Tribe Versus Tribe
By Rod Nordland and Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6831675/site/newsweek/
24 January 2005 Issue
Iraq's military was supposed to build national cohesion, but it could spur
sectarian conflict.
When elections are held in Iraq at the end of the month, Iraqis will not
see any of the 150,000 American troops stationed there guarding the polling
places. Instead, voters will pass groups of armed, masked men wearing black
balaclavas to hide their faces. The gunmen may look like terrorists, but
they'll be Iraqi Army and police, hiding their identities to protect themselves
from retaliation by insurgents, who rarely bother to hide their faces anymore.
American officials are hopeful the much-beleaguered Iraqi forces will prove
their mettle on Election Day, and preside over an election "by Iraqis and for
Iraqis," as an American general puts it. Yet Iraq's rebellious Sunni minority
is likely to see it differently: an election for Shiites and Kurds, guarded by
Shiites and Kurds, to dominate the Sunnis who once ruled the country.
The goal of American military planners has long been to use the new Iraqi
military to build national unity. And officially, that hasn't changed. American
military officials insist that Iraq's security services are not dominated by
non-Sunnis. "Absolutely incorrect," says Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who is in
charge of training efforts for the Iraqi forces. "The national forces are
national forces, typically Shia, Sunni, Kurds, Yezidi, everything. There is no
shortage of recruits from all the difficult areas." That may be true on paper
(although no official ethnic breakdown is available). Still, key units and
leaders are clearly dominated by Shiites and Kurds, who together represent 75
percent of the population.
Commando 36, for instance, was the first Iraqi National Guard unit into
Fallujah when the Marines assaulted the city in November. Shia militia veterans
and former Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas dominate the unit. They battled Sunni
fighters for the Fallujah hospital, which was being used as an insurgent base.
The new Iraqi Army's first full division, the Fourth Infantry, is commanded by
a Kurd, Lt. Gen. Abdul Aziz. "The division commander is absolutely committed to
an integrated Iraq," says his American counterpart, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who
is based in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. "The American Army was the
first institution to integrate America. The Iraqi Army will do the same for
Iraq."
But this ideal has proved harder to implement as the insurgency has grown
stronger. Ever since mid-2003, when the occupation authority disqualified many
officers from Saddam's Sunni-dominated military from rejoining the force,
leading Sunnis have been reluctant to sign up. Later the insurgents focused
their attacks on the Iraqi police and national guard, deeming them turncoats.
When Sunnis have joined the security forces, they've sometimes acted as double
agents. Distrust of Sunnis in official positions is now pervasive. "There is no
doubt that we are heavily infested in the government, right at the top," says a
leading official who has close ties to the Shia spiritual leader, Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
The new Iraqi military's first chief of staff was a Sunni-a former general
in Saddam's Army. But Gen. Amar Bakir al-Hashimi was fired last summer after
insurgents allegedly got key intelligence from one of his staff and used it to
assassinate a high-ranking officer. The new chief of staff is a Kurdish
general, and the other two highest Iraqi Defense officials are a Shiite and a
Kurd. In Mosul, the Sunni police chief, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi,
fled the city after his entire force collapsed in the face of insurgent
attacks. Later Kurdish troops arrested him carrying $600,000, and accused him
of selling out to the insurgents. He was eventually released without charges.
"He at one time was a shining example," says an American officer who has worked
with Barhawi. "But he was ground down, too long in that job, shot three times,
house badly damaged. In retrospect, he should have been transferred somewhere
else."
General Petraeus's training operation is turning out Iraqi battalions at a
greater pace than ever before, and getting them better equipment. But all told,
the security forces number 127,000-less than half the recommended total of
272,000-and the bulk of those have had little training or experience. Recently,
Iraq's new intelligence chief, Gen. Muhammad Shahwani, told Agence
France-Presse that the insurgents could count on as many as 200,000 fighters
and active supporters. "I think the resistance is bigger than the U.S. military
in Iraq," he said. The Pentagon was worried enough about it to send a retired
four-star general, Gary E. Luck, to Iraq last week for a sweeping review of
policy.
Now the hope is that by giving responsibility for election security to
Iraqi forces, they will receive a needed boost in prestige. Then, once the
elections are held, these same Iraqi forces will have a government of their own
they can fight for. "We hope [the new government] will bring more zeal to the
security services," says a U.S. official. Yet all major Sunni parties are
boycotting the elections, and many Iraqis have been warned that voters will be
shot on sight by the insurgents. Sunnis may feel they have fewer reasons than
ever to fight for their government.
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