IHT : Intelligence report at odds with U.S. policies on Iraq

Intelligence report at odds with U.S. policies on Iraq

By Damien Cave | August 24, 2007

BAGHDAD: The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate has effectively discredited the dominant American hypothesis of the past seven months: that safer streets, secured by additional troops, would create enough political calm for Iraq's leaders to reconcile.

They have failed to do so in part, suggests the report, which was released Thursday, because the security gains remain too modest to reverse Iraq's dynamic of violence and fear. Baghdad after all, remains a place where women at the market avoid buying river fish for fear that they've been eating bodies.

But just as important, according to Iraqi political analysts and officials, Iraq has become a cellular nation, dividing and redividing, where the constituency for chaos now outnumbers the constituency for compromise.

The central government has not held. Provinces and even neighborhoods have become the stage where power struggles play out, and as a result, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds - or elements of each faction - have come to feel that they could do a better job on their own.

"No one can rely on the political participants who lack a common view of the public interest," said Nabeel Mahmoud, an international relations professor at Baghdad University. "Such a concept is completely absent from the thinking of the political powers in Iraq's government, so each side works to get their own quota of positions or resources."

The Kurds are perhaps best positioned to benefit from the government's failures. Inside their already-autonomous area, cities like Erbil are experiencing a construction boom and already seem entirely disconnected from the rest of Iraqi life. This month the Kurds went even further, passing a regional oil law that would reach its full potential only if a national oil law was never implemented.

Shiites and Sunnis, however, are still the factions with the greatest responsibility for Iraq's political stalemate, and the ones most able to benefit from the dysfunctional status quo.

Shiites in particular, as the majority, have managed to take advantage of the weak government from a number of angles.

Various religious parties in majority-Shiite areas like Basra now openly fight for positions of power. Assassinations by Shiites of Shiite officials in the south have grown more common, and with huge oil wealth located in the region, interference from Baghdad remains entirely unwelcome.

Meanwhile, in the capital, offices run by the militia and civilian organization of the populist cleric Moktada al-Sadr have opened like franchises across the city. His Mahdi army, known as Jaish al-Mahdi, now controls businesses ranging from real estate to guns to gas.

One Mahdi commander from eastern Baghdad recently estimated that the Mahdi army controls 70 percent of the gas stations throughout the capital - a figure that is hard to verify but that falls in line with what American officials describe as a sophisticated network that combines brutality with business.

The American ambassador, Ryan Crocker, for example, recently titled the organization "Jaish al-Mahdi Incorporated."

Sadr, of course, does play a role in the government. Without the support of his party, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, would not have become prime minister. The Sadr bloc has expressed frustration with Maliki, repeatedly pulling out of the government to register discontent. And yet Sadr has yet to call for a replacement.

Many suppose that it is in part because he knows that a strong government supported by the Americans would likely crack down on what his organization has built.

"The people outside the law, the militia, the terrorists, the tribal leaders - all these people benefit," said Qasim Dawood, a Shiite member of Parliament. "There are people living on the crisis, gaining their power through the crisis."

New sources of power have also formed in the Sunni community. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in American reconstruction contracts have gone to Sunni tribal groups in Anbar who now work alongside the Americans to fight homegrown groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Similar bands of Sunni "guardians," as the American military often calls them, have formed in Diyala Province and in Sunni areas of Baghdad.

Leaders from the groups have said they would like to join the government, but according to some American officers working with the groups, their most common demand has consisted of three things: money, guns and freedom of movement. It is unclear what they will do if they are not given what they consider a fair share of power.

Lieutenant Michael Hoffman, a platoon commander with the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division in Baquba, recently described a scene in which some Baquba Guardians were outraged when he denied them an extraordinary share of a humanitarian food drop meant for some of the area's starved residents.

"There are still a lot of people who don't distinguish between being Baquba Guardians and their heritage," Hoffman said. He added that some of the volunteers he worked with had already quit.

Some Sunni leaders, nearly all of whom have pulled out of Iraq's government, said in recent weeks that they had no choice but to remain in opposition. Their communities view the government as completely opposed to Sunni interests, so signing on to legislation like a new oil law would be viewed as a mistake. Seeing the government work together - at a time when so many are invested in keeping it weak - would be seen as a cause for alarm, not celebration.

Undermining the government for some has become patriotic. As one senior Sunni leader, Saleh al-Mutlak, put it: "We have to satisfy people's frustrations."

Wisam A. Habeeb contributed reporting.