Iraq- The West Shakes Up The Middle East

by Patrick Cockburn

  What makes these escalating conflicts so bizarre and damaging to Iraqis is that they are fought by combatants who are part of the same power-sharing government. But because they don't co-operate - and indeed hate and fear each other - government itself is paralysed. The administrative apparatus has in any case been degraded by departure of able officials abroad and the allocation of jobs solely through political patronage rather than experience or ability, membership of al-Dawa, the ruling Shia religious party often being the essential qualification. One study of Iraqi officials revealed that on average they put in just 17 minutes' productive work during the average day. These toxic elements combine to produce a corrupt, self-serving and ineffective government. But its failings have been there a long time and might not in themselves have produced a new crisis. Party patronage may be a crude and unfair way of distributing oil wealth, but it benefits a lot of people. Iraqis may be enraged by the lack of public services such as electricity or health care, but they have suffered these shortages for a long time. By 2011 Iraq had achieved a bloody and unsatisfactory stability that might have endured longer had it not been rocked by important changes in the political balance of power inside and outside Iraq.

  The last American troops left at the end of 2011 and President Barack Obama made clear by his actions that he did not intend to be inveigled back into the Iraqi political morass. Polls showed American voters had a deep distaste for any involvement in Iraq. American influence plummeted. But the Iraqi political system was in large part a US creation and many of its leaders owed their careers to US backing. This includes Mr Maliki who was appointed as Prime Minister by the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, because he was one of the few Shia politicians acceptable to the US and Iran.

  Both countries, though they fight each other for influence in Iraq, have a common interest in stabilising the post-Saddam settlement. When Maliki was reappointed Prime Minister in 2010 an Iraqi official called me to comment sarcastically that "the Great Satan (US) and The Axis of Evil (Iran) have come together and given us a new prime minister". With the US departure there disappeared a major force for persuading Iraqi leaders to agree to share power.

  In their last years there, the Americans had learned how to play Iraqi political games effectively. In 2007 during the socalled Surge they had offered protection to the Sunni in return for an end to military action against US troops (al-Qa'ida continued to attack the Shia civilians and Iraqi government forces). It was always a temporary arrangement, regarded with suspicion by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. Just as the last US soldiers were leaving Iraq, Mr Maliki forced his Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi to flee to Kurdistan and he was later sentenced to death.

  The Sunni had suffered shattering defeats with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the formation of a Shia-Kurdish government and loss of the sectarian civil war. But the conflict in Syria marked a change for the better in Sunni fortunes. They have been emboldened by the bid for power of Syria's Sunni majority just across the border from their own heartlands in Anbar and Nineveh provinces. They are encouraged by Sunni states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, backing Sunni rebels in Syria and sympathising with Sunni demonstrators in Iraq. Since late December Iraqi Sunni have peacefully protested against discrimination in all its forms. Maliki and his senior officials appear to be finally taking on board the significance of Sunni protests and the strength of the Sunni counter-offensive against the Shia in the Middle East. Mr Maliki predicted last week that "if the opposition [in Syria] is victorious, there will be civil war in Lebanon, divisions in Jordan and a sectarian war in Iraq".

  The US departure, the Syrian crisis and the Sunni protests are all destabilising Iraq. The Kurds and the Shia religious leadership - the Marji'iyyah - regard Mr Maliki and his government with distrust, but the very divisions of Iraq that weaken central governments also make it difficult to get rid of those in power, because their opponents are themselves so divided. Opposed to Mr Maliki they may be, but they cannot agree on a successor.

  The Shia are themselves divided. Muqtada al-Sadr, the populist nationalist cleric who fought the US occupation, has called for the removal of Maliki and has praised the demonstrators in Anbar. This is important because his well-organised political movement used to have a military wing, the Mehdi Army, feared and execrated by Sunni for carrying out atrocities against them. Muqtada recently said: "Maliki's entire policy is offensive to the Shia because it portrays them as a tyrannous majority in the eyes of the Kurds and Sunni."

  Iraq is one of the great political minefields of the world. It is full of ancient and modern battlefields where great empires have been humbled or destroyed. Saddam Hussein claimed to have built up an army of one million men in 1991, only to see it evaporate or mutiny. Much the same happened in 2003. The US army marched into Baghdad full of arrogant contempt for what Iraqis said or did. Within a year the US military controlled only islands of territory in a country they thought they had conquered.

  Maliki may employ a million men in different branches of the Iraqi security forces. In most countries this would guarantee government control, but in practice Maliki only has full authority in about half the national territory. He has no power in the northern third of the country held by the Kurds and increasingly limited influence in Sunni areas.

  This does not mean the government is collapsing. It still has money, jobs, the army, intelligence services and electoral legitimacy. Qusay Abdul Wahab al-Suhail, the Sadrist deputy speaker of parliament, says that the problem in Iraq is that all parties have some degree of strength and therefore see no need to compromise with opponents. The result is a permanent political stalemate or paralysis.

  Whatever the US and British invasion and occupation of Iraq 10 years ago was meant to achieve it has not created a peaceful and prosperous country. If an Iraqi was arrested before 2003 for a political offence he could expect to be tortured unless he immediately confessed, and this is still the case. The one improvement is that he stands less chance of being executed.

  Ordinary Iraqis are pessimistic or ambivalent about the future. Professor Yahya Abbas says: "If you ask my students 'What do you want?' About 95 per cent will answer 'I want to leave Iraq.'"

  Tuesday, 5 March 2013

  CITY OF CORRUPTION

  Iraqis are not naïve. Grim experience of their country's rulers over the past 50 years leads many to suspect their political leaders of being self-serving, greedy, brutal, and incompetent. Ten years ago, some had hoped Iraqis might escape living in a permanent state of emergency as the US and Britain prepared to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Others were wary of Iraqis returning from abroad who promised to build a new nation.

  A few months before the invasion, an Iraqi civil servant secretly interviewed in Baghdad made a gloomy forecast. He said: "The exiled Iraqis are the exact replica of those who currently govern us with the sole difference that the latter are already satiated since they have been robbing us for the past 30 years. Those who accompany the American troops will be ravenous."

  Many of the Iraqis who came back to Iraq after the US-led invasion were people of high principle who had sacrificed much as opponents of Saddam Hussein. But fast forward 10 years and the prediction of the unnamed civil servant, who had spoken to the International Crisis Group (ICG - a non-profit group established to prevent and resolve conflict) about the rapacity of Iraq's new governors, turns out to have been all too true. As one former minister puts it "the Iraqi government is an institutionalised kleptocracy".

  It is a view shared by Iraqis in the frontline of business in Baghdad. Property prices in the capital are high and there are plenty of buyers. I asked Abduk-Karim Ali, a successful real estate broker, who was paying so much for houses. He replied with a laugh that there were investors from Kurdistan and Bahrain, but most purchasers he dealt with are "the thieves of 2003 who have the money." "Who are they?" I asked. "I mean the officials in the government," said Mr Ali. "They buy the best properties for themselves and their families."


  "Corruption is unbelievable," says Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a political scientist and activist. "You can't get a job in the army or the government unless you pay; you can't even get out of prison unless you pay. Maybe a judge sets you free but you must pay for the paperwork, otherwise you stay there. Even if you are free you may be captured by some officer who paid $10,000 to $50,000 for his job and needs to get the money back." In an Iraqi version of Catch 22 everything is for sale. One former prison detainee says he had to pay his guards $100 for a single shower. Racketeering is the norm: one entrepreneur built his house on top of a buried oil pipeline, drilled into it and siphoned off quantities of fuel.

  Corruption complicates and poisons the daily life of Iraqis, especially those who cannot afford to pay. But the frequent demand for bribes does not automatically cripple the state and the economy. The highly autonomous KRG is deemed extremely corrupt, but its economy is booming and its economic management is praised as a model for the rest of the country. More damaging for Iraq is the wholesale theft of public funds. Despite tens of billions of dollars being spent, there is a continuing shortage of electricity and other necessities of modern life. Few Iraqis regret the fall of Saddam, but many recall that, after the devastating US air strikes on the infrastructure in 1991, power stations were patched up at high speed using only Iraqi resources.

  There is more to Iraqi corruption than the stealing of oil revenues by a criminalised caste of politicians, parties and officials. Critics of Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister since 2006, say his method of political control is to allocate contracts to supporters, wavering friends or opponents whom he wants to win over. But that is not the end of the matter. Beneficiaries of this largesse "are threatened with investigation and exposure if they step out of line", says one Iraqi observer.

  "Maliki uses files on his enemies like J Edgar Hoover is supposed to have done," the observer says.

  The system cannot be reformed by the government because it would be striking at the very mechanism by which it rules. State institutions for combating corruption have been systematically defanged, marginalised or intimidated. Five years ago, a senior US embassy official testified before Congress that Mr Maliki had issued "secret orders" preventing cases being referred to the courts by the Integrity Commission (an independent government commission tasked with tackling corruption) "if the cases involve former or current high-ranking Iraqi government officials, including the PM. The secret order is, literally, a license to steal."

  Nothing much has changed. Blatant scams continue and receive official protection. A report by the ICG says that "when the [Integrity] Commission sought to engage the courts to prosecute it found the government blocked all avenues, pressuring Ugaili to resign in protest." He duly did on 9 September 2011, the same day that Hadi al-Mahdi, a prominent journalistic critic of the government and leader of street protests, was assassinated.

  Hours before he had written on his Facebook page that he was "living in a state of terror".

  Why is the corruption so bad? The simple answer that Iraqis give is that "UN sanctions destroyed Iraqi society in the 1990s and the Americans destroyed the Iraqi state after 2003". Patronage based on party, family or community determines who gets a job. There are many winners as well as losers and all depends on Iraqi oil exports going up and prices staying high. "I only once saw panic in the cabinet," says an ex-minister, "and that was when there was a sharp drop in the price of oil."

  Wednesday, 6 March 2013

  THE SUNNI RISE AGAIN

  "Iraq or Maliki! Iraq or Maliki!" shout Sunni Arab demonstrators as they block roads in western Iraq in protest against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and discrimination against their community.

  Demonstrations by Sunni, in their tens of thousands, began with the arrest of the bodyguards of a Sunni politician on 20 December and are still continuing. For the first time since 2003 the Sunni - one fifth of the 33 million Iraqi population - are showing signs of unity and intelligent leadership as they try to escape political marginalisation in a country ruled since the fall of Saddam Hussein by the Shia majority in alliance with the Kurds.

  In the first days of the protests, Sunni demonstrators held up pictures of Saddam Hussein and waved the old regime's version of the Iraqi flag. This changed when a revered Sunni scholar, Abdul-Malik al-Saadi, taking a leadership role, instructed that these symbols of Sunni supremacy should be dropped and substituted with slogans acceptable to the Shia. Mr Saadi issued a fatwa condemning "regionalism", which is the code for a semi-independent Sunni region, a demand which, if granted, would mean the breakup of Iraq. He appealed instead for Sunni and Shia unity against the Maliki government. A Shia political observer noted that "they are aware that without winning over the Shia south of the country they face isolation and defeat."

  The new direction of Sunni opposition has met with a positive response. Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist populist Shia cleric, once dreaded by Sunni as the inspiration for the death squads of the Mehdi Army Shia militia, supported the protests, saying: "Iraq is not only composed of Shia, but Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, Mandeans and Jews as well." This cross-sectarian appeal by the Sunni makes it more difficult, but not impossible for Mr Maliki to play the sectarian card in upcoming local and parliamentary elections this year.

  The Sunni have a lot to complain about. Anger is deep over an anti-terrorism law that allows detention without trial of a suspect on the word of an unidentified informer. Sheikh Qassim al-Kerbuli, a leader in the Sunni heartland province of Anbar, says: "I know a Sunni teacher in Baghdad who threw a Shia student out of an examination because he caught him cheating. The student told the security forces the teacher was a terrorist and he is now in prison."

  Worse things can and do happen in prison. Torture of detainees is habitual, leading to false confessions and long prison sentences. This is not confined to Sunni, but they are most frequently targeted for abuse. "When the security forces arrest someone they torture them with electricity," says Nazar Abdel Hamid from Fallujah, who is helping organise the protests. "They are hung up by their hands or forced to sit on a broken bottle."

  The demonstrators are enraged over women being detained for long periods by the security forces because their male relatives are under suspicion, but cannot be found. Sheikh Kerbuli says "I know of one woman who has been held for six years because her husband was seen with a suspicious-looking black bag. Nobody knows what was in the bag but he escaped, so they took away his wife instead."

  Such stories are confirmed by human rights activists who have visited prisons. Pascale Warda, a former minister and one of the heads of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation, visited the women's prison in Baghdad last year. She says "there were 414 inmates of whom 169 had been arrested but not sentenced. Our team saw traces of torture at the time of the investigation. Some women prisoners had been raped, usually when they were being moved from the place where they were being investigated to the prison."

  The accusation of rape caused outrage when a government supporter claimed the women had been paid to make the allegation. William Warda, Pascale's husband, who also belongs to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation, says the authorities "always depend on confessions from those arrested under the anti-terrorism law so they always use torture on them." He says that when he asked why prisoners had been detained without charge for so long they say "they are still looking for evidence against them after three or four years."

  Sunni grievances are much more extensive than false imprisonment and mistreatment. They feel they have been reduced to the status of second class citizens, discriminated against when it comes to getting a fair share of jobs and projects to provide electricity, water and healthcare. They see anti-Ba'athist legislation, supposedly directed against leading members of the Ba'ath Party that ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003, as a sectarian weapon used to take away the jobs and pensions of Sunni teachers and minor civil servants. Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a political scientist and activist, says he visited a tea
cher in the Sunni district of Abu Ghraib in Baghdad who "after 30 years as a school teacher is out of a job and a pension. They just sent him a message written on a scrap of paper saying "Go home". He is penniless. If he was younger he would get a gun."

  Many Shia express sympathy for cases like this, but they add that Sunni in Anbar, Salahudin, Nineveh and Sunni districts of Baghdad are frequently unemployed because they used to have plum jobs under Saddam Hussein as army, police or intelligence officers. In the 1980s it was said that 80 per cent of army officers were Sunni and 20 per cent Shia, while the proportions were the reverse in the lower ranks. A retired Shia general says "it is hypocritical of Sunni to demand back security jobs that they only held in the past because of sectarian bias in their favour."

  The Sunni demonstrations, now entering their third month, raise a question crucial to the future of Iraq: how far will the Sunni, once dominant, accept a lower status? Members of the government fear the real agenda of the Sunni is not reform but regime change, a counter-revolution reversing the post-Saddam Hussein political settlement. "Shia leaders believe they have been elected, are legitimate and any change should come through an election," said one senior official. "If there should be any attempt to take power from them by force, they will fight."

  There is no doubt that in 2003, with the fall of Saddam Hussein and again in the sectarian civil war of 2006-8, the Sunni of Iraq suffered historic defeats. Baghdad became a largely Shia city with few mixed districts and remains so to this day.