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With the new president’s
first days full of unrest, there is no easy road
ahead, writes Diplomatic Editor Trevor Royle
Two years after the outbreak of hostilities to
unseat Saddam Hussein, Iraq is still an unquiet
place.
Yesterday’s demonstrations against the coalition’s
occupation of the country and the cold-blooded
executions of 15 Iraqi soldiers in an incident south
of Baghdad are hardly the best advertisement for the
new president’s claim that all Iraqis have the same
rights and that the end of the bloodshed is just
around the corner.
Appointed president of Iraq last Thursday, the
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani would have wished for
a less stormy start to his period in office.
For one man in particular, Talabani’s elevation
cannot have made easy viewing: Saddam Hussein was
forced to watch the televised ceremony in which the
leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was
inaugurated to the country’s highest office. It was
a historic moment steeped in irony because the
former Iraqi dictator was responsible for the
infamous Halabja and Anfal atrocities in 1988 when
5000 Kurds were killed with chemical weapons as part
of an organised campaign to destroy the Kurdish
community.
There was a further blow to what remains of Saddam’s
self-esteem when the Shia leader Ibrahim al Jaafri
was named prime minister – a fitting reward for his
United Iraqi Alliance’s success in the recent
elections, where they won 146 of 275 available
seats.
Outside the secret detention centre where Saddam is
incarcerated, the appointments were hailed as a new
beginning when the Sunni speaker of the new
administration, Hajem al-Hassani, claimed a new Iraq
had come into being.
“What more could the world want from us?” he asked
after Talabani announced that his two
vice-presidents would be Sunni and Shia. Despite two
months of wrangling the selections have been
generally welcomed, not least because they have
restored a sense of balance and fair play to Iraqi
politics.
Hopes are also high that the new order will take the
fight out of the insurgents who continue to plague
the Iraqi body politic. The official line from the
US-led coalition is that attacks are on the wane and
that the new Iraqi security forces are gradually
managing to contain the situation. While it is true
that the number of attacks has decreased, there is
no let-up in their intensity.
Last week’s attack on the Abu Ghraib prison was not
only well-planned and professionally directed but it
was fought on a scale that suggests the insurgents
have used the past weeks to regroup and re-equip.
Some 40 US soldiers were injured during the gun
battle which one commander called the most ferocious
he had experienced this year, confirming suspicions
that the insurgent groups are led by former
professional soldiers and have access to heavy
weaponry.
However, an escalation in the insurgency is not the
only problem facing the coalition. There have been
instances when the new Iraqi police force sided with
insurgents or refused to take part in operations. In
one incident in Basra City late last year, the
police actually got into a firefight with members of
the Iraqi National Guard .
According to Amyas Godfrey, head of the UK armed
forces programme at the Royal United Services
Institute (RUSI), this has led to longer-term
problems by “slowing down the entire process of
handing over which is in turn exacerbated by
equipment shortages, lack of training, high casualty
rates, intimidation and religious or tribal
allegiances”.
The International Crisis Group in Brussels has
warned that the recent attacks have “assumed a
troubled pattern” which again raises the spectre of
internecine fighting, and last week’s appointments
will not necessarily solve the matter.
Talabani has spoken of the need for national renewal
and an end to internal wrangling but his own Kurds
could provide a new and unwelcome flashpoint. Under
an agreement brokered last summer, Kurdish peshmerga
forces were absorbed into Iraq’s security forces but
they still regard themselves as an autonomous army
protecting local interests and have refused to allow
any non- Kurdish security forces into the three
northern provinces.
Already they have been involved in largely
unreported clashes with rival groups in the city of
Kirkuk, which Talabani has called “the Jerusalem of
Kurdistan”. They are unlikely to surrender its vital
oil revenues without a struggle.
At the election the Kurdistan Alliance, an
amalgamation of the two main Kurdish parties, won 75
seats, a larger proportion than expected, given that
they only represent some 20% of the Iraqi
population. This success was gained at the expense
of the Sunnis, who did not contest the election and
are now seriously alarmed by the increase in Kurdish
influence.
Kurdish leaders have already made it clear that when
the new Iraqi constitution is drawn up they will be
pushing for maximum autonomy and that could provide
a tipping point in their relationship with the rest
of the country. As the Kurds have made no secret of
their determination to make oil-rich Kirkuk their
regional capital, the potential for a terminal
falling-out is obvious.
The threat of civil conflict is never far away in
Iraq. The presence of the coalition forces means
that it is being contained but big question marks
hang over the loyalty and efficiency of the new
Iraqi security forces.
The Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Ukraine have
already announced they are to withdraw their forces
from the coalition and this will inevitably put
greater pressure on Britain and the US.
Washington has promised to keep its 120,000-strong
garrison in the country for at least another two
years, but the final withdrawal of foreign troops
could be the real test of whether or not the country
has finally been pacified.
“If it goes too quickly the country could descend
into anarchy, torn apart by numerous power
struggles,” claims RUSI’s Amyas Godfrey, who has
served two terms of duty in Iraq as an army officer.
“But, if forces stay too long their presence is in
danger of exacerbating the difficulties. No easy
answers, as always.”
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