whom only 38,000 were subject to de-Baathification," he says. "Of
these, 15,600 applied for exemptions [allowing them to take government jobs]
and only 300 were turned down."
The provisions of the new law are not the only difficulties facing Baathists
or Sunni who work for the government or want to. It is often physically dangerous
for them to work in ministries, such as the oil ministry, in overwhelmingly
Shia parts of the capital.
Some ministries, such as the Health Ministry, were controlled for long by the
party of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The ministry's guards were all Mehdi
Army militia from Sadr City and Sunni believed the cellars of the ministry had
been converted to torture chambers.
A reason why there is such intense competition to control the government in
Baghdad is that it is a giant patronage machine funded by oil revenues. The
state has four million employees or people on pensions, Mr Chalabi says, about
twice the number employed by the government under Saddam Hussein. Aside from
government jobs, there are very few employment opportunities in Iraq.
Discrimination against Sunni is not just confined to ministries. Since the
savage battles between Sunni and Shia in Baghdad in 2006 Sunni have often been
unable to go to work. One Sunni maintenance engineer in the non-functioning
railway station was told by Shia militiamen to leave or be killed. A friendly
Sunni co-worker collected his salary for several months until the militiamen
told him to stop or be killed himself.
There was always going to be friction between Sunni and Shia in Iraq after
the fall of Saddam Hussein. But what turned sectarian tension into a bloodbath
were the massive al-Qa'ida suicide bombs, often a ton of explosive in a vehicle,
detonated in crowded Shia markets and religious gatherings. Though the Shia
were patient for two years, they struck back massively after the destruction
of the Shia shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006.
It is the outcome of this battle for Baghdad which still determines the political
landscape of Iraq and makes reconciliation between the communities so difficult.
The struggle for the capital was won by the Shia, who now control at least three-quarters
of it.
Pressured by al-Qa'ida and the Shia, many anti-US Sunni guerrillas switched
sides, seeking US protection, but they intend to renew the battle for Baghdad
whenever they think they can win it.
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Iraq's Tragic Future
By Scott Ritter
Truthdig.com
Tuesday 05 February 2008
Any analysis of the current state of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq that
relied solely on the U.S. government, the major candidates for president or
the major media outlets in the United States for information would be hard pressed
to find any bad news. In a State of the Union address which had everything except
a "Mission Accomplished" banner flying in the background, President
Bush all but declared victory over the insurgency in Iraq. His recertification
of the success of the so-called surge has prompted the Republican candidates
to assume a cocky swagger when discussing Iraq. They embrace the occupation
and speak, without shame or apparent fear of retribution, of an ongoing presence
in that war-torn nation. Their Democratic counterparts have been less than enthusiastic
in their criticism of the escalation. And the media, for the most part, continue
their macabre role as cheerleaders of death, hiding the reality of Iraq deep
inside stories that build upon approving headlines derived from nothing more
than political rhetoric. The war in Iraq, we're told, is virtually over.
We only need "stay the course" for 10 more years.
This situation is troublesome in the extreme. The collective refusal of any
constituent in this complicated mix of political players to confront Bush on
Iraq virtually guarantees that it will be the Bush administration, and not its
successor, that will dictate the first year (or more) of policy in Iraq for
the next president. It also ensures that the debacle that is the Bush administration's
overarching Middle East policy of regional transformation and regime change
in not only Iraq but Iran and Syria will continue to go unchallenged. If the
president is free to pursue his policies, it could lead to direct military intervention
in Iran by the United States prior to President Bush's departure from
office or, failing that, place his successor on the path toward military confrontation.
At a time when every data point available certifies (and recertifies) the administration's
actions in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere (including Afghanistan) as an abject failure,
America collectively has fallen into a hypnotic trance, distracted by domestic
economic problems and incapable, due to our collective ignorance of the world
we live in, of deciphering the reality on the ground in the Middle East.
Rather than offering a word-for-word renouncement of the president's
rosy assertions concerning Iraq, I will instead initiate a process of debunking
the myth of American success by doing that which no politician, current or aspiring,
would dare do: predict the failure of American policy in Iraq. With the ink
on the newspapers parroting the president's words barely dry, evidence
of his misrepresentation of reality begins to build with the announcement by
the Pentagon that troop levels in Iraq will not be dropping, as had been projected
in view of the "success" of the "surge," but rather
holding at current levels with the possibility of increasing in the future.
This reversal of course concerning troop deployments into Iraq highlights the
reality that the statistical justification of "surge success," namely
the reduction in the level of violence, was illusory, a temporary lull brought
about more by smoke and mirrors than any genuine change of fortune on the ground.
Even the word surge is inappropriate for what is now undeniably an escalation.
Iraq, far from being a nation on the rebound, remains a mortally wounded shell,
the equivalent of a human suffering from a sucking chest wound, its lungs collapsed
and its life blood spilling unchecked onto the ground. The "surge"
never addressed the underlying reasons for Iraq's post-Saddam suffering,
and as such never sought to heal that which was killing Iraq. Instead, the "surge"
offered little more than a cosmetic gesture, covering the wounds of Iraq with
a bandage which shielded the true extent of the damage from outside view while
doing nothing to save the victim.
Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. True, there will be a plot of land in
the Middle East which people will refer to as Iraq. But any hope of a resurrected
homogeneous Iraqi nation populated by a diverse people capable of coexisting
in peace and harmony is soon to be swept away forever. Any hope of a way out
for the people of Iraq and their neighbors is about to become a victim of the
"successes" of the "surge" and the denial of reality.
The destruction of Iraq has already begun. The myth of Kurdish stability-born
artificially out of the U.S.-enforced "no-fly zones" of the 1990s,
sustained through the largess of the Oil-for-Food program (and U.S.-approved
sanctions sidestepped by the various Kurdish groups in Iraq) and given a Frankenstein-like
lease on life in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and occupation-is
rapidly unraveling. Like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, present-day Iraqi
Kurdistan has been exposed as an amalgam of parts incompatible not only with
each other but the region as a whole.
Ongoing Kurdish disdain for the central authority in Baghdad has led to the
Kurds declaring their independence from Iraqi law (especially any law pertaining
to oil present on lands they control). The reality of the Kurds' quest
for independence can be seen in their support of the Kurdish groups, in particular
the PKK, that desire independence from Turkey. The sentiment has not been lost
on their Turkish neighbors to the north, resulting in an escalation of cross-border
military incursions which will only expand over time, further destabilizing
Kurdish Iraq. Lying dormant, and unmentioned, is the age-old animosity between
the two principle Kurdish factions in Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). As recently as 1997, these two
factions were engaged in a virtual civil war against one another. The strains
brought on by the present unraveling have these two factions once again vying
for position inside Iraq, making internecine conflict all but inevitable. The
year 2008 will bring with it a major escalation of Turkish military operations
against northern Iraq, a strategic break between the Kurdish factions there
and with the central government of Baghdad, and the beginnings of an all-out
civil war between the KDP and PUK.
The next unraveling of the "surge" myth will be in western Iraq,
where the much applauded "awakening" was falling apart even as Bush
spoke. I continue to maintain that there is a hidden hand behind the Sunni resistance
that operates unseen and uncommented on by the United States and its erstwhile
Iraqi allies operating out of the Green Zone in Baghdad. The government of Saddam
Hussein never formally capitulated, and indeed had in place plans for ongoing
active resistance against any occupation of Iraq. In October 2007 the Iraqi
Baath Party held its 13th conference, in which it formally certified one of
Saddam's vice presidents, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, as the supreme leader
of the Sunni resistance.
The United States' embrace of the "awakening" will go down
in the history of the Iraq conflict as one of the gravest strategic errors made
in a field of grave errors. The U.S. military in Iraq has never fully understood
the complex interplay between the Sunni resistance, al-Qaida in Iraq, and the
former government of Saddam Hussein. Saddam may be dead, but not so his plans
for resistance. The massive security organizations which held sway over Iraq
during his rule were never defeated, and never formally disbanded. The organs
of security which once operated as formal ministries now operate as covert cells,
functioning along internal lines of communication which are virtually impenetrable
by outside forces. These security organs gave birth to al-Qaida in Iraq, fostered
its growth as a proxy, and used it as a means of sowing chaos and fear among
the Iraqi population.
The violence perpetrated by al-Qaida in Iraq is largely responsible for the
inability of the central government in Baghdad to gain any traction in the form
of unified governance. The inability of the United States to defeat al-Qaida
has destroyed any hope of generating confidence among the Iraqi population in
the possibility of stability emerging from an ongoing American occupation. But
al-Qaida in Iraq is not a physical entity which the United States can get its
hands around, but rather a giant con game being run by Izzat al-Douri and the
Sunni resistance. Because al-Qaida in Iraq is derived from the Sunni resistance,
it can be defeated only when the Sunni resistance is defeated. And the greatest
con game of them all occurred when the Sunni resistance manipulated the United
States into arming it, training it and turning it against the forces of al-Qaida,
which it controls. Far from subduing the Sunni resistance by Washington's
political and military support of the "awakening," the United States
has further empowered it. It is almost as if we were arming and training the
Viet Cong on the eve of the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War.
Keeping in mind the fact that the Sunni resistance, led by al-Douri, operates
from the shadows, and that its influence is exerted more indirectly than directly,
there are actual al-Qaida elements in Iraq which operate independently of central
Sunni control, just as there are Sunni tribal elements which freely joined the
"awakening" in an effort to quash the forces of al-Qaida in Iraq.
The diabolical beauty of the Sunni resistance isn't its ability to exert
direct control over all aspects of the anti-American activity in Sunni Iraq,
but rather to manipulate the overall direction of activity through indirect
means in a manner which achieves its overall strategic aims. The Sunni resistance
continues to use al-Qaida in Iraq as a useful tool for seizing the strategic
focus of the American military occupiers (and their Iraqi proxies in the Green
Zone), as well as controlling Sunni tribal elements which stray too far off
the strategic course (witness the recent suicide bomb assassination of senior
Sunni tribal leaders). 2008 will see the collapse of the Sunni "awakening"
movement, and a return to large-scale anti-American insurgency in western Iraq.
It will also see the continued viability of al-Qaida in Iraq in terms of being
an organization capable of wreaking violence and dictating the pace of American
military involvement in directions beneficial to the Sunni resistance and detrimental
to the United States.
One of the spinoffs of the continued success of the Sunni resistance is the
focus it places on the inability of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad
to actually govern. The U.S. decision to arm, train and facilitate the various
Sunni militias in Iraq is a de facto acknowledgement that the American occupiers
have lost confidence in the high-profile byproduct of the "purple finger
revolution" of January 2005. The sham that was that election has produced
a government trusted by no one, even the Shiites. The ongoing unilateral cease-fire
imposed by the Muqtada al-Sadr on his Mahdi Army prevented the outbreak of civil
war between his movement and that of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and its militia, the Badr Brigade.
When Saddam's security forces dissolved on the eve of the fall of Baghdad
in March 2003, the security organs which had been tasked with infiltrating the
Shiite community for the purpose of spying on Shiites were instead instructed
to embed themselves deep within the structures of that community. Both the Mahdi
Army and the Badr Brigade are heavily infiltrated with such sleeper elements,
which conspire to create and exploit fractures between these two organizations
under the age-old adage of divide and conquer. A strategic pause in the conflict
between the Mahdi Army and the U.S. military on the one hand and the Mahdi Army
and the Badr Brigade on the other has served to strengthen the hand of the Mahdi
Army by allowing time for it to rearm and reorganize, increasing its efficiency
as a military organization all the while its political opposite, the SCIRI-dominated
central Iraqi government, continues to falter.
Further exacerbating the situation for the American occupiers of Iraq is the
ongoing tension created by the war of wills between the United States and Iran.
The Sunni resistance has no love for the Shiite theocracy in Tehran, or its
proxies in Iraq, and views creating a rift between the Mahdi Army and the Badr
Brigade as a strategic imperative on the road to a Sunni resurgence. Any U.S.
military strike against Iran will bring with it the inevitable Shiite backlash
in Iraq. The Shiite forces that emerge as the most independent of the American
occupier will be, in the minds of the Sunni resistance, the most capable of
winning the support of the Shiites of Iraq. Given the past record of cooperation
between the Mahdi Army and the Sunni resistance, and the ongoing antipathy between
Sunnis and SCIRI, there can be little doubt which Shiite entity the Sunnis will
side with when it comes time for a decisive conflict between the Mahdi Army
and the Badr Brigade, and 2008 will be the year which witnesses such a conflict.
The big loser in all of this, besides the people of Iraq, is of course the
men and women of the armed forces of the United States. Betrayed by the Bush
administration, abandoned by Congress and all but forgotten by a complacent
American population and those who are positioning themselves for national leadership
in the next administration, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who so
proudly wear the uniform of the United States continue to fight and die, kill
and be maimed in a war which was never justified and long ago lost its luster.
Played as pawns in a giant game of three-dimensional chess, these brave Americans
find themselves being needlessly sacrificed in a game where there can be no
winner, only losers.
The continued ambivalence of the American population as a whole toward the
war in Iraq, perhaps best manifested by the superficiality of the slogan "Support
the Troops," all the while remaining ignorant of what the troops are actually
doing, has led to a similar amnesia among politicians all too willing to allow
themselves to seek political advantage at the expense of American life and treasure.
January 2008 cost the United States nearly 40 lives in Iraq. The current military
budget is unprecedented in its size, and doesn't even come close to paying
for ongoing military operations in Iraq. The war in Iraq has bankrupted Americans
morally and fiscally, and yet the American public continues to shake the hands
of aspiring politicians who ignore Iraq, pretending that the blood which soaks
the hands of these political aspirants hasn't stained their own. In the
sick kabuki dance that is American politics, this refusal to call a spade a
spade is deserving of little more than disdain and sorrow.
While the American people, politicians and media may remain mute on the reality
of Iraq, I won't. There is no such thing as a crystal ball which enables
one to see clearly into the future, and I am normally averse to making sweeping
long-term predictions involving a topic as fluid as the ongoing situation in
Iraq. At the risk of being wrong (and, indeed, I hope very much that I am),
I will contradict the rosy statements of the president in his State of the Union
address and will throw down a gauntlet in the face of ongoing public and media
ambivalence by predicting that 2008 will be the year the "surge"
in Iraq is exposed as a grand debacle. The cosmetic bandage placed over the
gravely wounded Iraq will fall off, and the damaged body that is Iraq will continue
its painful decline toward death.
If there is any winner in all of this it will be the Sunni resistance, or at
least its leadership hiding in the shadow of the American occupation, as it
continues to exploit the chaotic death spiral of post-Saddam Iraq for its own
long-term plan of a Sunni resurgence in Iraq. That the Sunni resistance will
continue to fight an American occupation is a guarantee. That it will continue
to persevere is highly probable. That the United States will be able to stop
it is unlikely. And so, the reality that the only policy direction worthy of
consideration here in the United States concerning Iraq is the immediate and
unconditional withdrawal of American forces continues to hold true. And the
fact that this option is given short shrift by all capable of making or influencing
such a decision guarantees that this bloody war will go on, inconclusively and
incomprehensibly, for many more years. That is the one image in my crystal ball
that emerges in full focus, and which will serve as the basis of defining a
national nightmare for generations to come.
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