Over 60 Days, Troops Suppressed an Uprising

Over 60 Days, Troops Suppressed an Uprising

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By Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service

NAJAF, Iraq (news - web sites) -- After a year in Iraq, Lt. Jon Silk and the rest of the Army's 1st Armored Division had tickets home. But before dawn on April 5, he and his platoon rumbled toward this southern city of shrines and cemeteries, headed into war.


Over the next 60 days, more than 5,000 troops from the division engaged in the most sustained urban combat operation of the now 15-month occupation. In desert cities that once welcomed American troops, they battled a Shiite uprising that threatened to upset the June 30 transition to an Iraqi interim government. Their orders were stark: Smash the uprising, and capture or kill its leader, the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.


Silk soon found himself in a swirl of continuous combat, the kind of close fighting that the military had expected, but mostly avoided, during the 2003 invasion. Pinned down while pushing across a narrow bridge to retake the city of Kut, he watched four soldiers in his 15-man platoon fall wounded. "It was insane the amount of fire we were taking," he said later.


By the time the uprising was over, silenced in a cease-fire June 4, the U.S. military success appeared decisive. While 19 U.S. soldiers had been killed in combat and scores wounded, military officials estimate that 1,500 insurgents were killed. Sadr's militiamen had been driven from positions many had died defending.


But like much of the occupation, the battle for the Shiite holy cities yielded a more ambiguous political outcome. Sadr remains at large; U.S.-sponsored polls show him to be one of Iraq's most popular figures. Hundreds of his militiamen escaped, perhaps to fight another day.


The mixed messages echo in the experiences of soldiers from the 1st AD, as the division is known, who next month will leave an Iraq more violent than it was when they arrived 15 months ago. The battles revealed lessons about their enemy and themselves, and about the unpredictable winds of history in Iraq.


"This was what we expected when we first got here, not at the end," said Sgt. Jacob Garcia, 34, of Corpus Christi, Tex. "The fighting should have gone from heavy to light."


This is an account of the 60-day campaign as it was seen by dozens of the soldiers who fought in key battles from April 8 through June 4 and by the commanders who guided them. It is also drawn from a tour of the area. Many of the battles took place in four cities -- Kut, Karbala, Najaf and Kufa. The soldiers were led by four lieutenant colonels, all in their early forties, each seasoned by a year in the country.


The uprising began April 4, when U.S. troops in an east Baghdad slum moved to disarm members of Sadr's militia, known as the Mahdi Army, who were protecting the young cleric from arrest for allegedly sponsoring the killing of another Shiite leader. A 10-hour gun battle ensued that killed nine U.S. soldiers and wounded 51 others.


The uprising quickly spread south. Although a third of the 1st AD's 38,000 troops and much of its equipment had been packed up for a scheduled rotation back to Germany, those orders were canceled.


Within hours, elements of the division's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 2nd Brigade were rolling south toward Kut, where Sadr militiamen had driven off Ukrainian troops and seized the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA.

The Bridge, Kut: April 8-11

Capt. Mike Wall's Bravo Company rolled into Kut near midday on April 8 and confronted a daunting landscape for a tank commander. The Tigris River slices the city in half. On the other bank sat the seized CPA compound. But it looked doubtful whether the narrow bridges knitting the two sides together could support a 70-ton M1 Abrams tank.


That evening, Lt. Col. T.C. Williams, the 42-year-old battalion commander from Potomac, Md., devised a plan for Wall's company. The tanks would roll 20 miles north to a secure Tigris crossing, then hook south toward the CPA headquarters in darkness. The ploy worked: Caught off guard by the 45-mile looping attack, Sadr's men abandoned the building with little resistance.


To retake all of Kut, however, U.S. forces needed to control another bridge a quarter-mile south of the CPA compound, and then join up with Wall's company. The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's "Killer Troop" led by Capt. Jon Dunn pushed across the span after midnight on Good Friday.


Sgt. Luis (news - web sites) Savina, 29, was in the lead platoon as it crossed the bridge into a traffic circle overlooked by an Iraqi police station. The police had fled or joined the insurgents, and as the soldiers arrived, rocket-propelled grenades from the militia hammered their unarmored Humvees. Insurgents trained floodlights on his soldiers from the police station, washing out their night-vision goggles. The Americans shot out the lights. New ones came on.


"It was pretty perfect," said Savina, of Agawam, Mass. "They say three out of 10 soldiers never pull the trigger in battle. Fortunately, my platoon doesn't have that problem."


The close-quarters combat made it impossible for Dunn to call in airstrikes without risking friendly-fire casualties. Apache helicopters above the city were vulnerable to ground fire if they hovered long above the battlefield in search of a safe shot.

"Everything easy was hard that day," said Dunn, a 30-year-old from Woodbridge, Va.

As daylight approached on April 9, Silk's platoon pulled back to the middle of the bridge, giving the Apaches and an AC-130 gunship room to fire. Airstrikes on the traffic circle and the palm groves that lined the river drove the insurgents back.

Near dawn, Silk's platoon pushed across the bridge to find bloody tracks where wounded insurgents had been dragged away. Waiting in the traffic circle were two Bradley Fighting Vehicles sent as a greeting by Wall from the CPA headquarters.

"They seemed kind of pleased," said Wall.

Governor Street, Karbala: May 1-11
By May 1, about 200 Sadr militants had dug in near Karbala's gold-domed shrines of Abbas and Hussein, two of Shiite Islam's most sacred sites. The militia controlled Karbala's government and had access to its funds.

Karbala had been the responsibility of a brigade of Polish soldiers. Like Spain, Ukraine and other U.S. partners responsible for security in the Shiite south, the Polish government had prohibited its soldiers from conducting offensive operations. The rules rendered them useless when Sadr's militia rose up.

"We gave coalition partners land to manage because we thought we were at a particular phase in the mission," said Maj. Gen. Martin (news - web sites) E. Dempsey, the division commander. "We thought we had transitioned in certain places. When the uprising occurred and that transition took a step backwards, it put them in an awkward position."

"Essentially we had ceded control of the city on April 7," said Lt. Col. Garry P. Bishop, commander of the 37th Armored Regiment's 1st Battalion.

Bishop, 40, a fiery West Point graduate from Philadelphia, was ordered to drive Sadr's forces out of Karbala. He believed the militia planned to make a stand in the shadow of the shrines. His plan called for a show of force that might frighten off Sadr's men and avoid a pitched battle over the mosques.

On May 5, beginning at an amusement park that the militia used as a weapons depot, Bishop's tanks moved down Governor Street toward the shrines. Kiowa and Apache helicopters zipped overhead, clearing snipers from hotel roofs. Sadr militants, meanwhile, drew ammunition from stockpiles along irrigation canals that were off-limits to tanks.

"As we started moving along, we'd be getting pinged with sniper fire, RPGs," said Sgt. David Taylor, 37, a veteran tank commander from Copperas Cove, Tex. "They'd pop out from behind walls and take potshots at us."

In two-man teams, soldiers left the tanks to disable roadside bombs, snipping wires and blowing up the devices. "Snipers were our biggest problem," said Sgt. Aaron Owen, 30, of Powell, Wyo., whose driver was shot in his helmet. "They chewed us up pretty good. I've got holes in my pants" from shrapnel, he said.

The flailing quality of the insurgents' early stand gave way to a more skilled defense the closer troops got to the Mukhaiyam mosque, a former funeral home that Sadr had declared a holy place. U.S. commanders throughout the south saw the same pattern.

Several said Sadr's militia appeared to be led by highly competent commanders, even though most fighters seemed poorly trained. Concentric circles of defenses were built around the leadership's refuges, weapons depots and other strategic sites. The closer U.S. troops moved to command centers or ammunition stockpiles, the more adept the resistance became.

As he rolled toward the mosque, Taylor had the "primary sight" blown out of his tank. The field hospital began treating more arm and leg wounds -- a sign that snipers knew the limits of body armor and had the skill to take advantage of it.

"The enemy started to change," Bishop said.

The Cemetery, Najaf: May 14-24
Since mid-April, Lt. Col. Pat White's soldiers of the 37th Armored Regiment's 2nd Battalion had fought nightly against an estimated 2,500 militiamen in this southern city.

The militants fought from minarets and the plumes of palm trees, a favorite sniper perch. The U.S. tactics were almost as rudimentary: Columns of unarmored Humvees patrolled the city, sector by sector, as lures for "enemy contact."

White told his company commanders: "Draw them out, kill as many as you can, and don't stop until you have."

For weeks, Sadr's foot soldiers had used the impenetrable acres of Najaf's cemetery, the largest in the Islamic world, as a staging area. Just blocks away is the Shrine of Imam Ali, the holiest place in Shiite Islam. As the battle loomed, both sites were designated by U.S. commanders as "exclusion zones" for their troops.

Soldiers said the rules of engagement around the zones allowed them to fire into the areas only if they could see an attacker, a nearly impossible standard given the cover provided. Dempsey said the zones were recommended by Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the head of the U.S. forces in Iraq, and drawn up in consultation with local commanders.

U.S. officers knew that damaging the shrines would inflame opinion in Iraq and worldwide against the Americans. The British, the firmest U.S. partner in Iraq, were already angered by what they saw as provocative U.S. military tactics in the holy cities.

"One private first class with one tank round could have unhinged this whole thing," Dempsey said.

U.S. soldiers said the zones awarded a tactical advantage to Sadr's men, who used them as refuges. Operating near the Shrine of Imam Ali, U.S. patrols came under steady fire that they did not return. Each night, mortars fell on their camp -- 495 in all -- fired from a mosque complex in Kufa, a few miles to the east, also protected by an exclusion zone.

"Our soldiers were getting hurt in the same places every day because of these zones," said Spec. Christopher Stinespring, 30, of Arthurdale, W.Va. "There was nothing we could do."

On May 14, Lt. Colin Cremin, the executive officer of "Aggressor" Company, arrayed tanks on the cemetery's edge and immediately came under fire.

"There were hundreds of them in there, and they had positions everywhere, popping up among these catacombs," said Lt. Michael Watson, a platoon leader from Bentleyville, Pa. "They were intelligent about their positions. They had to know our [rules of engagement] in regards to the holy sites."

As Watson's men pursued the fighters on foot, a grenade arced over the cemetery wall and exploded beneath a Humvee. After the loss of one Humvee a week earlier, sparking a celebration by Sadr's men, the soldiers refused to surrender this one. The resulting firefight turned into a six-hour defense of a burning car.

"We weren't going to let them dance on it for the news," said Capt. Ty Wilson, 31, of Fairfax, Va., who commands "Apache" Company. "Even all the guys they lost that day, that still would have given them victory. Once they saw we weren't going to leave it, though, they really stepped up the attack."

After the troops took mortar fire for days from behind the cemetery wall, a tank was sent to knock down a 200-foot section, exposing the fighters inside. Qasim Alwan, a Najaf resident who watched the fight, remembered the animosity it inspired.

"Most people were out of their houses because they feared the war, and what was happening in the cemetery," said Alwan, 36. "What happened disrespected what the cemetery means to us."

But the mortar attacks stopped.

Mukhaiyam Mosque, Karbala: May 11-21
By May 11, Sadr's militants had withdrawn into a square-mile area around Karbala's shrines. For the first time, Bishop's soldiers contended with an exclusion zone of their own.

That evening Bishop sent hundreds of soldiers into buildings around the Mukhaiyam mosque. Sgt. Shane Hill, a 24-year-old from Chicago, entered a boys school a block west of the mosque. He found tank rounds and four men who identified themselves as Iraqi police officers bound and gagged, badly beaten and smelling of urine.

As Hill worked to clear the school, mortar shells fell in the courtyard, fired by teams of insurgents who faded into the old city. Bisho, observing from a few blocks away, would not let his men pursue them into the exclusion zone. Asked how he made the decision, Bishop said, "By being here a year."

The battle moved to the shrines. Over 10 days, Bishop's soldiers played cat-and-mouse with insurgents who took cover among the city's alleyways, covered archways and low rooftops. Residents were caught in the fighting. The soldiers estimate that 20 civilians were killed in Karbala during the fighting, a figure that could not be independently verified.

Squeezed into a few downtown blocks, Sadr militants began using children to shuttle ammunition, soldiers said. Youngsters carrying large plastic bags darted from corner to corner, and the soldiers would not shoot them. "We all grew up knowing you don't hurt women and children," Taylor said. "And they used that to their advantage."

Sadr militants accused U.S. forces of killing hundreds of civilians, a claim denied by U.S. commanders. Hussein Hadi, the assistant director of Najaf's general hospital, said 81 civilians were killed and 353 others wounded during the weeks of fighting. Many of Sadr's militiamen wore black uniforms, making it relatively easy to distinguish between civilian and insurgent. But that changed as the battle wore on.

On May 21, Bishop's men destroyed two arms stockpiles and two Sadr headquarter buildings. The remaining militants, whose numbers swelled to more than 400 over the course of the fighting, vanished overnight.


Kufa: May 24-June 4
By the last week in May, Najaf's war of attrition had entered its endgame. From two sides, battalion-size tank units converged on the town of Kufa, a few miles east of Najaf, where Sadr delivered Friday sermons.

In darkness, tank platoons began pushing into Kufa across a bridge over the Euphrates. Fighters holed up in a former palace and a technical college watched over the west side of the river. Each night, soldiers shot tank rounds into the buildings.

On the night of May 24, Lt. Col. Bob Burns, commander of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's 3rd Squadron, sent three tanks under Capt. Geoff Wright on a scouting mission across the bridge. As the convoy turned north toward the Kufa mosque complex, the heart of Sadr's militia, six rocket-propelled grenades hit the lead tank.

"Every alley had four- to five-man teams, firing," said Wright, 31, of Emmaus, Pa. "The sheer amount of it was awe-inspiring."

Wright's tanks pounded back for hours as they looped through Kufa. When he returned to base, only one of three tanks was deemed "mission-capable." The following day Sadr's aides announced a truce.

"They may be poor, they may be untrained," Wright said. "But they are not cowards."

Before the start of Friday prayers a few days later, Burns sent a tank company across to verify the truce. It was the first daylight operation in weeks of combat.

The traffic appeared heavy when they crossed the bridge at 7:45 a.m. As they moved toward the mosque, a message blared from its loudspeaker, calling on Sadr's supporters to "fight for Allah and you will go to paradise." The firing started immediately.

"It was the first time I'd seen a Mahdi Army fighter up close," Wright said. "He was 17 or so. I was shocked he was so young."

Riding in an open Humvee, Spec. Rodney Clayborn, 21, swung down an alley following the source of grenade fire. Moments later he looked toward the rooftops and saw a ball of flame rushing at him.

"I tried to shoot it down," he said. "But it hit and blew up right in front of us."

The grenade concussion knocked Clayborn out and when he revived the Humvee was being riddled with rifle fire. He scrambled out of his seat, bleeding from shrapnel wounds to his arms, legs and right ear. He saw his sergeant on the ground, wounded badly in the arm.

"He asked me if he was going to make it," recalled Clayborn, tears streaking his smooth face. "I kind of paused, and said, 'Yes, you're going to be fine.' He didn't believe me."

He wasn't sure himself, although he turned out to be right. Screaming for help, Clayborn summoned several soldiers who pulled him out of the alley.

"I think it's God's plan to have me stay here until this mission is finished," said Clayborn, of Lancaster, Calif., who received a Purple Heart after the fight.

The cease-fire took effect on June 4, days after troops arrested two key Sadr lieutenants, one of them in a convoy that commanders believed may have carried Sadr himself. Within days, Sadr announced plans to form a political party and compete in elections next year. What remained of his army flowed out of the city in minibuses.

"We'd routinely stop caravans of men 18 to 25 years old," said Capt. Brandon Payne (news - web sites), 29, of Chattanooga. "They had no weapons, so we couldn't do anything."

No one is certain exactly how many Sadr militants remain, although division intelligence officers say there are no more than several hundred. Dempsey said he never formally agreed to a cease-fire, and said he could not be sure that the fighters who survived would not regroup. Nonetheless, he defended the timing of the decision to stop fighting.

"It was clear there was a point at which the people of Najaf would blame the militia for what was happening, and beyond that they would blame us," Dempsey said of the decision. "We watched that point carefully."

But many soldiers believe the decision was premature, and that it will haunt the Iraqi government after the 1st Armored Division has gone home.

"Our effort here has been semi-wasted," said Staff Sgt. Luke Andrzejewski, 35, of San Francisco. "They have lived to fight again, and that's exactly what they'll do."

The New Leaders of Iraq (2)

June 18, 2004 No.182

The New Leaders of Iraq (2): Interim Prime Minister Iyad Hashem Allawi and the Interim Government
By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*
Introduction
Iyad Hashem Allawi was born in Baghdad in 1946 to a distinguished family, which resided in the upper class area of Baghdad, known as Al-Mansoor District. His father was Hashem Allawi, MD; his mother was Lebanese, from the well-known Al-Usairan family. The Allawi family played a leading role in Iraq during the monarchy. Abd Al-Amir Allawi was the minister of health (married to the sister of Dr. Ahmad Al-Chalabi) and Ja'far Allawi was one of Baghdad's leading architects. Like his father, Iyad Allawi became a doctor. He received his medical degree from the college of medicine at the University of Baghdad, moved to Beirut in 1971, and a year later relocated to the U.K. to pursue studies in neurology.

Because of his activities against the Iraqi regime while in England, he became a target for assassination by the Iraqi intelligence service (mukhabarat). In 1978, two agents of Saddam's intelligence service broke into Allawi's house and stabbed him several times, leaving him for dead. It took a year of hospitalization and a number of surgeries to restore his health. Not deterred by the attempt on his life, Allawi continued to oppose the regime and, in 1991, he established his political movement, the Iraqi National Accord (Al-Wifaq Al-Watani). By 1996, Allawi was able to publish a newspaper, Baghdad, now an Iraqi daily, and to build a broadcasting station called "The Future." [1] In 1996, the movement opened an office in Amman, Jordan, where he openly campaigned, sometimes with acts of sabotage, against the Saddam regime.

The preamble to the Accord's constitution states that the movement was established "for the sake of striving toward a democratic and competitive regime that respects human rights and lives in peace with its people, its neighbors, and the world at large." [2]


The Selection of Allawi as Prime Minister
Dr. Iyad Allawi was one of four candidates considered for the job of prime minister; all were acceptable to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, whose endorsement was considered vital for the success of the candidate. The emergence of Dr. Allawi at the top is attributed by the press to two primary factors: first, he has had good relations with many Arab regimes, particularly with the Jordanian monarchy, which lobbied on his behalf to prevent any consideration of its nemesis, Dr. Ahmad Al-Chalabi. Moreover, as a former rotating president of the Iraqi Governing Council, he had urged the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to assign to Jordan the responsibility of training the Iraqi army and police. [3] Second, he has had good relations with elements of the U.S. government, mainly the State Department and the C.I.A., both of which harbored distrust of Dr. Al-Chalabi. Dr. Allawi has also spent $340,000 on public relations firms to lobby the U.S. government on his behalf. [4]


Inaugural Address
Allawi's inaugural address on June 1 was brief, poignant, and simple. He stated the obvious: "We Iraqis are just like the rest of the people of the world; we don't want our country to remain under occupation… The multinational force will remain in Iraq only as long as it is necessary to reestablish peace." Internally, his government will strive to improve the economy, solve unemployment problems, reduce the rate of inflation, improve purchasing power through an appreciated value for the Iraqi dinar, renovate infrastructure, and improve the electricity, water, and sewage networks. Externally, Iraq will be "peaceful and stable, and will co-exist constructively with its neighbors, promoting security and progress for the people of the region." [5] Allawi repeated the same objectives in his interview with Sir David Frost on BBC. [6] They are a tall order for a government that is scheduled to rule for six months amidst conditions of daily violence and widespread insecurity. However, he understood the Iraqi people badly needed an injection of hope.


Address to the Nation
In his address to the nation on June 4, Prime Minister Allawi focused again on the key issues that face his government – security, building of the infrastructure, the country's external debts, and, above all, national reconciliation. In that respect, he announced his willingness to coordinate with the political parties that opposed the previous regime and dissolve the militias and incorporate their members into the emerging Iraqi security forces - army, police, national guard, and intelligence. In the same speech, he promised to increase salaries and generally improve living standards through the sale of oil. He added that Iraq will not take any initiative for aggression against its neighbors. [7]

On June 7, Allawi announced an agreement with nine political parties and groups to dissolve their respective militias - to integrate into the army those who wish to do so and to pay pensions to those who opt otherwise. [8] Training will be offered to those who have chosen neither option. Not included in the deal is the young Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr's militia known as Al-Mahdi Army, which remains a primary source of violence and instability.


The New Government and Muqtada Al-Sadr
Among the major sources of insecurity are the activities of Muqtada Al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army and the propensity of its leader for violent action in pursuit of his political objectives. Al-Sadr has already rejected the new government "to the day of resurrection." [9] The prime minister called on Al-Sadr to use "the language of civilized and rational dialogue" and expressed his regret that Al-Sadr has resorted to non-democratic method to mobilize the street in pursuit of his objectives. He warned that the Iraqi government "will act in accordance with the laws and will not permit actions in violation of the law." [10] Al-Sadr's recent qualified statement that he will support Dr. Allawi's government and that he will turn his militia into a political party that would compete in elections was welcomed by the Iraqi government. [11]


The New Government
Allawi has put together a balanced government comprising the key political and ethnic sectors of Iraq. Among its members are six women - a significant move in itself. It is also an interregnum government with huge political, economic, and social challenges, but a limited time horizon - its term shall end in early 2005 when a new government is expected to emerge following national elections. In the meantime, there is friction within the government. The Kurds, initially promised two so-called "sovereign cabinet posts," namely that of foreign affairs and defense, were given only one such post - foreign affairs. In lieu of the defense post, a Kurd, Barham Salih, was made deputy prime minister for security affairs, which may not amount to much. Hence, Mr. Barham has refused to assume the post until his responsibilities are defined. [12]


The Composition of the Government
The new Iraqi government comprises the president and the two vice presidents, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, and 31 other ministers. The government is diverse in religious and ethnic composition:

Shi'ites: 16

Sunnis: 10

Kurds: 8

Turkeman: 1

Christian: 1

By all measures, it is a highly educated government. It includes 3 MDs, 17 PhDs, 7 MA/MScs, 2 people with law degrees, 3 Bas, and 4 unspecified, although two of the four are listed as trained engineers, including one who worked at the Boeing Corporation. In terms of the place of education, 19 members were trained in the U.K. and Europe (France, Germany, and the Czech Republic), 8 in the U.S., and 1 in Egypt. The average age of the 26 members whose ages were listed is 55, with the oldest at 84 and the youngest at 37. [13] Nine of the ministers have served in the outgoing government. [14]

There are other important characteristics to the new government. Three former Shi'ite ministers with strong religious orientation were removed. These were Haidar Al-Abadi, the minister of communications, Fadhel Abbas, the minister of health, and Baqir Al-Zubaidi, the minister of housing. All of them had turned their ministries into "fortresses of extremism" by demanding that men grow beards and women wear veils. By contrast, the new government includes a number of former Ba'thists, including the minister of defense and the minister of higher education. [15] The government is very much a secular one, so much so that one of the four leading Ayatollahs in Iraq, the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Al-Madrasi, noted "the absence of the more popular Islamic current in the government." [16]


The Security Council and the New Government
The establishment of the new government was bolstered by the Security Council Resolution No. 1546 of June 8, which reaffirmed "the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Iraq," as well as "the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own political future and control their own natural resources." However, at the insistence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the resolution made no reference to the Transitional Administration Law, which guaranteed the Kurds a federation that would have preserved the autonomous status that they have earned since 1991.

The Kurds threatened to withdraw from the government but eventually decided to stay because both the president of Iraq and the prime minister reaffirmed their commitment to "a federal, democratic, pluralistic and unified Iraq." More significantly, the prime minister excluded the dissolution of the Peshmarga, or the Kurdish militia, from the agreement which he had announced just a couple of days earlier. In an interview with the Iraqi daily Al-Mashriq, Allawi said "Kurdish Peshmerga does not fall under the definition of a militia because it was part of the revolutionary system that liberated Iraq and it was part of the self-government of Kurdistan." [17] As part of a package deal, the Kurdish parliament endorsed the Security Council resolution. [18]


Security and the Future of the Government
Security is the ultimate test for the success of Dr. Allawi's government. The greater the security the faster the reconstruction programs will advance. By contrast, the lower the security the slower the pace of reconstruction will be, which is sine qua non for resolving the pressing economic problems, particularly rebuilding the infrastructure, rehabilitating roads and critical installations, providing employment, and alleviating large-scale poverty.

The government must also contend with two hostile neighbors - Iran in the east and Syria in the west. While they both share hostility toward the new Iraqi regime, and are known to have maintained porous borders with Iraq that enabled the infiltration of terrorists and saboteurs into the country, the underlying motives for their hostility may be different. Iran would welcome anarchy in Iraq, even the breakup of the country, to expand its hegemony over the Shi'a majority of Iraq. Moreover, nothing would be more pleasing for Iran than the prospect of at least exercising influence on, if not total control of, the energy policy of their oil-rich neighbor. For Syria, the hostility stems largely from its fear that a successful experiment in democracy in Iraq will shed light on the dark side of its authoritarian regime and the bankruptcy of its economic policy.


Conclusion
An Iraqi politician and newspaper columnist, Mish'an Al-Jabouri, wrote that Allawi "is a man who embodies the aspirations of the Iraqi Sunnis, Shi'a, and Kurds. He maintains good relations with everyone - he is a friend of the Syrians, ally of the Jordanians, welcomed in Egypt and Turkey, and supported by Saudi Arabia, in addition to his good relations with the British and the Americans." [19]

Everything that was written about Dr. Iyad Allawi would confirm these observations. Nevertheless, the odds against his government are significant, but not insurmountable, if it succeeds in establishing its legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis, who are alone capable of calming the resistance movement. It must also move fast enough to create the security forces needed to maintain peace and order and to ease out the multinational forces as quickly as possible, so that sovereignty will be viewed by the Iraqis as real, not illusory.


ANNEX
Transitional Government—Background and Ethnic affiliation [20]


Shi'ite Members
Iyad Hashem Allawi: Prime Minister. Born in Baghdad in 1946. Medical degree from University of Baghdad and advanced medical degree from the U.K. Secretary-General of the National Accord Party.

Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari: Vice President. Born in Karbala in 1947. Medical degree from Mosul University. Member of the Da'wa Party. The party, the oldest Islamic movement in Iraq, was founded in the late 1950s and is based on the ideology of reforming Islamic thought and modernizing religious institutions. The party was banned by Saddam Hussein in 1980, forcing Al-Ja'fari to move to Iran, and then to London in 1989.


Muhammad Ali Al-Hakim: Minister of Communications. Born in Najaf in 1952. Masters degree in computer sciences from University of Birmingham and a Ph.D. in information management from the University of Southern California. He was a global director for Nortel Networks and Cambridge Technology. Participated in the "Future of Iraq Project" under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.

Hazem Sha'lan: Minister of Defense. Born in Diwaniyah in 1956. A Sheikh of the Ghazal Tribe. He earned a degree in economics and management from Baghdad University. Managed a successful real estate firm in the U.K. Former Ba'thist and governor of Al-Qadisiyya (Diwaniya).

Sami Al-Mudhaffar: Minister of Education. Born in Basra in 1940. PhD. in biochemistry from Virginia Tech University. Former professor and president of Baghdad University. Published 250 scientific papers.

'Adel Abd Al-Mahdi: Minister of Finance. Born in Baghdad in 1948. Ph.D. in economics from a French university. Member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Sentenced to death by Saddam Hussein. Exiled in France. Most recent post: Head of the Institute of Islamic Studies in France.

Malek Dohan Al-Hassan: Minister of Justice. Born in Hilla in 1920. Doctorate in Law from a French university. Professor of Law at the University of Baghdad. Elected twice as member of parliament during the monarchy. A former minister of culture and information in 1967.

Thamer' Abbas Ghadhban: Minister of Oil. Born in Babil in 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree in geology from the University College in London, and his master's degree in petroleum reservoir engineering from Imperial College at the London University. He spent most of his professional career in the ministry of oil.


Wa'il Abd Al-Latif: Minister of State for the Provinces. Born in Basra in 1950, Law degree from the University of Baghdad. Served as a judge. Imprisoned by the Saddam regime. Elected governor of Basra and member of Iraq's Governing Council.

'Ali Faiq Al-Ghabban: Minister of Youth and Sport. Born in Baghdad in 1955. A degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Baghdad. Member of SCIRI. Former exile in Iran.


Mufeed Muhammad Jawad Al-Jaza'iri: Minister of Culture. Born in Madhatiya in 1939. Master's degree in journalism from Prague University. Worked as a journalist.

'Ala'udin Abd Al-Sahib Al-'Alwan: Minister of Health. Born in Baghdad in 1949. Medical degree from the University of Alexandria (Egypt) and post-graduate degrees from universities in the U.K. Served as a professor of medicine and dean at the University of Al-Mustansariya. Served in various capacities in the ministry of health and the ministry of higher education under the Saddam regime. Also served as head of the department of chronic and non-contagious diseases at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

Louay Hatem Sultan Al-Arris: Minister of Transportation. Born in 1952. An aircraft engineer at Boeing Corp. A former deputy mayor of Baghdad and director general of Iraqi Airways.


Sawsan Ali Majid Al-Sharifi: Minister of Agriculture. Born in 1956 in Baghdad. Masters and Ph.D. in Animal Breeding, Iowa State University. She has published numerous scientific papers in Iraqi and international journals.

Taher Khalaf Jabr Al-Bakaa: Minister of Higher Education. Born in Dhi Qar in1950. Doctorate in History from Baghdad University. President of Al-Mustansiriya University. Member of the Federation of Arab Historians and author of books on regional history.

Mahdi Al-Hafidh: Minister of Planning. PhD in economic sciences, Prague University. Worked at the United Nations Council for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva as director of private industry, subsequently director of regional industrial growth. A founding member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights.


Sunni Members
Sheikh Ghazi Ujail Al-Yawer: President of Iraq. [21]

Ayham Al-Samara'i: Minister of Electricity. PhD in engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology. Worked for 30 years at KCI, an electrical contractor, and later its executive director. For the last 12 years he participated in many of the meetings of the Iraqi opposition as an executive member of the Iraqi Middle Democratic Trend.

Mishkat Mu'min: Minister of Environment. Professor of Law at Baghdad University. She is active in women affairs.

Omar Al-Faruq Salim Al-Damluji: Minister of Housing and Construction. Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Baghdad where he served as professor of civil engineering. Author of two books on the soil mechanics. Registered engineer in the American Engineers Society. Visiting professor at Hanover University (Germany) and City University of London.

Hajem Al-Hassani: Minister of Industry and Minerals. Born in 1954 in Kirkuk. Graduated from Mosul University. Moved to the U.S. to study international trade at the University of Nebraska and earned a Ph.D. in industrial organization from the University of Connecticut. He was a director at American Investment and Trading Company in Los Angeles. A former official spokesman of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Fallah Al-Naqib: Minister of Interior. Born in Samaraa in 1954 to a military family. His father served as Chief of Staff in the 1960s. Trained in the United States in civil engineering. Recently Governor of Salah-Al-Din Province.

Leila Abd Al-Latif: Minster of Labor and Social Affairs. Biography not available.

Qassim Daoud: Minister of State. Born in Hilla in 1949. Earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wales in microbiology and environment. He worked as a scientist in the United Arab Emirates and was the General-Secretary for the Iraqi Democratic Movement.

'Adnan Al-Janabi: State Minister. BA in economics from University of London and M.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from Loughborough University in U.K. Head of oil marketing in 1970s. Elected Member of National Assembly in 1996. He heads the 750,000 Janabi Tribe.

Muhammad Mustafa Al-Jibouri: Minister of Trade. Born in Mosul in 1949. Graduated from Mosul University in 1974. Studied economics at Glasgow University in 1983. He worked in the State Oil Marketing Organization.


Kurdish Members
Rowsch Nouri Shaways: Vice President. Born in 1947. Doctorate in engineering from a German university. President of the Kurdish National Assembly. He was prime minister of the Arbil-based Kurdistan regional government 1996-1999.

Barham Salih: Deputy Prime Minister for Security Affairs. Born in 1960 in Kurdistan. Ph.D. in Statistics and Computer Modeling from the University of Liverpool. Member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and formerly representative of the National Federation of Kurdistan in London and Washington.

Hoshyar Mahmood Muhammad Zibari: Foreign Minister. Born in Aqra in 1953. B.A. in political science from University of Amman and M.A. from University of Essex in U.K. Member of the political bureau of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan and representative of the party in Europe in 1988-2003.

Bakhtiar Amin: Minister for Human Rights. Born in Kirkuk. Ph.D. in political geography from the Sorbonne University in France. Secretary-General of the Kurdish Institute in Paris and advisor to Mrs. Danielle Mitterrand in the French Foundation for Liberty and Director-General of the Coalition for Justice in Paris and Washington.

Nasreen Mustapha Berwari: Minister of Public Works. Born in Baghdad in 1967. A degree in architectural engineering and urban planning from the University of Baghdad and a Master's degree in policy and management from Harvard University. Served as Minister of Reconstruction and Development in the Kurdistan Government.

Narmin Othman: Minister of State for Women. Formerly minister of social affairs in the Government of Kurdistan. Member of the Peshmerga (Kurdish Militia).

Mamu Farham Othman: State Minister. Born in 1951. Linguistic researcher. Ph.D in English and German philosophy.

Abd Al-Latif Jamal Rashid: Minister of Water Resources. Born in Sulaimaniya in 1944. Doctorate in engineering from Manchester University. He is a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and a member of the International Commission for Irrigation and Drainage. Consulted in several countries.


Turkeman Member
Rashad Mundan Omar: Minister of Science and Technology, Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of London in 1977. Worked in the Ministry of Oil through 1999.


Christian Member
Pascal Isho Warda: Minister of Iraqis in Exile and Migration. Born in Duhok in 1961. She holds a degree from the Human Rights Institute at the University of Lyon, France. Ms. Warda is president of the Assyrian Women's Union in Baghdad.

Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is Senior Analyst of MEMRI's Middle East Economic Studies Program.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Baghdad (Iraq), May 30, 2004.

[2] http://www.wifaq.com/intro_arabic.html.

[3] Al-Hayat (London), May 30 & May 31, 2004.

[4] Al-Hayat (London), June 4, 2004.

[5] London Times, June 1, 2004.

[6] BBC News, June 6, 2004.

[7] Al-Sabah (Baghdad), June 5, 2004.

[8] Al-Sabah Al-Jadid (Iraq), June 8, 2004.

[9] Al-Qabas (Kuwait), June 4, 2004.

[10] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 8, 2004.

[11] Al-Sabah Al-Jadid (Iraq), June 13, 2004.

[12] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 11, 2004.

[13] See attached annex.

[14] Al-Zaman (Iraq), June 7, 2004.

[15] Al-Hayat London), June 2, 2004.

[16] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 4, 2004.

[17] Al-Mashriq (Baghdad), June 12, 2002.

[18] Al-Sabah (Baghdad), June 13, 2004.

[19] Al-Ittijah Al-Aakher, June 5, 2004.

[20] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 2, 2004 & Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), June 2, 2004, and Coalition Provisional Authority.

[21] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 178, June 10, 2004, 'The New Leaders of Iraq (1): Interim President Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawer.'

Five drown in sea

Staff Report
KARACHI: Five men drowned in the sea on Sunday. Edhi sources said three members of a family drowned off Sandspit beach. Residents of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, the victims were identified as Kazim Abid, aged 40, Nisar Abid and Sibtain, aged 16.

They were swimming in the sea when strong currents swept them away. Divers searched for the bodies, but they had not been found when this report was filed on Sunday night. Another picnicker Asif, resident of Liaquatabad, drowned in the sea off Cape Mount beach. Edhi sources said that an unidentified man also drowned in the sea. The body could not be fished out.


4 including two brothers drowned (http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=68284)
Sunday June 20, 2004 (1140 PST)

KARACHI, June 21 (Online): Four people were drowned in the sea at picnic spots in coastal areas here on Sunday.

Due to sweltering heat, people have started rushing towards picnic spots at sea. Four people were drowned while swimming in the sea at picnic spots. Asif, 25 was drowned in the area of camp mount.

Two brothers and their one cousin were drowned at sands patt. The victims included Nisar Abid, Nizam Abid and Sabtain Sajid.

Not a single dead body has so far been recovered.

Edhi foundation divers are making hectic efforts to search for the bodies.

End.

KARACHI: Rough sea claims four lives (Dawn)


By Our Staff Reporter

KARACHI, June 20: Four young men died after drowning in the sea off Sandspit and Cape Montz beaches in two separate incidents here on Sunday. According to Mauripur police, three young men including two brothers had come from Gulistan-i-Jauhar to Sandspit.

Police said Nisar, 18, went into sea and was swept away by strong currents. In an attempt to rescue him, his elder brother Sabtain, 22, also drowned. Their friend Kazim Abid also lost his life when tried to rescue the drowning brothers.

The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq

The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq
Ahmed S. Hashim, PhD.
Center for Naval Warfare Studies
August 15, 2003

From Conventional War to Insurgency

When Operation Iraqi Freedom started on March 19, 2003, very few people expected the Iraqi armed forces to put up much of a fight against vastly better-trained and equipped coalition forces.1 Neither Iraq’s regular army, which was a poorly trained and demoralized force, nor the Republican Guards/Special Republican Guards, which were better trained and better-equipped forces designed both to wage wars and to protect the regime, fought effectively. They simply melted away.2

Instead, what actually took place was an unpleasant but short-lived episode of violent irregular combat initiated by Iraqis. Regime supporters, military personnel out of uniform, and irregular forces such as the Fida‘iyin Saddam ("Saddam's Martyrs") conducted a brief but intense, harassing insurgency in the third week of March 2003 against coalition forces advancing towards Baghdad.3 Iraqi officials vowed before and during the war that they would use any method to fight the coalition.4 Even this bravado was not translated into facts on the ground as the regime failed to carry out an effective insurgency campaign or conducted urban combat in the main cities such as Baghdad. Saddam believed himself betrayed by his officers; this was a charge repeated by his youngest daughter Raghida from exile in Jordan on August 01, 2003.

Expectations of a quagmire vanished with the swift and stunning progress of U.S. forces in the last week of March and first week of April, culminating in the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. President George Bush declared hostilities to be at an end on May 1, 2003. A week later on May 7, senior officers briefed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They were upbeat as they formulated the step-by-step plan for drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq to 30,000 troops by September 2003. The euphoria of liberation was short-lived. By June 2003 central Iraq was in the midst of a low-level, decentralized insurgency, a state of affairs acknowledged by U.S. officials and senior military officers.5

This paper addresses the insurgency that broke out after the official end of hostilities. Specifically, it attempts to do four things. First, it will seek to ascertain the nature of the violence that took place in Iraq after the end of hostilities: is it insurgency, guerilla warfare, or terrorism? Terminology is important. Second, the paper will address the origins, goals, and operational art of the insurgency. Third, it will look at prospects for the insurgency: will it remain decentralized and low-level, characterized by harassing attacks, or transform itself into a national liberation struggle? Fourth, this paper addresses the U.S. response to the insurgency and makes recommendations about how to respond effectively and what it might be done to prevent a full-fledged war of national resistance.

The Power of Terminology: Insurgency, Guerrillas, Terrorists, Partisans?

The term one chooses to define or characterize the ongoing violence in Iraq matters for many reasons; my concern is the power of terminology.

First, the term one chooses to refer to something such as the ongoing violence in Iraq betrays one’s political biases and stance. The Administration’s views are politicized, in that to admit that there is resistance by Iraqis beyond regime supporters is to admit that a wide range of Iraqis are fighting occupation. This is not something that Administration officials wish to hear, given the constant refrain that one of the key goals of the war was the liberation of the Iraqis from an evil dictatorship.

Second, terminology matters because the term one chooses may determine the solution to a problem. If Administration officials continue to believe that the cause of the ongoing violence is solely the former regime, we will fall prey to focusing exclusively on groups or individuals associated with the defunct regime. By rooting them out the violence will cease, so goes the logic. That might not be the case, but it explains why the deaths of ‘Uday and Qusay in July were greeted with euphoria by the Administration and why U.S. forces are relentless in their pursuit of the former Iraqi leader, Saddam.

Third, terminology also matters because if we characterize it incorrectly, we will devise and implement the wrong methods to deal with it. The views of U.S. senior officers who have characterized the insurgency as “classical guerilla warfare” – a position which is at the opposite end of the spectrum from those of senior administration officials -- are overly pessimistic and even more importantly, possibly erroneous in a number of ways as will be discussed below.

The Nature of the Iraqi Insurgency

What is the U.S. facing in Iraq? Politically neutral yet accurate terminology is crucial. The key term here is insurgency, which refers to a violent uprising by a population or segment thereof of a given state against their own government or foreign power in occupation of their country. In this study I use the term “low-level, localized and decentralized insurgency” to describe a situation wherein a myriad number of political groups have engaged in widespread acts of violence in order to disrupt and remove the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The above description of the insurgency in Iraq merits further clarification. To call the ongoing violence in Iraq “low-level” depends in part upon proximity. The insurgency may not seem “low-level” to the U.S. ground troops who have been faced with an average of 12 attacks per day. Still, the attacks are sporadic, the deadly ones few, and many attacks do not end with casualties on either side. In an insurgency, even insurgent attacks that do not succeed (i.e., do not kill soldiers of the opposing side or destroy materiel) are still significant because the insurgent seeks disruption and instability, while the government or the foreign power seeks normality and stability.

The insurgency, as we shall see below, is localized. It is largely confined to one part of the country, the center; and of a particular part of the center. It is not yet national; therefore, it is still not a war of national resistance against a foreign occupation. It is decentralized in that it is being conducted by a large number of groups, many of whom are ideologically different from one another and do not cooperate with one another.

What are its goals? This is a key issue. The insurgents have a series of goals that can be described as “negative” ones that are defined by what they do not want – i.e. the U.S. presence; “reactionary” ones that seek the return of the old order; or gut and nationalist reaction to humiliation and domination by the Other. There is no “positive” goal(s) that is either an articulation of what they do want or a vision of the future.

If the insurgency gathers strength and support and becomes more cohesive and unified, we might see its transformation into a war of national liberation but not necessarily one with sweeping revolutionary goals. A revolutionary insurgency seeks a massive political and socioeconomic transformation in its struggle against the status quo. The Iraqi insurgents have not yet articulated such sweeping goals. Given the myriad number of organizations with different philosophical backgrounds, it is unlikely that they would be able to formulate sweeping and radical goals on which they can all agree.

Finally, what are the methods or means of the insurgency in Iraq? The methods of insurgents are very different from their most likely opponents, the regular armed forces of the political entity they are combating. The former are vastly inferior in size, equipment or weapons to their regular opponent. In order to level the playing field against powerful regular forces, insurgents often believe that they have the right to use any means readily available to them, including terrorism. This however, does not mean that they are terrorists. Insurgencies – whether they are wars of national liberation against a foreign occupation or revolutionary wars against unjust governments – have historically and invariably been associated with the concept and practice of guerilla warfare.

Guerilla warfare as historically understood is a complex and rich form of warfare that has been practiced since time immemorial and continues to be practiced widely at present and about which an enormous amount has been written by historians and practitioners.6

When American strategic analysts, military officers, government officials, and journalists talk or write loosely about guerilla warfare, they almost invariably have in mind the kind of warfare associated with Mao Zedong' campaigns against the Japanese occupiers of China and then against the Chinese Communists' rivals, the Nationalists. They also have in mind the long and protracted wars fought by the Algerians against the French, the Vietnamese first against the French and then against the Americans. These were truly epic struggles, but the kind of insurgency that has taken place in Iraq as of summer 2003 is not of the same stature.7

To call the low-level attacks “classic” guerilla warfare is to describe a situation that has not yet come to pass in Iraq as of mid-Summer 2003. It is not clear that the insurgency, even if it evolves into a genuine war of national resistance, will develop the kind of structure, organization, and discipline associated with the epic guerilla struggles mentioned above. This does not mean, however, that it will not be guerilla warfare. It will of a kind that will most likely witness suicide bombings, massive car bombing campaigns, sabotage, assassinations, and vicious, small-unit urban fighting. It will possibly witness episodic rioting and localized uprisings by the populace. There will be firefights similar to those that have occurred in traditional guerilla wars. But these will be of a smaller scale than in previous conflicts and more in keeping with the firefights that have already occurred in Iraq. Naturally, the small unit assaults on U.S. forces will get more sophisticated and will be carried out by better and better trained groups. Nevertheless, the conflict in Iraq will most likely not witness a steady evolution of the insurgency towards a centralized, cohesive, and disciplined force commanded by a political cadre seeking to form a regular force out of rag-tag insurgents.

Onset of the Insurgency in Iraq

Demise of Sunni Arab Domination

As U.S. forces moved deeper into the Sunni Arab heartland of the country including towns such as Falluja, which is heavily conservative and which suffered from U.S. aerial bombing in both Gulf Wars, it became rapidly clear that there was not going to be a mood of welcome for the Americans from the inhabitants. The eighty-year old domination of the Iraqi state by the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq is over.8 It was the Americans who were responsible for its demise. The identity of the country was built -- with British help -- by the Sunni Arab minority and came to be dominated by them since 1921. The collapse of this dominant status may be of concern to those of members of the elite from the overthrown regime, the Sunni Arab tribes, and also those remaining, secular-minded members of this community.9

Many Sunni Arabs may have resented Saddam’s totalitarian state, but many benefited from its neo-patrimonial characteristics. A neo-patrimonial state is characterized by an extensive patronage network that provides its supporters with material goods and money in return for loyalty. Sunni Arabs also figured prominently among the opposition to Saddam’s murderous regime. For example, Sunni Arabs from the town of Samarra – which also contains Shi‘is and Shi‘i shrines – fell afoul of the regime of Saddam. Many Samarra natives – who had served with distinction in the Ba‘th party and the armed forces – were purged or executed during the course of the three decades of rule by Saddam and his cronies from the rival town of Tikrit, which also benefited materially and economically while Samarra sank further and further into shabbiness.10 Samara’s residents were thus not generally favorably disposed to the former regime, but they are also intensely nationalistic and are not favorably disposed to foreign control over their country.

Sunnis are trying to play a political role in post-Saddam Iraq, as is evident from their participation in the Governing Council set up in July 2003 under the auspices of Ambassador Paul Bremer, the American official running Iraq by means of the Coalition Political Authority. But overall, in the new Iraq there will be a substantial redirection of power and resources away from the Sunni Arabs.11 Not surprisingly, the U.S. it has come for particular opprobrium from this group of the Iraqi population.12 The response of the Sunnis to this historical shift has generally ranged from pragmatism to sullen hostility and passive resistance. But some have decided to take up arms and have mired the U.S. in a small but vicious, low-intensity conflict that has taken a steady toll of human lives, the pace of reconstruction in Iraq, and the credibility of the Administration. This insurgency has definitely been a surprise.

The underlying animus between the U.S. and the Sunnis erupted into the open with the accidental killings of civilians in the heavily Sunni towns of Falluja, Hit, Tikrit, and Samara in early May 2003. The tough and often clumsy response by U.S. troops merely aggravated the animosity between members of the Sunni community and the U.S. forces.13 Not long afterwards firefights began to erupt between Sunni gunmen and U.S. troops.14

Insurgents: Types, Characteristics, and Ideologies

Despite some evidence that the Ba‘thist regime had planned all along on a post-war insurgency after its formal defeat, the insistent claim by U.S. authorities, that the attacks are solely the work of remnants of the former regime is incorrect. Statements have been put out by various organizations claiming credit for the attacks. Based on their respective clandestine statements they seem to be made up of the following groups of nationalist and religious provenance:15

The General Command of the Armed Forces, Resistance and Liberation in Iraq, Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq, and Patriotic Front: These three are most likely composed of former Iraqi military personnel, particularly from the Special Republican Guards, security and intelligence personnel, Ba‘th party members and the paramilitary Fida‘iyin.16 These members of the former regime are not averse to giving their cells Islamic names.

Al ‘Awdah (The Return), Jihaz al-i‘ilam al-siyasi lil hizb al-Ba‘th (Political Media Organ of the Ba‘th Party), Harakat Ra‘s al-‘Afa (Snake's Head Movement): The first is a group that came into prominence in mid-June. It is made up of former security service members and soldiers of the former Iraqi armed forces organized in cells spread throughout cities such as Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi. There are reports that the pro-Saddam elements of the Ba‘th party have actually re-named the party to Al ‘Awdah. 17 The second has described itself as the political and media organ of the Ba‘th party. The third named group is also Ba‘thist and has links to Sunni Arab tribes.

Nasserites: A small group of non-Ba‘thist pan-Arab nationalists of little significance. Their only claim to fame apart from allegedly successful attacks on U.S. forces is their success of making enemies of almost all other Iraqi political groups, whether insurgent or involved in the political process under the auspices of the Coalition Political Authority/

Thuwwar al-‘arak – kata‘ib al-anbar al-musallahah (Iraq’s Revolutionaries – Al-Anbar Armed Brigades): This is an anti-Saddamist nationalist insurgent group based in Al-Anbar governorate.

General Secretariat for the Liberation of Democratic Iraq: This is an anti-Saddam leftist nationalist group which condemns the coalition authority for failing to provide security basic services to the population.

Munazzamat al-alam al-aswad: (Black Banner Organization): This organization’s propaganda seems to indicate that it has nationalist and religious tendencies. It has called for sabotage of oil industry to prevent it from falling to the hands of the West.

Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq: Little is known about this group except that it is an anti-Saddamist and anti-Ba‘thist one which has called upon all Iraqi forces to fight the U.S. occupation.18

National Front for the Liberation of Iraq: This sounds like the name of a secular resistance organization, but it is apparently an organization that incorporated elements of both the regime and religious tendencies because it accepted individuals from the Republican Guards into its ranks. It was also one of the first to appear during the war. It issued its first communiqués in April and actually claimed that it had tried to assassinate Ahmed Chalabi but only succeeded in killing some of his supporters in an attack in Al-Najaf.

Al-Faruq Brigades: This group refers to itself as the military arm of an Islamic resistance organization called the Islamic Movement in Iraq, or Al-Harakah al-Islamiyyah fi al-arak. The Brigades were stood up in early June and might include secular Sunni Arabs and individuals from now defunct organizations of the former regime. The Al-Faruq Brigades have set up small units or “squadrons” which they give Islamic names; squadrons exist for different specialties, e.g. there are reconnaissance squadrons and combat squadrons.

Mujahideen al ta‘ifa al-Mansoura (Mujahideen of the Victorious Sect): This includes non-Iraq Sunni Islamist elements or even Sunni fundamentalist elements of neo-salafi background. Its military arm is known as the Martyr Khattab Brigade.

Kata‘ib al mujahideen fi al-jama‘ah al-salafiyah fi al-‘arak (Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq): This is a Sunni Islamist group which claims as its spiritual mentor the Palestinian Islamist, ‘Abdallah Azzam, who fought with the Afghan Mujahideen with his acolyte, Usama Bin Laden.

Jihad Brigades/Cells: This group emerged in late July 2003 but little is known about it except it has called for guerilla warfare and threatened to execute “spies and traitors,” i.e. those who are seen as collaborating with the U.S. occupation.

Even though one could argue persuasively that the Sunni Arabs have shown a less than welcoming visage to the Americans for the reasons alluded to above, the myriad groups engaging in actual armed action have different ideological motivations from one another for fighting the U.S. presence. We can divide them into three rough groupings:

Regime loyalists who believe that they have no option but to continue fighting and who are also convinced that the U.S. will tire long before them. They are trying to apply the experiences of other guerilla/terrorist organizations - such as the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas to their operations.

Nationalist and patriotic individuals and insurgent groups who resent the U.S. presence and are angered by the U.S. failure to restore law and order, security, and by U.S. operational methods that are seen as deliberately humiliating the Iraqis and their honor.19 These individuals or groups are relying heavily on kinship and tribal ties to provide them with shelter and succor as they plan for and execute their operations.

Islamists who have emerged after decades of suppression by the Ba‘thist regime. Brave though they may be -- and there was considerable evidence of this during the war itself -- many are amateurs; others have proven to have considerable military experience. But they learn quickly and they have the experiences of other Islamist organizations to help along in their learning curve. Mention must be made of the foreign Islamist fighters that have infiltrated into Iraq to fight the U.S. The individuals from these groups come from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, and Chechnya. Some are well-trained and fought well and to the death against U.S. forces during the war itself. Others are simply either middle class or working class young men who left their “meaningless” lives in their respective countries and who have sought to wage a holy war against the U.S. occupation forces.20 It is easy to exaggerate their numbers or importance as some observers in the U.S. have done. Little data is available on these groups in Iraq and as a result there are a number of rumors circulating about them: that they are being funded by charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia; that they have sought to terrorize Shi‘i residents of Al-Sadr City; and that they have been responsible for some of the deadly hit and run attacks on U.S. troops in central Iraq. They have clashed with Shi‘i militia groups and if such clashes increase in the coming months they are bound to cause tensions between the Sunni and Shi‘i communities. However, apparently those that are Arab have managed to acquire Iraqi IDs without problem and have integrated themselves into Sunni society despite having noticeably different accents. U.S. intelligence and military forces have not been able to pick up on this because of the paucity of Arabic language speakers within their ranks.

Many of these groups have even eschewed contact with one another because of mutual ideological hostility. For example, the kata‘ib al-mujahideen refer to the personnel of the former regime as “soldiers of tyranny and the devils of darkness” who have handed “over this Muslim country to their American masters.”21 Many of the individuals who say that they are fighting the U.S. presence for patriotic or nationalistic reasons have expressed no desire to see the return of the previous system. For example, one of the insurgent groups issued a statement deriding one of Saddam’s taped messages:

Yesterday, through their media outlets the tyrant and his henchmen announced from the holes in which they are stuck that he is the one behind the resistance and that the men carrying out this resistance are loyal and linked to him. The one behind the mass graves and executions wants to employ the struggle of our people who reject the occupation, hegemony, and guardianship to his own benefit and the benefit of his regime.22

Others actively avoid co-ordination or interaction with like-minded insurgent groups because such contact heightens the chances of penetration and destruction by U.S. forces. Of those that we know about, such as supporters of the former regime, it seems that they have organized themselves into small, cellular units each of 5-6 members and because U.S. forces do not enter mosques they are likely to use places of worship for planning operations and for storing weapons and supplies.23 In all of this we must not forget that a wide variety of disgruntled individuals and members of organized crime groups – which are proliferating in the country – may have participated in the violence.24

Insurgent Goals, Operational Art, and Tactics

Nonetheless, even if many of these groups are not ideological fellow-travelers, their main goals are to hamper the pace or extent of reconstruction, to prevent Iraqis from working with the occupation authorities, to encourage U.S. forces to undertake excessive, punitive, counter-insurgency raids that disrupt the lives of ordinary Iraqis including the killing of civilians, and to raise the costs of the U.S. presence to such a level that the Washington would have to question its commitment and determination to stay in Iraq. These groups know that they are even less capable of standing up to the full-might of U.S. forces than was Ba‘thist Iraq, and they will avoid the misplaced heroics of the war days when hundreds of lightly-armed irregular forces were slaughtered rushing headlong into firepower-heavy U.S. forces. Instead, the operational art of these groups at this stage of the strategic defensive for them has included the following:

Lone Sniper Attacks: have been undertaken by well-trained former members of the Iraqi commando/special forces and outsiders. One insurgent leader, nicknamed Abu Rifai, stated that this is a specialty of his small group. Snipers are a nuisance rather than a major threat to the integrity of U.S. forces. However, the tactic causes considerable strain among individual soldiers faced with the threat of unseen death. Furthermore, even though snipers are universally loathed in all armies, they have a certain mystique and mythic qualities that catch people’s imagination. While it is difficult to separate fact from myth, a Baghdad-based Iraqi sniper code-named “The Hunter,” who has allegedly been responsible for the death of U.S. personnel has become a hero among the population.

Roadside bomb: operations appeared in July 2003 when insurgents began to use roadside bombs detonated by remote control.25 The use of roadside bombs may be a tactic that has been adopted from Hizballah who have used them to great effect in Lebanon against Israeli occupation forces.

Opportunistic grenade and shooting attacks: have taken place against lightly-armed soldiers on patrol or off-duty.

Ambushes of soft-skinned vehicles and military columns: have been undertaken by small units and so far such attacks have proven to be the most sophisticated undertaken by the insurgents.26

Attacks on civilian members of the coalition authorities: have been few but since they represent a soft target more could be expected.

Threats to target foreigners and foreign companies working with the occupation authorities in Iraq: have increased as insurgent groups have promised to attack any individual or company, including those from Jordan and the Gulf Arab countries, working with the U.S. in Iraq. Insurgent groups have issues threats to attack the Vinnell Corporation -- and anybody associated or working with it -- which has been assigned the twin tasks of standing up and training the new Iraqi military.27

Threats against Iraqis “collaborating” with the occupation authorities: have been carried out against a number of Iraqi technocrats and professionals who have been killed. In early July 2003 the first Iraqi officials fell victim to professional assassins. Dr ‘Abdul Amin, the chief tax collector under the Ba‘th regime and who had decided to work with the coalition, was executed in broad daylight in a Baghdad market by professional hit-men and Dr. Haifa Aziz Daoud, Baghdad's chief electrical engineer, was killed at home.28 One of the best-known outrages was the killing, in early July of Iraqi police officers who had just completed a U.S. training course.

Sabotage of critical infrastructure: by insurgent groups who have attacked and damaged/destroyed electrical power stations, liquid natural gas plants, and oil installations.29 It should, however, be noted, that there are three types of groups that have attacked such critical infrastructure: looters who may want something of value to use or sell; organized criminals who wish to resell useable equipment; and politically-inspired insurgents whose attacks keep the occupation authorities from translating their promise of reconstruction into fact.

These organized, hit-and-run attacks by insurgents are not under any centralized command and control. The attacks on U.S. forces have been undertaken by a range of groups ranging from rank amateurs, whose inability to handle weapons was much in evidence during their attacks, to more serious and threatening groups whose attacks indicate quasi-professional levels of planning and execution.30 The former individuals seem to have little or no military training. Their attacks were often carried out with no prior reconnaissance, and they were almost invariably beaten off with no casualties suffered by the U.S. forces. They often carried out operations at night in order to enhance their chances of getting away, but night operations are difficult even for the best-trained forces.

Attacks by more professional groups also began as somewhat amateurish affairs but the groups have improved considerably over the course of July. They carry out prior reconnaissance and deliberately seek out the softest targets possible. These groups have used individuals to attack targets of opportunity or small units of 5-10 men to attack designated targets such as convoys. They have proven capable of conducting daylight operations and of executing simultaneous and coordinated operations against U.S. columns or convoys. These groups are currently at the level of what can be called the strategic defensive where they are learning, organizing, recruiting, and adapting to U.S. tactics and modus operandi.

The Prospects for the Insurgency

Support within the Sunni Community

As of mid-August 2003, the insurgency in central Iraq constitutes violent, armed action by a minority group stemming from a minority of the total population of the country. Two issues need to be addressed here. First, does the insurgency have a tacit support of a large segment of this ethnic minority? If so, why and how does it manifest itself? If there is growing support for the insurgency among the population of the center, the Sunni Arab minority, the insurgency will still be limited unless it becomes more national in scope. This raises the second issue: might Shi‘is become involved in active opposition to the U.S. presence?

The insurgency in the center might be benefiting from a potential fusion between nationalist and Islamist sentiments among Sunnis, who should not be discounted given the noticeable rise of Islamist sentiments among the Sunni Arab population. There has been a steady, if not surprising, rise of political Islam among the Sunni Arabs. American policy has been so consumed with post-war, superficial understanding of the Shi‘is of Iraq that Sunni-derived political activism did not even appear on the radar screen. However, both mainstream and extremist Islamist movements may be emerging in the country. The reasons why will require detailed sociological analyses in the coming months, but we can provide tentative answers at this juncture to account for their re-emergence.

First, Sunni Islamic activism has a longstanding but not particularly deep history in Iraq.31 However, the constituency is there among very conservative Sunni Arabs living within the Sunni triangle bounded by Baghdad Ramadi and Mosul in the north. The ostensible secularism of the Ba‘thist regime hindered the ability of Sunni Islamist movements to play a role in the political process and the cashiering of Sunni Arab officers with ties to Sunni political movements further removed such groups from the center of power.

However, despite its original allegiance to militant secularism, Saddam's regime itself began to promote the re-islamization of Iraqi society over the past ten years to buttress its legitimacy. This was symbolized by a number of religious policies undertaken with the official sanction of the regime over the course of the past four years. In 1999, the regime launched al hamla al-imaniyah or Enhancement of Islamic Faith campaign that saw the restriction of drinking and gambling establishments, the narrowing of secular practices, the promotion of religious education, and the propagation of religious programming in the media. The regime even allowed Sunni clerics to politicize their sermons -- so long as they focused their ire on the forces that kept Iraq under debilitating sanctions. While the regime focused mainly on reviving religion among the minority Sunni Arab population, many Sunni Iraqis saw the regime’s strategy as a move from “infidelity to hypocrisy” as was described by a senior Sunni Islamist, Dr. ‘Usamah al-Tikriti. But this state re-islamization provided the cover for Sunnis to show their faith somewhat more openly than before. Naturally, as was its wont the regime re-interpreted its ideology to account for its "embrace" of religion.32

Second, the sanctions regime that has been in existence since 1991 promoted the return to religion within the Iraqi population. The destruction of the Iraqi middle class, the collapse of the secular educational system, the rise of illiteracy, and growth of despair and anomie have resulted in large numbers of Iraqis seeking succor in religion.33 Fourthly, many Iraqis, rightly or wrongly, see the West equally as culpable as Saddam foe the misery of the country.

In contrast with the Shi‘i groups on whom we have a relative wealth of detail, we have little knowledge on what Sunni Islamist groups have re-emerged in Iraq. However, from what little that can be gleaned from both Arabic and English sources, I have concluded that we can tentatively divide them into three groups. While the first two have decided to engage in legitimate political activity for the time being, it is not far-fetched to assume that their members might choose to follow the path of violent resistance.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which is making halting and tentative steps to re-enter the Iraqi political arena, first appeared in Iraq among its Sunni Arab and Kurdish population in the late 1940s. A venerable Sunni political party, the MB has had a strong presence in many Arab countries, including Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Jordan. In Iraq, its presence has been weak. Much of this has to do with the adherence of many Sunnis to secular ideologies of a nationalist hue and to the Ba‘thist regime’s crackdown over the years which forced the party underground. Nonetheless, the MB continued to propagate its values among Sunni Iraqis through secret sermons in mosques and the smuggling of literature into Iraq from neighboring countries.

The shadowy Iraqi Islamic Party has ensconced itself in the northern, ethnically mixed but Sunni-dominated city of Mosul (the largest Iraqi town with the lowest percentage of Shi‘is). In 1960 the Iraqi branch of the MB applied for a license to set up a political party under the name of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP). It went into decline following the seizure of power by the Ba‘thists but re-emerged in the early 1990s.

However, most interesting here is the current relationship between the MB and IIP. It is not clear whether the IIP is the Iraqi offshoot of the MB or is a separate party that is strongly tied to and allied with the MB. When asked whether the MB has begun to make a political impact in post-Saddam Iraq, a senior MB official, Dr. Usama al-Tikriti, responded, “We are now practicing political work along with others through the Iraqi Islamic Party. We are actively participating in the Islamic Party since it is a system for political work in Iraq and has more than 90 branches throughout Iraq.”34 When the MB official was asked whether the IIP was a political front for the MB, he responded, “We do not actually say that, because the Muslim Brothers and others also participate in the Islamic Party.”35

These ambiguous statements do not clarify the relationship between the two entities, and only the stabilization of the political situation in Iraq in the coming months will uncover the nature of the relationship between them. But the IIP does have a political manifesto that calls for the establishment of an Islamic state by peaceful means.36 There are indications that it is establishing cells in the central and the northwestern parts of the country, but it is not known whether these are political cells or armed cells.

Ominous is the austere form of Islam associated with violent Salafi groups that seek to “reform” Islam. Reform in this context is different from the reform associated with Christianity. In Islam the reform sought by Salafis is the ridding of Islam of syncretism and innovations acquired over the centuries; it is a quest to return to the pristine Islamic community of the forefathers (Arabic singular salaf means a forefather, hence al-Salafiyya movement and its adherents, the Salafis) who lived with Prophet Muhammad. The Salafis seem to be making headway in Iraq and gaining adherents, even among Shi‘is.37 This is, of course, distinct from the influx of Arab fighters of Salafi beliefs that have entered the country. But the latter have experience to impart to their Iraqi compatriots who have expressed Salafi beliefs.

Dynamics of Conflict with the Sunni and Shi‘i Communities

The separate Sunni and Shi‘i antagonism towards the U.S. presence might continue along two distinct, non-national lines. On the other hand, we might see the emergence of a united approach that downplays Sunni-Shi‘i differences and formulates opposition on the basis of a universalistic Muslim antagonism towards “infidel” occupation of the country.

The Abu Hanifa Mosque Paradigm:

The first possibility is represented by what I call the Abu Hanifa Mosque versus the Al Mohsen Mosque paradigm. Abu Hanifa Mosque is a Sunni place of worship in the Adhamiya district where shootouts have occurred between U.S. troops and Iraqis literally on the mosque’s doorsteps.38 Abu Hanifa has been the site of fiery anti-American sermons by Imams during Friday prayers. On June 6, 2003, Imam Mu‘ayad al-Ubaidi delivered a fierce critique of the U.S. that was wholeheartedly endorsed by his flock:

There are only two powers now in the world. One is America, which is tyrannical and oppressive. The other is a warrior who has not yet been awakened from his slumber, and that warrior is Islam. Our brave Muslim Iraqi people, who care about their honor and their country, refuse all manner of occupation… May God help reverse the evil, so that the evil ones slaughter themselves with their own hands.39

For the Sunni Arabs and Sunni Islamists at both the local and national levels, the U.S. presence is an unmitigated evil, as I have tried to explain above. Sermons by most Sunni clerics have not been complaints about the lack of security and failures of reconstruction to date, but more about the pillage of Iraq by the foreigners. The depth of feelings of this opposition stems from four things: the state of chaos and anarchy in Iraq, the existence of an intense sense of Arab nationalism, a revival of religious fervor, and the anger felt by Sunnis over what they have lost in Iraq.40 Many Sunni Arabs are convinced that the U.S. is there to obliterate Iraq’s identity and turn it into an economic colony. Some have chosen to confront alleged U.S. machinations politically. Others, as we have shown above have chosen the route of insurgency.

The Shi‘i populace and clerics have shown a more subtle approach. At the national level Shi‘i clerics have expressed joy that the oppressive Saddam regime is gone but are ambivalent about the U.S. presence in Iraq. Most Shi‘i political groups were happy that the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown; they are not happy that the Americans did it. The statements of senior Shi‘i clerics can essentially be summed up as “thank you for getting rid of Saddam; now, please go!”’41 For Shi‘is, the U.S. presence represents both opportunity and constraint. The U.S. overthrew their oppressor when they themselves never could, but that presence now complicates the Shi‘i role in determining the post-Saddam future.

The Al Mohsen Mosque Paradigm:

We can contrast the sermons of Al Mohsen Mosque in Al Sadr City with those of Abu Hanifa.

At the local level, the sermons of Shi‘i clerics have been more about the restoration of law and order and of basic services to the destitute. For the Shi‘i clerics of Al Sadr there is no American presence to act as a lightning rod for discontent since American patrols do not venture frequently or regularly into the neighborhood. The American presence has not become unduly oppressive at the local levels in the Shi‘i communities, whereas for the Sunnis it is oppressive at both the local and national levels. But the Shi‘i clerics do not only complain they have taken action. The American inability to restore law and order and basic services has redounded to the advantage of the Shi‘i clerics from the Hawza, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Al-Sadriyyun, who have established effective, informal networks of local governance and resource allocation in cities where they have established their respective presence. These clerical networks provide the distribution of food and medical supplies, guard important buildings such as clinics and hospitals, dispense justice, and collect looted goods that have been returned.42

We also have to understand how Sunni and Shi‘i have responded to the powers that be over time. Throughout their history, Sunnis have developed a political theory and practice of legitimately accepting oppressive government, since the alternative, anarchy (or the Sunni version of Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature) is far worse. Also, Sunnis both as rulers and ruled have been long accustomed to being top dog throughout their history, whether in Iraq or elsewhere in the Islamic world, and as such do not so readily adjust to loss of power and privileges. If the ‘infidel’ is responsible, the call to jihad or holy war is not far away.

As a minority in most Muslim countries through the centuries, Shi‘is, have developed a more nuanced and sophisticated approach to power relationships. Since the “disappearance” of the Twelfth Imam, temporal power for the Twelver Shi‘is (the majority in both Iraq and Iran) has been illegitimate. Furthermore, power was often in the hands of their tormentors, the Sunnis, particularly in Iraq. Having been disempowered for much of their history, Shi‘is have learned to calculate prudently the correlation of forces between them and the powers that be, to develop their own parallel social and political networks, and to be more patient in formulating a response to perceived oppression. To put it simplistically, Sunnis are more likely to rebel; Shi‘is are more careful before they engage in rebellion.

These divergent Sunni and Shi‘i approaches to the reality of power in post-Saddam Iraq provide the U.S. with a greater margin of political maneuvering than if the Sunnis and Shi‘is transcend their differing responses. Together, they might adopt a universal program that focuses on what disturbs both communities at the national level, the presence of the “infidel,” and then worry later about the distribution of resources within society. While there have been joint Sunni-Shi‘i marches against the occupation as of mid-2003, there has been little overt sympathy among the Shi‘is for the Sunnis that have clashed with U.S. forces in the Iraqi heartland. This stems from the belief among the Shi‘is that the current Sunni low-level insurgency has not yet managed to transform itself from a struggle by those who wish to recover the old order or its privileges to a truly national struggle against the occupier. This is why the majority of Shi‘is, including the clerics resisted calls in May and June by exuberant and more militant younger Shi‘is who have suggested that Fallujah, a bastion of Sunni resistance, should become a model for Shi‘i cities in the south, or that suicide attacks should be launched against the coalition forces.43

Should Shi‘is ever calculate that there would be more to gain by active, even violent opposition to the American presence in Iraq, then things could get ugly. Ominous signs of discontent among Shi‘is began to manifest themselves in July because of the continued lack of law and order, the decision to ignore Iraqi political desires, and the allegedly humiliating manner in which coalition forces treated Iraqi civilians.44 The kind of pressure that the senior clerical establishment of the Hawza had come under from more radical clerics like Muqtada, as was detailed above, had threatened by July to undermine the spiritual authority of the Hawza. The potential for a gap to grow between the Hawza and its “flock” may have accounted for Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani’s fatwa stating that the “occupation officials do not enjoy the authority” to hand-pick a governing council of 30 Iraqis that would help write the new Iraqi constitution.45

Should Sunni resistance to and Shi‘i distaste for the presence of the U.S. in Iraq coalesce into a nationalist opposition, the paradigm here would be the nationalist rebellion of 1920 that united Sunni and Shi‘i against the British invaders.46 What should be worrisome from the American perspective is the growing coincidence between Sunni and Shi‘i nationalist views concerning the coming “pillage” and sale of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies. The more we see of a growing nationalist backlash followed by violence, the more likely we are to see the kind of quagmire that journalistic accounts have prematurely discussed since the eruption of fighting in the central Sunni belt.

Even though the rugged and mountainous Kurdish north is the best place to conduct guerilla warfare of the type pursued by the Peshmergas, or Kurdish guerillas, I do not expect the Kurds to join in such an insurgency. They owe a great deal to the U.S. for the creation and protection of the enclave over the past ten years. Should a wider insurgency erupt, the Kurds will stand by and watch, will deny sanctuary to Arab insurgents, and may even help the U.S. They will work assiduously for their own state.

Given the disparate groups that would be involved a nation-wide insurgency (except in the Kurdish north), it would most likely continue to remain decentralized and focus on throwing out the occupiers in the name of nationalism and religion. Indeed, one of the key characteristics of a truly nationalist insurgency is for the insurgent leadership is to select an “ideology that has appeal to important sectors of society in order to win their support… the insurgency’s future plans must be vague enough for broad appeal and specific enough to address important issues.”47

The operational learning curve for a nation-wide insurgency may vary greatly in speed. We should not forget the fact that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Al-Da‘wa -- the two main Shi‘i parties or movements -- have their own armed militias held in reserve. Both the Badr Brigade of SCIRI and Al-Da‘wa armed cells have considerable experience in conducting insurgency warfare. The latter group was decimated by the forces of Saddam in the early 1980s yet continued to conduct several assassination attempts against regime officials well into the 1980s.48 Moreover, given its links with one of the world's most potent guerilla/terrorist organizations, Hizballah, it can be safely assumed that its members have begun to learn new tricks of the trade. Another potent group that bears watching is Iraqi Hizballah, a small but well-trained and well-disciplined group of fighters whose leader Karim Mahoud al-Muhammadawi waged a long insurgency against the regime of Saddam.

Should the pessimistic scenario of a nation-wide but largely decentralized resistance take shape in the coming months, the U.S. might then face horrific, violent opposition by thoroughly disgruntled Sunnis and Shi‘is. This would be a war of national liberation, and some aspects of it may come to approximate guerilla warfare as historically understood.49

The U.S. Response: Actual and Recommended

How has the U.S. responded to this insurgency both at the political and operational levels, and how should it respond to prevent the low-intensity conflict or “hydra-headed decentralized insurgency” from becoming a war of national resistance?50

Politically, the U.S. has failed to date to ameliorate or relieve the cause of this insurgency, namely the American reconstruction of Iraq. There is no legitimate government; it behooves the Coalition Provisional Authority to accept the fact that most Iraqis do not see the Governing Council as legitimate. They know that the true power is the CPA. The legitimacy of the CPA, however, is that of an occupier and cannot last long. The CPA would have succeeded in degrading the impact of ill-will and of the insurgency if it had restored law and order, had not implemented certain policies that either humiliated Iraqis or added to the level of unemployment, and had begun an effective reconstruction of the country.

The U.S. continues to focus excessively on rooting out the remnants of the former regime, hence the obsessive focus on the top leadership of the regime, particularly Saddam and his two sons. The deaths of ‘Uday and Qusay in Mosul in late July 2003 at the hands of U.S. forces was greeted with euphoria by the Administration, which has been buffeted by a litany of bad news out of Iraq or about the Iraq war. However, following the deaths of the two sons, violence spiked. This led to the emergence of two distinct interpretations based on the facts.

The first interpretation casts considerable doubt on the importance of the two sons in the ongoing insurgency. Neither of the two brothers was an accomplished insurgent or a budding guerilla leader. ‘Uday was a playboy and a pathological murderer who inspired fear and loathing not loyalty. Qusay, who was supposedly groomed by his father to become the quintessential security man and to survive and thrive in an atmosphere of conspiratorial politics, failed to master his fathers lessons and was caught traveling with his brother and a teenage son.

The second interpretation argues that both sons had become more serious as the war loomed and had begun to focus on their duties to defend the regime. Indeed, to cite Dr. Samuel Johnson, nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the imminent prospect of the hangman. In line with this second interpretation, the two sons played roles in planning and executing the attacks by Iraqi irregular forces during the war itself. After all, ‘Uday did build up the Fida‘iyin. As the regime collapsed, stories have emerged that the two sons helped formulate the plans for the post-war insurgency by regime supporters.

One is led to conclude that the brothers seemed to be on the run rather than moving about to organize attacks. If anybody within the top leadership is playing a role in directing or orchestrating the attacks by regime supporters it would have to be Saddam himself or his old revolutionary supporters from the days of clandestine politics. Removing Saddam and his loyalists would deflate those who might be fighting for the former regime, but it still would not stop those who those who are fighting the U.S. presence under the banner of nationalism or religion.

However, if the attacks that have occurred in Iraq over the course of spring and summer of 2003 are more than attacks by the remnants of the regime, they are definitely less than classic guerilla warfare. Iraq has not entered the stage of guerilla warfare. Nevertheless, advantage in war requires being a step or more ahead of one's foe, so it is imperative that the U.S. prepare actively for the prospect of an uglier guerilla war precisely in order to head it off and defeat it should it break out.

The elimination of Saddam’s sons, of Saddam himself, and of regime fighters in the coming weeks may get rid of one set of insurgents, but it opens the way for the consolidation of a group whose combat against U.S. forces has nothing to do with trying to bring back the ancient regime. The irony here is that as we win against one group we may be opening the field for the rivals of the eliminated group to take the lead in the insurgency against the U.S. The elimination of Saddam and his dynasty may demoralize pro-regime insurgents but may actually embolden anti-regime and anti-U.S. insurgents who may have held back in the past few weeks because of the barely submerged fears that the regime could come back.

The U.S. military has conducted missions (operations and sweeps) to deal with the attacks. These are necessary, but the existence of deep, cultural misunderstandings and the pervasive U.S. tendency to view peace-keeping and policing with disdain in favor of a “robust” (force protection) approach ends up with the missions invariably managing to enlarge the circle of alienated people.51 An alienated populace provides tacit or active support for insurgents and also a ready supply of recruits. The modus operandi of U.S. troops, who are tired and increasingly demoralized by almost non-stop combat since March, contributes to alienating the populace, who in turn either provide succor and assistance to the insurgents or become insurgents themselves. A graphic example is provided in a story in The Village Voice which got its information from the very reliable organization, Amnesty International:

The liberators are unable to provide safety to the populace even from their own soldiers.

Consider the story of little Mohammad al-Kubaisi, as Amnesty International described it last week. On June 26, Mohammad was carrying the family bedding up to the roof, where they slept each night. As he climbed, Mohammad saw American soldiers searching nearby houses. He stopped to watch. Across the street, an American soldier spotted the boy and raised his gun. An Iraqi standing near the soldier said something about “that baby.” But the soldier said, “No baby,” and shot the boy.

When his mother heard Mohammad had been hit, she raced home and saw that he was still alive and scooped him up, but the American soldiers searching the house “kicked here aside,” offering no medical treatment. Two neighbors rushed the boy to the hospital. But the road was blocked by an American tank, and when one of the neighbors tried to explain to an interpreter what was going on, the soldiers handcuffed them behind their back and threw them face down on the ground. After 15 minutes, the Iraqis were allowed to get up and told to go home because the curfew had begun. It was too late for little Muhammad. He had died.

So goes the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraq.52

The vicious cycle is worsened when both Iraqis and Americans begin to view each other as merciless and brutal savages and then to act on these perceptions and succeed in the infliction of atrocities that further widens the gap.53 The type of U.S. force structure in Iraq – heavy armored and mechanized units and the psychological disposition of these forces which have been in Iraq for months is simply not conducive to the successful waging of counter-insurgency warfare.54

Recommendations:

The U.S. must be prepared to see the insurgency as something more than acts of violence by regime supporters but as of summer 2003 as something less than a classic guerilla war. Fighting this type of war is messy; as T.E. Lawrence put it: it is like trying to eat soup with a fork.

Insurgency or guerilla warfare cannot be dealt alone by military means. The U.S. must devise a political, economic, and military plan first to head off and if that is not possible to fight a guerilla war successfully.

We must never lose sight of the ultimate goal if the situation gets messier: our goal is to ensure the emergence of a politically stable, democratic and reconstructed Iraq. We must restore law and order and basic services, and give the Iraqis the substance not the appearance of greater political freedom and sovereignty. In this context, the military part of the counter-insurgency or counter-guerilla war must always be subordinated to this goal. We cannot destroy the country in order to save it.

We must rid ourselves of pervasive cultural arrogance and ignorance. These two factors promote the tendency to simplistic approaches that are prone to failure operationally yet are successful in perpetuating mutual incomprehension and institutionalization of violence and demonic images.

We must be wary of simple formulaic approaches and attempts to implement the tried and tired strategies of the past from other counter-insurgency campaigns: the standing up of an Iraqi militia or armed force to help in the counter-insurgency could backfire. We need to ask ourselves if the members of the proposed force will have the motivation to take on their tasks, given the fact that many are joining solely because of monetary incentives. Might an unmotivated force become a source of intelligence and arms for the insurgents?

Citation and quotation permissible if you please contact the author:

Ahmed S. Hashim, PhD.

Professor of Strategic Studies

Center for Naval Warfare Studies

Strategic Studies Department

Naval War College

Newport, RI 02841

1 (401) 841-6981

hashima@nwc.navy.mil

Author’s Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Naval War College or the US Departments of the Navy or Defense. This paper does not utilize classified information and is based exclusively on open source information and interviews.

MEI’s Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Perspective are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.

Author:

Ahmed Hashim, PhD., is Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI. He specializes in Middle Eastern and South Asian strategic issues. He also focuses on Asymmetric Warfare, the Revolution in Military Affairs, Terrorism, and Non-Proliferation. He studied at Warwick University, where he obtained a B.S in Political Science and International Relations, and MIT where he obtained an M.Sc and PhD. in Political Science. His most recent papers are "The World According to Usama Bin Laden," Naval War College Review, Winter 2001; and "Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power," Middle East Journal, Winter 2003.

Editor:

David Chambers is the director of programs at the Middle East Institute.

FOOTNOTES

1
On the Special Republican Guards see Vernon Loeb, "Special Republican Guard: Iraq's loyal and formidable force," International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2002 (accessed on-line).

2

The Iraqi military has generated a considerable amount of literature over the past decade because of its involvement in three major wars since 1980. Despite its extensive combat experience over the course of the last twenty years, the Iraqi military has not been effective for a wide variety of reasons, many of them having to do with the political culture of the country under the Ba‘thist regime. After 1991 the army deteriorated further and the relationship between it and Saddam worsened considerably. For more details see, inter alia, John Antal, "Iraq's Mailed Fist," Infantry, January-February 1991, pp.27-30; Ahmed S. Hashim, "Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power, Middle East Journal, Winter 2003, pp.9-41; Matthew Hurley, "Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Air Power: Just Having An Air Force Isn‘t Enough," http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/hurley.html; Kenneth Pollack, Arabs At War, Kenneth Pollack, The Threatening Storm,

3

See John Kifner, “Resistance on ‘every inch’ of road to Baghdad,” International Herald Tribune, March 28, 2003 (accessed on-line); “U.S. Troops Confront Iraqi reistance,” USA Today, March 23, 2003 (accessed on-line); Keith Richburg, “Move on Basra Met by Strong Iraqi Resistance,” Washington Post, March 23, 2003, p.A19; Brendan O’Neill, “The road to Basra,” at http://www.spiked-online.com.

4

See Patrick Tyler, "Iraq Vows to Use "Any Method" Against Foe," New York Times, March 30, 2003 (accessed on-line).

5

“Organisierter Widerstand gegen die USA” (Organized Resistance to the U.S.A.), Neue Zurcher Zeitung, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line).

6

See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp.479-483; Mao Zedong, On Guerilla Warfare, at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerilla-warfare/index.htm; T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, London: Cape, 1935, pp.188-196.

7

The most detailed analysis of guerilla wars is to be found in Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerilla in History, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994. The book contains extremely detailed analyses of the Maoist, Vietnamese and Algerian guerilla wars; other excellent analyses include Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare in Theory and Practice, New York: Lyle Stuart, 1965; Walter Lacqueur, Guerilla,

8

We do not need to recap this history here, but the following works provide analyses of Sunni Arab-dominated state formation in Iraq from 1921 to the present: Hanna Batatu, Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Charles Tripp, A History of Modern Iraq, Pierre-Jean Luizard, La question irakienne.

9

See Neil MacFarquhar, “Iraq’s Anxious Sunnis Seek Security in the New Order,” New York Times, August 10, 2003.

10

For brief discussions of the impact of patronage in the town of Tirkrit see Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Tikrit, Hussein Still Stands Tall,” Washington Post, April 29, 2003, p.29; Scott Calvert, “In Hussein’s town, a day now like any other,” Baltimore Sun, April 29, 2003 (accessed on-line).

11

On the neo-patrimonial nature of the Ba‘thist regime see Faleh Abdul Jabbar, “Al dawlah wa al-mujtama fi al ‘arak: nizam shamuli jaded fi haqabat al-afwal” (State and Society in Iraq: Neo-totalitarianism in twilight of Totalitarianism) The Jurist, Vol.1, Issue No.6, October 2001, pp.35-45.

12

See Anthony Shadid, "Iraq's Once-Privileged Sunnis Increasingly See U.S. As Enemy," Washington Post, June 01, 2003, p.1; Patrick Tyler, "Troops Attacked In Baghdad In Fresh Signs of Resistance," New York Times, June 02, 2003, p.1.

13

See Michael Slackman, “U.S. Operation Yields Fury In Central Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line).

14

See Anthony Shadid, “In Searching Homes, U.S. Troops Crossed The Threshold of Unrest,” Washington Post, May 30, 2003, p.1.

15

This is by no means all the groups. I have listed only the ones that I have managed to get some information on; and even then the information is sparse. I did a thorough search of the media in English, Arabic, French, and German to get information on the groups; their communiqués were analyzed in detail to ascertain their ideological backgrounds.

16

For a similar assessment by an Iraqi observer who was on the ground in Iraq see Faleh A. Jabar, “The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq,” Middle East Report, No.227, Summer 2003, p.18.

17

For details of Al Awdah see Daniel Williams, “Attacks in Iraq Traced to Network,” Washington Post, June 22, 2003, p.A01.

18

"Iraqi group formed to resist coalition," United Press International, May 29, 2003.

19

See Larry Kaplow, “Community Shields Iraqi Insurgents,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 19, 2003 (accessed on-line).

20

Ibid.

21

Quoted in Muhammad al-Shafi‘i, “A New Fundamentalist Group Threatens To Intensify Operations Against US Troops in Iraq,” Al Sharq al-Awsat, June 22, 2003 in FBIS-NESA, June 22, 2003 (accessed on-line).

22

“Unknown Group Establishes a Truce With US Forces,” Al-Zaman (Arabic) July 16, 2003, p.01 translated in FBIS-NES, July 16, 2003 (accessed on-line).

23

For a chilling interview with an insurgent fighter who gave some details of the insurgents’ modus operandi see Mohammad Bazzi, “A Promise to Fight On,” Newsday, July 10, 2003 (accessed on-line).

24

Jonathan Steele and Michael Howard, “U.S. confused by Iraq’s quiet war,” The Guardian, July 17 2003, (accessed on-line).

25

Steven Hurst, “Iraqi insurgents turn to roadside bombs,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 21, 2003 (accessed on-line).

26

For details on these kinds of attacks in late June-early July see Edmund Andrews, “In Day Of Violence In Iraq, Attacks From All Directions,” New York Times, July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Daniel McGrory, “This Is What The Iraqis Think Of Us, Said The Captain Cradling A Charred Helmet,” The Times (London), July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Remy Ourdan, A Fallouja, les Irakiens crient leur haine face aux soldats americains,” Le Monde, July 02, 2003 (accessed on-line); Tom Laseter, Grim Signs Of Guerilla War,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 02, 2003, p.1.

27

The Political Media Organ of the Ba‘th party put out the following statement at the end of June: “the Party will target the (Vinnell) corporation and all its associates, making the corporatgion, its headquarters, equipment, management, and associates – regardless of their nationalities – legitimate targets for the resistance…we warn our Arab brothers whether they are soldiers, individuals, experts, or consultants against cooperating with the company, accepting contracts, directly from it or through the army or government of their own countries…” in Al Quds al-Arabi, June 27, 2003, p.1 in FBIS-NESA, June 27, 2003.

28

Colin Freeman, "Officials targeted by Iraqi killers," The Scotsman, July 17, 2003 (accessed on-line).

29

On the sabotage tactics of the insurgents see Michael Gordon, “Iraqi Saboteurs’ Goal: Disrupt The Occupation,” New York Times, June 28, 2003 (accessed on-line); Steve Komarow, “U.S. In A Race To Head Off Guerilla War,” USA Today, July 03, 2003, p.15; Scott Peterson, “Next Challenge In Iraq: Sabotage,” Christian Science Monitor, July 03, 2003 (accessed on-line).

30

See Mike Dorning, “Most Dangerous Time in Iraq,” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 2003, p.1.

31

The literature, particularly in English on Sunni Islamism in Iraq is thin, but see Basim al-‘Azimi, "The Muslim Brotherhood: Genesis and Development," in Faleh Abdul Jabar (ed.), Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq, London: Saqi Publishers, 2002, pp.162-176.

32

At the same time, though, the regime put stringent controls over re-islamization, in particular with respect to the Shi‘is who could not be allowed their overt religious manifestations because these could easily become political anti-regime rallies.

33

The turn to religion for spiritual relief intensified in the early 1990s when socioeconomic conditions began to worsen perceptibly, see Francoise Chipaux, “Un regime renforce par l’embargo,” Le Monde, November 12, 1994, p.1.

34

Al Jazirah Interview with Dr. Usama al-Tikriti, in FBIS-NES, May 14, 2003.

35

Ibid.

36

See David Rohde, “Sunni party pursues moderates in Mosul,” International Herald Tribune, April 24, 2003 (accessed on-line).

37

Mohamad Bazzi, “A New Jihad Vs. America? Iraq Fight Draws Arab Men,” Long Island Newsday, July 20, 2003, (accessed on-line).

38

See Patrick Tyler, "Troops Attacked In Baghdad In Fresh Signs of Resistance," New York Times, June 02, 2003, p.1.

39

Edmund Andrews and Patrick Tyler, “Muslim cleric issues call for jihad against U.S.,” Providence Journal, June 07, 2003, p.A1,6.

40

See “Zaher irakischer Widerstand gegen die USA,” Neue Zurcher Zeitung, July 03, 2003 (accessed on-line).

41

See, inter alia, Washington Post, April 16, 2003, p.33; The Guardian, April 16, 2003, p.1; Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2003, p.1;

42

See Yaroslav Trofimov, “Shiite Clerics In Baghdad Slum Collect, Distribute Stolen Goods,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2003 (accessed-on-line).

43

See Sophie Shihab, “En Irak, les ayatollahs chiites ménagent les forces américaines,” Le Monde, June 17, 2003, (accessed

44

See Charles Clover, “Shia Leaders Feel Heat Of The People’s Anger,” Financial Times, July 02, 2003, p.7.

45

Quoted in Jonathan Steele, “Shia cleric challenges Bush plan for Iraq,” The Guardian, July 01, 2003 (accessed on-line); for further analysis see also Juan Cole, “Informed Comment,” July 01, 2003 at http://www.juancole.com/

46

The best short introduction to the nationalist uprising or insurgency of 1920 is Mark Jacobsen, “Only by the Sword: British Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 1920,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol.2, No.2, August 1991, pp.323-363.

47

Major Eric Nyberg, United States Marine Corps, “Insurgency – The Unsolved Mystery,” accessed at https://www.globasecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/NEN.htm

48

On Al-Da‘wa's operations against the Saddam regime see the detailed study on the organization by Florian Bernhardt, Die schiitisch-islamistiche Bewegung im Irak: Hizb al-Da‘wa al-Islamiya 1958-1992 (The Shi‘i-Islamic Movement in Iraq: The Party of the Islamic Call, 1958-1992), M.A. in History and Social Sciences Faculty, Free University of Berlin, November 2001, pp.60-69.

49

It is unlikely that such a guerrilla war would move into the third stage; I simply do not see the Iraqi insurgents, even if they are unified and cohesive, deciding to constitute a regular force under the noses of the Americans.

50

These issues are addressed extensively in the longer version of the paper.

51

For the U.S. military operations in central Iraq in June 2003 and the reactions of the local populace see Sophie Shihab, "En Irak, les Americains engagent des combats meurtriers," Le Monde, June 13, 2003; "Les Etats Unis face a une "resistance organisée" en Irak," Le Monde, June 13, 2003; Michael Slackman, "U.S. Operation Yields Fury In Central Iraq," Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2003 (accessed on-line); Ilene Prueher, "U.S. Antiguerilla Campaign Draws Iraqi Ire," Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2003; Ellen Barry and Bryan Bender, "US Support in Iraq Fades After Raids," Boston Globe, June 15, 2003, p.1.

52

See James Ridgeway, “Guerillas in the Midst,” The Village Voice, July 29, 2003 (accessed on-line).

53

On the increase in mutual demonization see Scott Wallace, "God, I hate these people, says the sergeant. Some utter the V-word: Vietnam," The Independent, July 20, 2003, (accessed on-line).

54
On growing morale problems of U.S. personnel see Ron Martz, "Fort Stewart-based soldiers fight heat, boredom in Iraq," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 20, 2003 (accessed on-line); "US Soldiers' Conditions in Iraq," British Broadcasting Corporation News, July 21, 2003.