http://www.boiseweekly.com/more.php?id=1191_0_1_0_M
21 April 2004
Fables of the reconstruction: Secret coalition memo revealed
A Coalition memo reveals that even true believers see the seeds of civil
war in the occupation of Iraq
By Jason Vest
AS THE SITUATION in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration
continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. According
to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi uprisings in half a dozen
cities, accompanied by the deaths of more than 100 soldiers in the month
of April alone, is something to be viewed in the context of “good days and
bad days,” merely “a moment in Iraq’s path towards a free and democratic
system.” More recently, the president himself asserted, “Our coalition is
standing with responsible Iraqi leaders as they establish growing
authority in their country.”
But according to a closely held Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) memo
written in early March, the reality isn’t so rosy. Iraq’s chances of
seeing democracy succeed, according to the memo’s author — a US government
official detailed to the CPA, who wrote this summation of observations
he’d made in the field for a senior CPA director — have been severely
imperiled by a year’s worth of serious errors on the part of the Pentagon
and the CPA, the US-led multinational agency administering Iraq. Far from
facilitating democracy and security, the memo’s author fears, US efforts
have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely
to result in civil war.
Provided to this reporter by a Western intelligence official, the memo was
partially redacted to protect the writer’s identity and to “avoid
inflaming an already volatile situation” by revealing the names of certain
Iraqi figures. A wide-ranging and often acerbic critique of the CPA,
covering topics ranging from policy, personalities, and press operations
to on-the-ground realities such as electricity, the document is not only
notable for its candidly troubled assessment of Iraq’s future. It is also
significant, according to the intelligence official, because its author
has been a steadfast advocate of “transforming” the Middle East, beginning
with “regime change” in Iraq.
‘The trigger for civil war’
Signs of the author’s continuing support for the US invasion and
occupation are all over the memo, which was written to a superior in
Baghdad and circulated among other CPA officials. He praises Iraqi
National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, and laments a lack of unqualified
US support for Chalabi, a long-time favorite of Washington hawks. (It
bears noting that Chalabi was tried and convicted in absentia by the
Jordanian government for bank embezzlement, in 1989, and has come under
fire more recently for peddling dubious pre-war intelligence to the US.)
The author also asserts that “what we have accomplished in Iraq is worth
it.” And his predictions sometimes hew to an improbably sunny view.
Violence is likely, he says, for only “two or three days after arresting”
radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr, an event that would “make other populist
leaders think twice” about bucking the CPA. Written only weeks ago, these
predictions seem quite unwarranted, since simply trying to arrest al Sadr
has resulted in more than two weeks of bloody conflict — with no end in
sight — and seems to have engendered more cooperation between
anti-Coalition forces than before.
Yet the memo is gloomy in most other respects, portraying a country mired
in dysfunction and corruption, overseen by a CPA that “handle(s) an issue
like six-year-olds play soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred
people chase after it hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what
happens on the field.” But it is particularly pointed on the subject of
cronyism and corruption within the Governing Council, the provisional
Iraqi government subordinate to the CPA whose responsibilities include
re-staffing Iraq’s government departments. “In retrospect,” the memo
asserts, “both for political and organizational reasons, the decision to
allow the Governing Council to pick 25 ministers did the greatest damage.
Not only did we endorse nepotism, with men choosing their sons and
brothers-in-law; but we also failed to use our prerogative to shape a
system that would work … our failure to promote accountability has hurt
us.”
In the broadest sense, according to the memo’s author, the CPA’s
bunker-in-Baghdad mentality has contributed to the potential for civil war
all over the country. “[CPA Administrator L. Paul] Bremer has encouraged
re-centralization in Iraq because it is easier to control a Governing
Council less than a kilometer away from the Palace, rather than 18
different provincial councils who would otherwise have budgetary
authority,” he says. The net effect, he continues, has been a “desperation
to dominate Baghdad, and an absolutism born of regional isolation.” The
memo also describes the CPA as “handicapped by [its] security bubble,” and
derides the US government for spending “millions importing sport utility
vehicles which are used exclusively to drive the kilometer and a half”
between CPA and Governing Council headquarters when “we would have been
much better off with a small fleet of used cars and a bicycle for every
Green Zone resident.”
While the memo upbraids CPA officials — an apparent majority — who stay
inside the Green Zone in the name of personal safety, it also maintains
that the Green Zone itself is “less than secure,” both for Westerners and
Iraqis. According to the author, “screening for Iranian agents and
followers of Muqtada al Sadr is inconsistent at best,” and anti-CPA
elements can easily gather basic intelligence, since no one is there to
“prevent people from entering the parking lot outside the checkpoint to
note license plate numbers of ‘collaborators.’”
Ordinary Iraqis also “fear that some of the custodial staff note who comes
and goes,” according to the memo, causing a “segment of Iraqi society to
avoid meeting Americans because they fear the Green Zone.” It also derides
the use of heavily armed personal-security details (PSDs) for CPA
personnel, saying the practice inspires reticence among ordinary Iraqis.
“It is ingrained in the Iraqi psyche to keep a close hold on their own
thoughts when surrounded by people with guns,” the memo notes. “Even those
willing to talk to Americans think twice, since American officials create
a spectacle of themselves, with convoys, flak jackets, fancy SUVs.”
While the memo offers an encouraging and appealing picture of thriving
businesses and patrons on the streets of a free Baghdad, it notes that
“the progress evident happens despite us rather than because of us,” and
reports that “frequent explosions, many of which are not reported in the
mainstream media, are a constant reminder of uncertainty.”
Indeed, while boosters of the Iraqi invasion delight in the phrase “25
million free Iraqis,” if the CPA memo is any indication, this newfound
liberty does not include freedom from fear. “Baghdadis have an uneasy
sense that they are heading towards civil war,” it says. “Sunnis, Shias,
and Kurd professionals say that they themselves, friends, and associates
are buying weapons fearing for the future.” The memo also notes that while
Iraqi police “remain too fearful to enforce regulations,” they are making
a pretty penny as small arms dealers, with the CPA as an unwitting
partner. “CPA is ironically driving the weapons market,” it reveals.
“Iraqi police sell their US-supplied weapons on the black market; they are
promptly re-supplied. Interior ministry weapons buy-backs keep the price
of arms high.”
The memo goes on to argue that “the trigger for a civil war” is not likely
to be an isolated incident of violence, but the result of “deeper
conflicts that revolve around patronage and absolutism” reaching a
flashpoint.
‘Their corruption is our corruption’
Asserting that the US must “use our prerogative as an occupying power to
signal that corruption will not be tolerated,” the CPA memo recommends
taking action against at least four Iraqi ministers whose names have been
redacted from the document. (Though there may be no connection, two weeks
ago, Interior Minister Nuri Badran abruptly resigned, as did Governing
Council member Iyad Allawi.) Also redacted is the name of a minister whose
acceptance of “alleged kickbacks . . . should be especially serious for
us, since he was one of two ministers who met the President and had his
picture taken with him.” (Though the identity of the minister in question
cannot be precisely determined, the only Iraqi ministers who have been
photographed with President Bush are Iraqi public-works minister Nesreen
Berwari and electricity minister Ayhem al-Sammarai, on September 23,
2003.) “If such information gets buried on the desks of middle-level
officials who do not want to make waves,” the memo warns, “the short-term
gain will be replaced by long-term ill.”
Developing this theme, the memo asserts that the US “share[s] culpability
in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis” for engendering Iraq’s currently
cronyistic state; since “we appointed the Governing Council members …
their corruption is our corruption.” The author then notes that two
individuals — names again redacted — have successfully worked to exclude
certain strains of Shia from obtaining ministerial-level positions, and
that for this “Iraqis blame Bremer, especially because the [CPA]
Governance Group had assured Iraqis that exclusion from the Governing
Council did not mean an exclusion from the process. As it turns out, we
lied. People from Kut [a city south of Baghdad recently besieged by Shiite
forces loyal to Muqtada al Sadr], for example, see that they have no
representation on the Governing Council, and many predict civil war since
they doubt that the Governing Council will really allow elections.”
Fanning the embers of distrust is the US’s failure to acknowledge that the
constituencies of key Governing Council members “are not based on
ideology, but rather on the muscle of their respective personal militias
and the patronage which we allow them to bestow,” according to the memo’s
author. Using the Kurds as an example, he reveals that “we have bestowed
approximately $600 million upon the Kurdish leadership, in addition to the
salaries we pay, in addition to the USAID projects, in addition to the
taxes which we have allowed them to collect illegally.” To underscore the
point, the author adds that he recently spent an evening with a Kurdish
contact watching The Godfather trilogy, and notes that “the entire evening
was spent discussing which Iraqi Kurdish politicians represented which
[Godfather] character.”
The memo also characterizes the CPA’s border-security policy as
“completely irrelevant,” going so far as to state that “it is undeniable
that a crumbling Baathist regime did better than we have” in that regard.
Noting that senior Defense Department officials do not fully understand
the nature of the problem, the memo recommends that the US “deploy far
greater numbers [of soldiers] than we have now” to the borders. The memo
also criticizes the Defense Department — in particular the Office of the
Secretary of Defense — for keeping potentially useful personnel in
Washington. “There is an unfortunate trend inside the Pentagon where those
who can write a good memo are punished by being held back from the field,”
it says, adding that “OSD harms itself, and its constituent members’
individual credibility, when it defers all real world experience to
others.”
The CPA’s press operation — headed by Dan Senor, Bremer’s senior
communications adviser, who is seen by many as little more than a White
House hack — doesn’t escape the memo writer’s criticism, either. The press
office, he says, has made a bad political situation worse by “promoting
American individuals above Iraqis.” In one case, the memo says, “Iraqis
present at the 4 am conclusion of the Governing Council deliberations on
the interim constitution were mocking Dan Senor’s request that no one say
anything to the press until the following afternoon.… It was obvious to
all that an American wanted to make the announcement and so take credit.
Our lack of honesty in saying as much annoyed the Iraqis . . . [they]
resent the condescension of our press operation.”
Pre-war concerns validated
By and large, the March memo validates many points raised by career
military, diplomatic, and intelligence officers before the war. For them,
lack of planning for post-war stabilization was a primary matter of deep
concern, which cannot be said for the Bush administration’s hawkish
advocates of “regime change.”
Among the more informed and prescient in this camp is Retired USAF Colonel
Sam Gardiner, a long-time National War College instructor and war-games
specialist who asserted in February of 2003 that “the military is not
prepared to deal with [Bush’s] promises” of a rapid and rosy post-war
transition in Iraq. Based on Gardiner’s experience as a participant in a
Swedish National War College study of protracted difficulties in
rebuilding Kosovo’s electrical grid after NATO bombed it in 1999, Gardiner
made a similar study, in 2002, of the likely effect US bombardment would
have on Iraq’s power system. Gardiner’s assessment was not optimistic. It
was also hardly unknown: not only did he present his finding to a mass
audience at a RAND Corporation forum, he also briefed ranking
administration officials ranging from then-NSC Iraq point man Zalmay
Khalizad to senior Pentagon and US Agency for International Development
officials.
Despite repeated assurances over the past year from CPA chief L. Paul
Bremer that Iraq’s electricity situation has vastly improved, the memo
says otherwise, reporting that there is “no consistency” in power flows.
“Street lights function irregularly and traffic lights not at all.…
Electricity in Baghdad fluctuating between three hours, on and off, in
rotation, and four hours on and off.”
“I continue to get very upset about the electricity issue,” Gardiner said
last week after reviewing the memo. “I said in my briefing that the
electrical system was going to be damaged, and damaged for a long time,
and that we had to find a way to keep key people at their posts and give
them what they need so there wouldn’t be unnatural surges that cause
systems to burn out. Frankly, if we had just given the Iraqis some baling
wire and a little bit of space to keep things running, it would have been
better. But instead we’ve let big US companies go in with plans for major
overhauls.”
Indeed, as journalists Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena noted in a
report from Iraq in Southern Exposure, published by the Durham, North
Carolina–based Institute for Southern Studies, the steam turbines at
Iraq’s Najibiya power plant have been dormant since last fall. As Yaruub
Jasim, the plant’s manager, explained, “Normally we have power 23 hours a
day. We should have done maintenance on these turbines in October, but we
had no spare parts and money.” And why not? According to Jasim, the
necessary replacement parts were supposed to come from Bechtel, but they
hadn’t arrived yet — in part because Bechtel’s priority was a months-long
independent examination of power plants with an eye towards total
reconstruction. And while parts could have been cheaply and quickly
obtained from Russian, German, or French contractors — the contractors who
built most of Iraq’s power stations — “unfortunately,” Jasim told
Chatterjee and Docena, “Mr. Bush prevented the French, Russian, and German
companies from [getting contracts in] Iraq.” (In an interview last year
with the San Francisco Chronicle, Bechtel’s Iraq operations chief held
that “to just walk in and start fixing Iraq” was “an unrealistic
expectation.”)
The CPA memo also validates key points of the exceptionally perceptive
February 2003 US Army War College report, “Reconstructing Iraq: Insights,
Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario.”
Critical of the US government’s insufficient post-war planning, the War
College report asserted that “the possibility of the United States winning
the war and losing the peace is real and serious.” It also cautioned that
insufficient attention had been given to the political complexities likely
to crop up in post-Saddam Iraq, a scene in which religious and ethnic
blocs supported by militias would further complicate a transition to
functional democracy in a nation bereft of any pluralistic history.
According to a Washington, DC–based senior military official whose
responsibilities include Iraq, CPA now estimates there are at least 30
separate militias active in Iraq, and “essentially, [CPA] doesn’t know
what to do with regard to them — which is frightening, because CPA’s
authority essentially ends on June 30, and any Iraqi incentive to get rid
of the militias is likely to go away after that date, as sending US troops
around Iraq against Iraqis isn’t likely to endear the new Iraqi government
to its citizens.”
And then there is the problem of Iran. According to the memo, “Iranian
money is pouring in” to occupied Iraq — particularly the area under
British control — and it asserts it is “a mistake” to stick to a policy of
“not rock[ing] the boat” with the Iranians, as “the Iranian actors with
which the State Department likes to do business . . . lack the power to
deliver on promises” to exercise restraint in Iraq. According to senior US
intelligence and military officials queried on this point, the Iranian
influence in Iraq is both real and formidable, and the US is, as one put
it, at best “catching up” in the battle for influence. But the officials
also added that pushing the point with Iran too hard — either through
diplomatic channels or on the ground in Iraq — would likely be more
troubled than the current course of action, possibly resulting in armed
conflict with Iran or a proxy war in Iraq that the US isn’t ready to
fight.
Famously, Lord Cromer once described Great Britain’s approach to the Land
of the Nile: “We do not rule Egypt; we rule those who rule Egypt.” Compare
that with several statements made by the US official who wrote the memo
considered here. Of one senior Iraqi official, whose name is redacted, he
states that “it is better to keep [him] a happy drunk than an angry
drunk.” And he says of two other Iraqi leaders that they are “much more
compliant when their checks are delayed or fail to appear,” adding that
“the same is true with other Governing Council members.” The attitudes
aren’t much different, are they? And yet sometimes, the most true and
heartbreaking view is afforded from the wheel of the mighty ship of state.
Jason Vest is a senior correspondent for the American Prospect. His book
on the current Bush administration and national security will be published
in 2005. This piece was commissioned by the Association of Alternative
Newsweeklies (AAN) for use by its members.
