Can The US And Iraq Move Beyond Military Ties? – Analysis

Iraq's Mohammed Al-Sudani. Photo Credit: Mehr News Agency

 April 13, 2024  

By James Durso

Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in the erroneous belief that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and was allied with al-Qaida, the terror group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. 

The U.S. created an occupation authority, but failed to restore order and helped spawn the insurgency that bedeviled it by dismissing the entire Iraqi military and the most experienced civil servants. Coalition troops fought a losing battle, regained their footing with the 2007 troop surge, and finally departed in 2011. U.S. troops returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State and they remain there to this day, though ISIS was largely eliminated by 2019.

In January 2020, Iraq’s parliament voted on a nonbinding measure to remove the U.S. troops from Iraq, but the Americans remain at the request of the Iraqi government. However, in response to the parliament’s 2020 vote, Iraq and the International Coalition changed the mission of the troops from a combat mission to one of advisory and training.

Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, will meet U.S. President Joe Biden on April 15, primarily to discuss the U.S. troop presence. 

Though the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission is reviewing the troop presence issue, will the U.S. side stall fearing it may have to agree to a smaller presence and constrained operations? Possibly, so Sudani may want a public commitment from Biden to force the march to a constructive, timely decision.

Aside from the troops issue, Sudani wants to strengthen Baghdad’s ties with Washington, which he considers Iraq’s top bilateral relationship, and to add an economic dimension to Iraq’s ties with America.

When Americans think of Iraq in economic terms it’s all about the oil, but in November 2023 ExxonMobil, America’s biggest oil company, exited Iraq with nothing to show for a decade-long effort. The departure will lower the expectation of other U.S. companies, but Sudani wants to revitalize economic ties, and he will be accompanied by many of the country’s top businessmen.

U.S.-Iraq trade has room for growth. In 2022, the U.S. exported $897 million in goods, the top product being automobiles. Iraq, in turn, exported $10.3 billion in goods, most of it crude oil.

A key economic objective of Iraq is the $17 billion Development Road, an overland road and rail link from the Persian Gulf to Europe via Turkey, that will host free-trade zones along its length.

Biden and Sudani should consider the shape of the future U.S.-Iraq relationship, which has to now been governed by military considerations, and has become the best example of The Meddler’s Trap, “a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. …A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect.” 

Iraq is the only real democracy in the Arab world, and many young Iraqis want a separation of religion and state, something that should resonate with Americans and, Iraqis hope, cause the U.S. to deal with Iraq as Iraq, not a platform for operations against Syria and Iran, or to support Washington’s Kurdish clients.

Washington damaged itself in Iraq by killing Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020. Baghdad had moved the PMF, once a militia, into the government in 2016 (no doubt with American encouragement), so the killing of Muhandis, then a government official, increased popular support the PMF.

What are some clouds on the horizon for the U.S. and Iraq?

Corruption. Pervasive corruption in Iraq has slowed economic development and subjected Iraqi citizens to ineffective governance. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International ranked Iraq 154 of 180, a slight improvement from 2022 when it ranked 157 of 180.

Iraq was previously described by TI as: “Among the worst countries on corruption and governance indicators, with corruption risks exacerbated by lack of experience in the public administration, weak capacity to absorb the influx of aid money, sectarian issues and lack of political will for anti-corruption efforts.”

Sudani has not ignored corruption, calling it one of the country’s greatest challenges and “no less serious than the threat of terrorism.”

Elizabeth Tsurkov. Tsurkov is a Russian-Israeli academic who was kidnapped in 2023 by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-influenced Iraqi militia. Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University in the U.S., entered Iraq with her Russian passport and did not disclose that she was an Israeli citizen and Israeli Defense Forces veteran. (A 2022 Iraqi law criminalized any relations with Israel.)

Tsurkov’s family wants the Biden administration to designate Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism for failing to secure her release. Sudani’s office announced an investigation into the matter and the issue may arise when Sudani meets Biden, though the best outcome for Iraq and the U.S. is a Russia-brokered deal between Israel and Iran.

If Biden designates Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism that will irreparably damage the relationship and open the door for China.

China. The U.S. is Iraq’s top relationship, but not its only relationship. China will respond to the ostracism of Baghdad by extending invitations to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, the latter of which can fund infrastructure projects through the New Development Bank. PetroChina replaced ExxonMobil in West Qurna 1, one of Iraq’s biggest oil fields, and is ideally positioned for further expansion. And Iraq was the “leading beneficiary” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2021.

Sudani has said Iraq should not be a cockpit of conflict for the U.S, and Iran, but when Iran is concerned it, in Washington, is always 1979. Though Sudani has many challenges to face, Biden has more: he must reorient his government away from its colonial mentality in West Asia, recognize that Baghdad must reach a modus vivendi with Tehran that may not be to Washington’s pleasure, and not smooth the way for Beijing’s greater penetration of West Asia.

This article was published at Responsible Statecraft

Share

James Durso (@james_durso) is a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Central Asia.

Why did the US and allies invade Iraq, 20 years ago?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq toppled President Saddam Hussein

On 20 March 2003, US and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.

The US said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to international peace, but most countries refused to support military action against it.

Why did the US want to invade Iraq?

In the Gulf War of 1990-1991, the US had led a multinational coalition which forced invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Afterwards, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 687 ordering Iraq to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) - a term used to describe nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles.

In 1998, Iraq suspended cooperation with UN weapons inspectors, and the US and UK responded with air strikes.

After al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, President George W Bush's administration started making plans to invade Iraq.

President Bush claimed Saddam was continuing to stockpile and manufacture WMDs and that Iraq was part of an international "axis of evil", along with Iran and North Korea.

In October 2002, the US Congress authorised the use of military force against Iraq.

"Many people in Washington believed that there was significant evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that it posed a genuine threat," says Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House, a foreign affairs think tank in London.

In February 2003, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell asked the UN Security Council to give the go-ahead for military action against Iraq, saying it was violating previous resolutions with its alleged WMD programme.

However, he did not persuade the Council. Most of its members wanted weapons inspectors from the UN and International Energy Authority - who had gone to Iraq in 2002 - to carry out more work there to find evidence of WMDs.

The US said it would not wait for the inspectors to report, and assembled a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq.

Who supported the war?

Of the 30 countries in the coalition, the UK, Australia and Poland participated in the invasion.

The UK sent 45,000 troops, Australia sent 2,000 troops and Poland sent 194 special forces members.

Kuwait allowed the invasion to be launched from its territory.

Spain and Italy gave diplomatic support to the US-led coalition, along with several east European nations in the "Vilnius Group", who said they believed that Iraq had a WMD programme and was violating UN resolutions.

What allegations did the US and UK make against Iraq?

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN in 2003 that Iraq had "mobile labs" for producing biological weapons.

However, he acknowledged in 2004 that the evidence for this "appears not to be... that solid".

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destructions

The UK government made public an intelligence dossier claiming that Iraqi missiles could be readied within 45 minutes to hit UK targets in the eastern Mediterranean.

The UK's then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce WMD.

The two countries relied heavily on the claims of two Iraqi defectors - a chemical engineer called Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi and an intelligence officer called Maj Muhammad Harith - who said they had first-hand knowledge of Iraq's WMD programme.

Both men later said they had fabricated their evidence because they wanted the allies to invade and oust Saddam.

Who refused to support the war?

Two neighbours of the US, Canada and Mexico, refused to support it.


Germany and France, two key US allies in Europe, also refused support.




French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said military intervention would be "the worst possible solution".


Turkey - a fellow Nato member and neighbour of Iraq - refused to let the US and allies use its airbases.


Middle Eastern countries which had supported the US against Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War, such as Saudi Arabia, did not support its invasion in 2003.



"The Gulf Arab states thought the plan was crazy," says Professor Gilbert Achcar, an expert in Middle Eastern politics at University of London SOAS.

"They were worried about Iran getting control of Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime."

What happened in the war?

At dawn on 20 March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom began with 295,000 US and allied troops invading Iraq across its border with Kuwait.

70,000 members of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia fought Iraqi forces in the north of the country.

By May, Iraq's army had been defeated and its regime overthrown. Saddam Hussein was later captured, tried and executed.

However, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

In 2004, the country was engulfed by a sectarian insurgency. In later years, a civil war broke out between Iraq's Sunni and Shi'a Muslim factions.

US troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

It is estimated that 461,000 people died in Iraq from war-related causes between 2003 and 2011 and that the war cost the US $3 trillion.

"America lost a lot of credibility from this war," says Dr Karin von Hippel, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

"You still hear people saying, twenty years later: why do we want to believe American intelligence?"




Shock And War: Iraq 20 Years On
The BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera seeks to find new answers to why the Iraq war happened, what it meant, and its legacy today.
Download all 10 episodes on BBC Sounds

Iraqi government should consider more dams to prevent rivers vanishing: Iraqi engineer

An Iraqi expert cautions that corruption remains the biggest challenge in front of Iraq's reconstruction


An Iraqi youth strolls through the receding waters of the 

Tigris River in Baghdad on 12 July 2023. [Getty]

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
31 July, 2023

The reconstruction sector in Iraq is facing critical challenges, mainly corruption and the lack of governmental follow-ups and planning, which in turn is jeopardising the country and depriving it of international loans, the director of a famous Iraqi engineering consultancy company, Midhat Zwayen, told The New Arab during an exclusive interview.

Decades of war and corruption have made Iraq face serious infrastructure and environmental problems, including poor water quality, soil salinity, air and water pollution, climate change impacts and the threat of water shortages.

Iraq ranked 157 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2022.

The New Arab interviewed Midhat Zwayen, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Dijlah Consulting Engineers. Established in 1993, the company was awarded multiple projects such as hospitals, roads and bridges, water treatment plants, and electrical transmission and substations. The company has been involved in major infrastructure projects throughout Iraq, such as the new building of the Central Bank of Iraq and the Imam Ali Shrine extension.

"Corruption is a big challenge; the Iraqi government needs to address that as soon as possible because if it continues, the funders will not fund Iraq forever," Zwayen said. "The private sector in Iraq is fragile; we do not deal with corruption because that would ruin our reputation, especially at the consultancy; we have no interaction with any kind of corruption, which is why we are famous in the international community."

Regarding how they did their projects in Iraq, he clarified that they focus on international and bank funds, indicating that most of the mega projects in Iraq have been funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOCA), or the United Nations.

He said the bank controls funds by those agencies, and the Iraqi government or the militias cannot impose their will on how the funds should be spent.

He said his company had been kicked out from some of the projects with the Iraqi government because, as he opined, "We rejected certain behaviours they do."

Zwayen said that according to his sources, although JICA funded some finished projects in Iraq years ago, now the agency is not ready to give loans to the country because they do not feel the Iraqi government takes care of the money they gave them, like follow-up on the projects.

"Iraq's infrastructure is devastated; Iraq needs international funds to help us rebuild because we do not have experience, knowledge, and technology, and that is how we try to mediate with the Iraqi government," he noted.

Despite spending billions of dollars on energy projects in Iraq, the country still suffers from total blackouts and mainly depends on neighbouring Iran to import gas for generating electricity. Utilising renewables, especially solar, is to the minimum.

Authorities said a fire at an electricity substation in southern Iraq triggered a nationwide power outage Saturday just as demand peaks amid the searing summer heat."Renewable energy takes time to build and needs experience that we lack. Any Iraqi government prioritises power generation for now because it cannot survive without it," Zwayen stressed.

Most housing projects in Iraq are still not benefiting from new technologies of heat isolation. Hence most of the country's energy and power generation is lost in cooling systems in summer and warming the houses in Winter. "Iraq's Engineers Association has all these specifications and have submitted it to the Iraqi builders, but again builders often disregard it as it costs more and because of corruption they keep the money for their pockets", Zwayen outlined regarding the issue.

Regarding Iraq's environmental issues, specifically water pollution, he said Iraq's main two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, "are too polluted, first because we dump sewage to the rivers and lack sewage processing projects. Secondly, we are losing water flowing to wash away the sewage to the ocean. As Iraq's population has increased to 41 million, this is crucial and should be addressed. Otherwise, our rivers will die soon."

The two rivers are on the brink of running dry, as Turkey and Iran restrict water flow to Iraq.

"Following 2003, none of the Iraqi governments came up with an idea on how to deal with this, except for blaming the neighbouring countries; they will not do everything for you because they manage water efficiently, and we don't. Again, the situation deteriorates in Iraq because of corruption," Zwayen said."Turkey and Iran's excuses for restructuring the water flow might be somehow logical when they say we flow the water for you and what you are doing with it and why you waste it."

Drought threatens to render boatbuilding extinct in Iraq

Environment and Climate

Azhar Al-Rubaie

"To deal with this issue, Iraq must build more dams to keep the sewage flowing into the ocean. Iraq needs to reconsider building the Bekhme Dam. I do not know why they do not reconsider it, and finishing this dam should be the priority of any Iraqi government," he added.

The Bekhme Dam is an unfinished multi-purpose dam on the Great Zab 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

The dam's primary purpose was to produce hydropower and manage flooding in Iraq. Construction on the dam started in 1979 but was halted permanently due to wars and the Western embargo on the country. Following the 1991 Kurdish uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish ruling parties smuggled all reconstruction tools and power-generating turbines at the unfinished dam to neighbouring Iran.

Provincial elections have been scheduled to take place in 15 Iraqi provinces on 18 December, but many Iraqis are reluctant to renew their biometrics to participate in the vote.

Regarding Iraq's democracy, Zwayen stresses that "until now, leaders in Iraq, from a general manager to the president or the prime minister, did not understand the concept of democracy; it is linked to the economy, you need to have an open economy and an open investment." He also emphasised that Iraqi leaders think democracy means "you do what you like."

"That is not true; in a democracy, there are rules; if we don't have a strong understanding of democracy, then we will see militias in Iraq, just as we see it now," he added.

A New Year and a New Trump Foreign Policy Blunder in Iraq

03.01.2020 - Iraq - Codepink

US Embassy in Iraq under siege (Image by CC)

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies

It’s a new year, and the U.S. has found a new enemy—an Iraqi militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. How tragically predictable was that? So who or what is Kata’ib Hezbollah? Why are U.S. forces attacking it? And where will this lead?

Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) that were recruited to fight the Islamic State after the Iraqi armed forces collapsed and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, fell to IS in June 2014. The first six PMUs were formed by five Shiite militias that all received support from Iran, plus Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraqi nationalist Peace Company, the reincarnation of his anti-occupation Mahdi Army militia, which he had previously disarmed in 2008 under an agreement with the Iraqi government.

Kata’ib Hezbollah was one of those five original Shiite militias and it existed long before the fight against IS. It was a small Shiite group founded before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and was part of the Iraqi Resistance throughout the U.S. occupation. In 2011, it reportedly had 1,000 fighters, who were paid $300 to $500 per month, probably mainly funded by Iran. It fought fiercely until the last U.S. occupation forces were withdrawn in December 2011, and claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that killed 5 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad in June 2011. Since forming a PMU in 2014, its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, has been the overall military commander of the PMUs, reporting directly to the National Security Adviser in the Prime Minister’s office.

In the fight against IS, the PMUs proliferated quickly. Most political parties in Iraq responded to a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani to form and join these units by forming their own. At the peak of the war with IS, the PMUs comprised about 60 brigades with hundreds of thousands of Shia fighters, and even included up to 40,000 Sunni Iraqis.

In the context of the war against the Islamic State, the U.S. and Iran have both provided  a great deal of military support to the PMU and other Iraqi forces, and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga have also received support from Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif in New York in September 2014 to discuss the crisis, and U.S. Ambassador Stuart Jones said in December 2014, “Let’s face it, Iran is an important neighbor to Iraq. There has to be cooperation between Iran and Iraq. The Iranians are talking to the Iraqi security forces and we’re talking to Iraqi security forces… We’re relying on them to do the deconfliction.”

U.S. officials and corporate media are falsely painting Kata’ib Hezbollah and the PMUs as independent, renegade Iranian-backed militias in Iraq but they are really an official part of the Iraq security forces. As a statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office made clear, the U.S. airstrikes were an “American attack on the Iraqi armed forces.”  And these were not just any Iraqi military forces, but forces that have borne the brunt of some of the fiercest fighting against the Islamic State.

Open hostility between U.S. forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah began six months ago, when the U.S. allowed Israel to use U.S. bases in Iraq and/or Syria to launch drone strikes against Kata’ib Hezbollah and other PMU forces in Iraq. There are conflicting reports on exactly where the Israeli drones were launched from, but the U.S. had effective control of Iraqi airspace and was clearly complicit in the drone strikes. This led to a campaign by Shia cleric/politician Muqtada al-Sadr and other anti-occupation parties and politicians in the Iraqi National Assembly to once again call for the expulsion of U.S. forces from Iraq, as they successfully did in 2011, and the U.S. was forced to accept new restrictions on its use of Iraqi airspace.

Then, at the end of October, U.S. bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad came under a new wave of rocket and mortar attacks. While previous attacks were blamed on the Islamic State, the U.S. blamed the new round of attacks on Kata’ib Hezbollah. After a sharp increase in rocket attacks on U.S. bases in December, including one that killed a U.S. military contractor on December 27, the Trump administration launched air strikes on December 29 that killed 25 members of Kata’ib Hezbollah and wounded 55. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi called the strikes a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and declared three national days of mourning for the Iraqi troops that U.S. forces killed.

The U.S. attacks also led to massive protests that besieged the U.S. Embassy and former U.S. occupation headquarters in the Green Zone in Baghdad. U.S. forces at the embassy reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters, leaving 62 militiamen and civilians wounded. After the siege, the Trump administration announced that it would send more troops to the Middle East. Approximately 750 troops are expected to be sent as a result of the embassy attack and another 3,000 could be deployed in the next few days.

The U.S. retaliation was bound to inflame tensions with the Iraqi government and increase popular pressure to close U.S. bases in Iraq. In fact, if Kata’ib Hezbollah is indeed responsible for the rocket and mortar attacks, this is probably exactly the chain of events they intended to provoke. Incensed at the Trump administration’s blatant disregard for Iraqi sovereignty and worried about Iraq being dragged into a U.S. proxy war with Iran that will spiral out of control, a broad swath of Iraqi political leaders are now calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The U.S. military presence in Iraq was reestablished in 2014 as part of the campaign against the Islamic State, but that campaign has wound down substantially since the near destruction and reoccupation of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2017. The number of attacks and terrorist incidents linked to the Islamic State in Iraq has declined steadily since then, from 239 in March 2018 to 51 in November 2019, according to Iraq researcher Joel Wing. Wing’s data makes it clear that IS is a vastly diminished force in Iraq.

The real crisis facing Iraq is not a growing IS but the massive public protests, starting in October, that have exposed the dysfunction of the Iraqi government itself. Months of street protests have forced Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi to submit his resignation–he is now simply acting as a caretaker pending new elections. Severe repression by government forces left over 400 protesters dead, but this has only fuelled even greater public outrage.

These demonstrations are not just directed against individual Iraqi politicians or against Iranian influence in Iraq but against the entire post-2003 political regime established by the U.S. occupation. Protesters blame the government’s  sectarianism, its corruption and the enduring foreign influence of both Iran and the U.S. for the failure to invest Iraq’s oil wealth in rebuilding Iraq and improving the lives of a new generation of young Iraqis.

The recent attack on Kata’ib Hezbollah has actually worked in favor of Iran, turning Iraqi public opinion and Iraqi leaders more solidly against the U.S. military presence. So why has the U.S. jeopardized what influence it still has in Iraq by launching airstrikes against Iraqi forces? And why is the U.S. maintaining a reported 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, at Al-Asad airbase in Anbar province and smaller bases across Iraq? It already has nearly 70,000 troops in other countries in the region, not least 13,000 in neighboring Kuwait, its largest permanent foreign base after Germany, Japan and South Korea.

While the Pentagon continues to insist that the U.S. troop presence is solely to help Iraq fight ISIS, Trump himself has defined its mission as “also to watch over Iran.” He told that to U.S. servicemen in Iraq in a December 2018 Christmas visit and reiterated it in a February 2019 CBS interview. Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has made clear that the U.S. does not have permission to use Iraq as a base from which to confront Iran. Such a mission would be patently illegal under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, drafted with the help of the United States, which forbids using the country’s territory to harm its neighbors.

Under the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, U.S. forces may only remain in Iraq at the “request and invitation” of the Iraqi government. If that invitation is withdrawn, they must leave, as they were forced to do in 2011. The U.S. presence in Iraq is now almost universally unpopular, especially in the wake of U.S. attacks on the very Iraqi armed forces they are supposedly there to support.

Trump’s effort to blame Iran for this crisis is simply a ploy to divert attention from his own bungled policy. In reality, the blame for the present crisis should be placed squarely on the doorstep of the White House itself. The Trump administration’s reckless decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and revert to the U.S. policy of threats and sanctions that never worked before is backfiring as badly as the rest of the world predicted it would, and Trump has only himself to blame for it – and maybe John Bolton.

So will 2020 be the year when Donald Trump is finally forced to fulfill his endless promises to bring U.S. troops home from at least one of its endless wars and military occupations?  Or will Trump’s penchant for doubling down on brutal and counterproductive policies only lead us deeper into his pet quagmire of ever-escalating conflict with Iran, with the U.S.’s beleaguered forces in Iraq as pawns in yet another unwinnable war?

We hope that 2020 will be the year when the American public finally looks at the fateful choice between war and peace with 20/20 vision, and that we will start severely punishing Trump and every other U.S. politician who opts for threats over diplomacy, coercion over cooperation and war over peace.

---

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=IRAN

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/09/us-war-on-capitalism-in-iran.html

Bad News For Bush

Business as usual in Iraq. Surge or not.

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report.

"While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved." "Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised.

Iraq needs $100-150 bln for reconstruction: Finance minister

AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraq needs at least $100 billion to rebuild its shattered infrastructure after four years of violence and lawlessness following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Finance Minister Bayan Jabor said on Monday.

"The country is devastated and we are in need of at least $100 billion to $150 billion to restore infrastructure -- from sewerage to water to electricity to bridges and basic needs of the country," he told Reuters in Amman.

He said about $4 billion had been spent on infrastructure projects so far this year, more than in all of 2006, when internal violence and the limited capacity of the Iraqi private sector meant only about 40 percent of $6 billion allocated in the budget was used.

"What happened last year was ... a failure in the government's ability to execute," Jabor said.

Health and humanitarian crisis in Iraq

The billions of dollars planned for reconstruction are going unspent as the situation on the ground has spelled suspension for reconstruction efforts. While the coalition forces had not predicted the downward spiral that ensued - predicting a peaceful transition from one regime to another - investments have been mainly made in reconstruction efforts and in comparison, next to nothing, has been set aside for humanitarian assistance.

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

July 30, 2007 Quarterly and Semiannual Report to Congress (Highlights, All Sections and Appendices)

Asset Transfer
SIGIR produced another audit on the asset-transfer process,
looking at how completed projects are transferred to
Iraqi control. During the course of the audit, SIGIR found
that the Government of Iraq (GOI) has failed to accept a
single U.S.-constructed project since July 2006. Although
local Iraqi officials have accepted projects, the national
government has not. Moreover, SIGIR learned that the U.S.
government is unilaterally transferring projects to Iraq. The
failure of the asset-transfer program raises concerns about
the continuing operation and maintenance of U.S.-constructed
projects.

First Focused Financial Review
This quarter, SIGIR completed the first in a series of
focused financial reviews of large contracts funded by
the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF). These
reviews will meet the “forensic audit” requirement
that the Congress imposed upon SIGIR last December
through the Iraq Reconstruction Accountability Act of
2006.

This initial review examined the work performed
by Bechtel under its Phase II IRRF contract. SIGIR’s
findings from the Bechtel audit are emblematic of
the many challenges faced by contractors in the Iraq
reconstruction program, including insufficient oversight,
descoping, project cancellations, cost overruns,
and significant delays in completing projects. SIGIR has
announced the next round of focused financial reviews,
which will audit the largest contracts in the Iraq reconstruction
program over the next year.

Anti corruption
The Embassy made progress on several fronts to address the endemic corruption in Iraq, which SIGIR views as a “second insurgency.” This quarter saw the inception of the Iraqi-created Joint Anti-Corruption Council (JACC), comprising the three main anticorruption organizations in Iraq, as well as other governmental representatives. A SIGIR audit this quarter identified continuing challenges to the implementation of a coherent anticorruption effort, including the absence of a program manager with the authority to coordinate the overall anticorruption effort and the lack of a comprehensive plan that ties anti corruption programs to the U.S. Embassy’s Iraq strategy.

Officer overseeing Iraq reconstruction projects urges patience

Brig. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, commander of the Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division in Baghdad since Oct. 14, 2006, is responsible for overseeing the bulk of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects in Iraq. Earlier this summer, Government Executive senior correspondent Katherine McIntire Peters interviewed Walsh when he was in Washington during a brief leave from Iraq. The following is an edited transcript:

Q: You've been in Iraq more than eight months now. How have things gone with reconstruction during that time?

A: The security issue had an impact on about 12 percent of our projects when I got there, and now it's up to about 19 percent. Certainly part of the requirements in building, whether in the United States or Iraq, is to make sure you get the skilled labor, the equipment and the materials you need. In Iraq, you also need to make sure the security piece is taken care of, and then make sure the politics are OK with the local tribes and the provincial leadership. If any one of those four or five things is not in alignment, then you have to slow down or stop a project.

About 60 percent of our contracts are now with Iraqi firms. If an Iraqi principal or an Iraqi senior worker receives a cell phone call threatening him or his wife, he may not come to work. That's what we call an impact to the construction schedule. There also have been some attacks on particular project sites. Some small percentage have been damaged beyond repair. So far, we've completed 3,200 projects. I would say probably less than 1 percent of those have been destroyed. It's a very small percentage.

Troops Confront Waste In Iraq Reconstruction

Maj. Craig Whiteside's anger grew as he walked through the sprawling school where U.S. military commanders had invested money and hope. Portions of the workshop's ceiling were cracked or curved. The cafeteria floor had a gaping hole and concrete chunks. The auditorium was unfinished, with cracked floors and poorly painted walls peppered with holes.

Whiteside blamed the school director for not monitoring the renovation. The director retorted that the military should have had better oversight. The contract shows the Iraqi contractor was paid $679,000.

Americans who report Iraq corruption pay a price

Corruption has long plagued Iraq's reconstruction. Congress approved more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, and at least $8.8 billion of it has disappeared, according to a government reconstruction audit.

Yet there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle, according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press.

William Weaver, a professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and a senior adviser to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, said, "If you do it, you will be destroyed."

Investigating an Outsourced War

The United States government detained Donald Vance just outside Baghdad for 97 days. They hooded him, interrogated him ruthlessly, and blasted his cell with heavy metal music. He was accused of selling weapons to terrorists. His real crime appears to be telling the FBI about corrupt contracting practices in Iraq. Vance is among a select group of state enemies: whistleblowers.

We know this because of an Associated Press story that uncovered Vance’s ordeal. Vance, suspicious that the contractor he worked for was supplying weapons to insurgents, started supplying information to the FBI back in the States. But he was soon detained by Army Special Forces and brought to Camp Cropper for his 97-day stay.

The story also reported the fate of other whistleblowers who have tried to halt the massive boondoggles still ongoing in Iraq: they have been “vilified, fired, and demoted.”

Bunnatine Greenhouse, a high-ranking civilian in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who testified about the corrupt practices of a Halliburton subsidiary now “sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career.” Julie McBride testified about the same Halliburton company’s cost exaggerations and skimming. What happened? “Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion. My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country.”

Pentagon auditors investigating alleged Iraq contract fraud
Mike Rosen-Molina at 7:13 PM ET

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense will send an investigative team headed by Pentagon Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter to Iraq to probe allegations of fraud and corruption related to military contracts, a DOD spokesman said Tuesday. The team will concentrate on incongruities concerning weapons and supplies bought by the US and intended for the use of Iraqi forces. As of last week, 73 criminal investigations were underway into contracts valued at more than $5 billion, Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio said Monday; 20 military and civilian figures, including an officer who worked closely with Gen. David Petraeus , have already been indicted. The New York Times reported Tuesday that multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are conducting their own investigations into the matter.

The Rip-off in Iraq: You Will Not Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.

Humanitarian disillusions

On August 28th, Al-Jazeera English broadcast a report that the Salvadorian contingent of the MNF-I will be renewed in Iraq, highlighting their “reconstruction and humanitarian assignment”. It’s not the first misuse of the humanitarian concept. Everyone is aware of the existence of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps fewer people know that some Private Security Companies (PSCs), that are often compared to mercenary companies, justify their presence through “humanitarian” reasons.

For example, the British Aegis, well known in Iraq for the video broadcast by its personnel showing them firing at civilian vehicles with Elvis Presley as accompanying background music. As one of the largest PSC worldwide they have created the “Aegis Foundation”, which has been active across Iraq since 2004 and “has completed a wide range of projects assisting communities in urgent need, from providing clean drinking water for schools and inoculations against water-borne diseases to supplying hospitals and medical clinics with generators and essential equipment.” The International Peace Operation Association (IPOA), which, at the exact opposite of what its name suggest is a trade association of some of the most prominent PSC and has rules of engagement in its Code of Conduct, doesn’t hesitate to talk about the “benefits of military in humanitarian role” in its newsletter.

SEE:

Military Industrial Complex

The Cost of War

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout

What He Didn't Say

Iraq; The War For Oil

Look In Your Own Backyard

Iraq Inspector General

Another Privatization Failure

Conservative Nanny State

Another Privatization Myth Busted

Halliburton

Privatization of War

Privatization


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Iraq, contractor, privatization,
Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, USA, war, KBR, Halliburton
Corruption, Halliburton, Bechtel,
Politics, SOTU, State of the union, President Bush,
infaltion, recession, USeconomy, USA, economy, banks, war, costofwar, Iraq, Afghanistan, military, deficit, debt, Bush, WhiteHouse, economics, Halliburton, Bechtel,
Inspector-General, USA, Iraq, insurgency, Iran, IED, GAO, crony-capitalism, subsidies, war-profiteering, taxpayers,