Iraq

This publication is now archived. How much influence will ex-Baathists have in the new Iraqi government?That remains to be seen. Prominent Shiite and Kurdish leaders whose coalitions control some 75 percent of the transitional National Assembly elected January 30 say they plan to purge thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from the Iraqi security services. Jobs and preferences in the new Iraq, these leaders say, should go to the former regime’s victims, not its officials. But some experts and Iraqis say national unity is more important than a purge, which would further alienate the Arab Sunnis who generally backed--and benefited from--the former system and who now form the heart of the insurgency. Why are there senior ex-Baathists in the current government?In the early months of the U.S.-led occupation, authorities banned the Baath Party and removed all senior Baathists from the government and security forces. But U.S. officials began to shift their strategy in April 2004 and, in a bid to strengthen the officer corps, allowed some senior ex-Baathists to return to the security forces. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi continued this policy. What were the original debaathification orders?L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, issued two sweeping orders in May 2003: one outlawed the Baath Party and dismissed all senior members from their government posts; the other dissolved Iraq’s 500,000-member military and intelligence services. In November 2003, Bremer established a Supreme National Debaathification Commission to root out senior Baathists from Iraqi ministries and hear appeals from Baathists who were in the lowest ranks of the party’s senior leadership. The party’s foremost leaders--some 5,000 to 10,000 individuals--were not permitted to appeal their dismissals. How many Baathists were dismissed?Bremer’s first order led to the firing of about 30,000 ex-Baathists from various ministries. Some 15,000 were eventually permitted to return to work after they won their appeals, says Nibras Kazimi, a former adviser to the debaathification commission and currently a visiting Iraq scholar at the Hudson Institute. All military officers above the rank of colonel were barred from returning to work, as were all 100,000 members of Iraq’s various intelligence services. What changed?In April 2004, Bremer announced that debaathification had been "poorly implemented" and applied "unevenly and unjustly," and said he supported a plan to allow "vetted senior officers from the former regime" back into the military services. At the time, the Iraqi insurgency was picking up speed, and some argued that a blanket purge of Baathists and the dismissal of the Iraqi army were at least partially to blame. Baathists "who do not have blood on their hands," and who were "innocent and competent" could play a role in Iraq’s reconstruction, then-coalition spokesman Dan Senor announced on April 24, 2004. Two months later, Bremer dissolved the Supreme National Debaathification Commission, but the panel, with support from some members of the interim government, continues to operate. Interim Prime Minister Allawi backed the return of vetted ex-Baathists to the security services after his appointment in June 2004. How many ex-Baathists were brought back into the government?It’s unclear. Kazimi estimates that some 9,000 ex-Baathists who would have been disqualified by Bremer’s original orders now work in the defense ministry, interior ministry, and intelligence services. Why were ex-Baathists allowed back into the government?One key reason was to further national unity and reconciliation. Bremer’s debaathification policy excluded thousands of experienced government workers--some of whom may not have committed crimes under the former regime--from playing a role in the new Iraq. Softening the interim government’s stance on ex-Baathists was seen as a way to bring moderate Sunnis back into the fold.Another key reason: rebaathification would accelerate the formation of Iraq’s security forces. By April 2004, it had become evident that Iraq’s fledgling police and military were largely unable to stand up to the increasingly aggressive insurgents. The U.S. military calculated that experienced former officers of Saddam Hussein’s military would fortify the command structure of the new forces, says Kenneth Katzman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service. In addition, debaathification itself appeared to be causing a security threat. "Every time you purge a commander, you add a potential commander to the insurgency," Katzman says. What are the arguments against having ex-Baathists in the security services?Opponents of rebaathification argue it has been counterproductive because some of the former commanders sympathize with or aid the insurgents. Violence has increased steadily since the policy was implemented, and insurgents appear to have successfully infiltrated the security forces. Ex-Baathist commanders, opponents argue, cannot be trusted.Another issue is ensuring justice for victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Purge supporters argue that a stable Iraq cannot be built unless high-ranking Baathists are held accountable for the oppression of millions of Iraqis. Returning former officials to the government, they argue, will poison Iraqis’ view of their new state. "Allawi used the concept of reconciliation badly to bring bad Baathists into the Iraqi government. He has tainted the concept in the eyes of the Iraqi people," says Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, a prominent Iraqi politician and the chairman of the Supreme National Debaathification Commission since its founding. Who would replace the senior Baathist commanders if they were purged?It’s unclear. Some Shiite and Kurdish politicians said senior officers from their sectarian militias could take up leadership positions in the military. These include leaders of the Badr Brigades of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and the Kurdish peshmerga fighters. It is not clear how the U.S. military would view the addition of these fighters to the Iraqi officer corps. What exactly is the Baath Party?The party, whose name means "rebirth," was founded in Syria in 1947 and supported a platform of secular pan-Arab nationalism, socialist economics, and opposition to European influence in the region. It solidified its power in a 1968 coup. Under Saddam Hussein’s leadership, the Baath Party became highly militarized. The party functioned somewhat clandestinely, recruiting members for small organizational cells in towns, villages, and cities. These cells would report to regional party committees that, in turn, would report to Saddam Hussein. In exchange for providing information to and otherwise assisting the party, members were rewarded with jobs in state-run companies or institutions, the opportunity to study in a university, housing preferences, or increased pay. Teachers, for example, would receive a bonus equal to 10 times their monthly salary of $5 for becoming full members, according to news reports. Although, theoretically, any Iraqi could join the party, its membership in the final years of the regime was mostly Arab Sunni, as were the party’s top ranks. How large was party membership under Saddam Hussein?About 2 million out of a total population of some 24 million, experts estimate. The exact number is unknown, in part because tens of thousands of pages of party records have not yet been reviewed. The U.S. military controls most of the files, though Iraqi politicians seized some just after the fall of Baghdad. Chalabi holds some 10 percent of the old files, Kazimi estimates. Is the debaathification commission still functioning?To an extent. Despite Bremer’s order to disband the commission, Chalabi led a successful effort in mid-2004 to keep it running. He argued that, because the commission is enshrined in Iraq’s interim constitution, Bremer did not have the authority to shut it down. The commission presented its case to the Iraqi National Council, the interim government’s 100-member advisory body. Allawi, meanwhile, has taken steps to weaken the commission and has reportedly ignored many of its recommendations. He limited the number of commission personnel permitted to enter the so-called Green Zone, the U.S.-protected area in the center of Baghdad where the commission has its offices. He issued a warrant for the arrest of the commission’s director, Mithal al-Alusi, because he visited Israel, a crime under Saddam Hussein’s regime, The New York Times reported in October 2004. (Alusi’s two sons died February 8 in an assassination attempt aimed at their father.) The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police and border patrol, fired 500 of 900 employees the commission deemed suspect, Ali Faisal al-Lami, another commission member, told theTimes. What will the new government do about debaathification?It depends on many factors: the coalitions that develop in the new transitional assembly, the new prime minister, the course of the insurgency, and the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most important Shiite cleric in Iraq. Sistani helped to organize the largely-Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) coalition that won some 48 percent of the January vote. Experts say any of the following steps are possible:Enforce the debaathification commission’s rules and remove all senior ex-Baathists from security services and other organizations. This appears to be the preferred position of many Iraqis in the powerful UIA coalition. "Giving ex-Baathists responsibility and putting them on the front lines, I think, is a big mistake," coalition member Ibrahim Bahr Uloum told The Washington Post February 2, adding that one of the first missions of the new government should be to "clean up the security forces" by ousting former Baathists. Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a newly elected UIA delegate, said February 13 that the new government’s top priority should be to protect and provide for former victims of Saddam Hussein. "The issue is not about appeasement policy, appeasing the old Baathists or old criminals who have committed crimes against our own people," he told CNN’s Late Edition. "The government is going to stick to the rules [Iraqis] have agreed upon for the debaathification commission," Kazimi says.Expand the purges. Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says some Shiite and Kurdish politicians are eyeing plans to ban all 2 million Baath Party members from high-ranking positions in the new government. In a January 28 columnfor National Review Online, he wrote that former Baathists "might continue to receive their pensions, and they might also still work in government, but they will not be able to assume positions of command authority--colonel or above in the Iraqi military, or director-general or above in civilian service. Former Baathists like the defense minister, interior minister, and intelligence director would lose their positions."Find a new way to ensure loyalty in the new government. Rather than blanket purges, some experts argue that debaathification procedures should judge each individual separately for his role and crimes in the former regime. Vetting procedures for former officers and bureaucrats could be improved, or a truth commission or special court could hear cases to judge if former officials were guilty of crimes. The only former regime members currently scheduled to stand trial are Saddam Hussein and a dozen top lieutenants.Take a pragmatic approach. Despite the desire for justice for victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the political situation in Iraq may be too delicate now to pursue the goal of debaathification full-force. At the top of the new government’s agenda, some experts say, must be an effort to include Arab Sunnis, who generally did not vote on January 30 and are underrepresented in the new government. In 2003 Sunnis, some 15 percent to 20 percent of the population, comprised about 75 percent of the Baath Party, Katzman estimates. "Extensive debaathification will be viewed by Sunnis as de-Sunnization, and they will take exception to it," he says. In a compromise, some ex-Baathists may remain in their current posts. "The new government will have to be just as pragmatic as the old government," says Noah Feldman, associate professor at New York University Law School and a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority. "The name of the game is pragmatism, compromise, and coalition-building," says Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "Debaathification has to be handled carefully, or it could backfire."--by Sharon Otterman, staff writer, cfr.org

This publication is now archived. What’s the extent of insurgent infiltration of Iraq’s security forces?Widespread, many experts say. Insurgents frequently appear to have inside information about the movements and routines of Iraqi and U.S. troops that they use to mount deadly attacks, such as the December 21 suicide bombing of a U.S. military base in Mosul, which killed 22. Though the Pentagon does not provide specific numbers, news reports indicate that dozens of Iraqi police and military personnel, including some high-ranking commanders, have been dismissed on suspicion they provided information or other assistance to insurgents. "Subversion of the government and armed forces is the bread and butter of an insurgency," Bruce Hoffman, a RAND Corporation counterinsurgency expert, recently told the Associated Press. Who are the infiltrators?There are three broad categories, and individuals in each have different motivations, experts say:Hard-core fighters. These are insurgent fighters who pass limited background checks and are inducted into security forces or given jobs on U.S. bases. In some areas--such as towns in the Sunni triangle, the heart of the insurgency--up to one-fifth of recruits may be insurgents, says U.S. Army Special Forces Major James A. Gavrilis, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who trained Iraqi security forces in 2003 and 2004. In less violence-prone areas where the population is cooperating with the political transition--such as Shiite areas in southern Iraq--this number is likely much lower, maybe only 1 percent, Gavrilis says.Sympathizers. These security personnel do not personally take up arms against Americans or the Iraqi government, but they may provide some information or assistance to insurgents. There are likely many more sympathizers than insurgents in Iraq’s forces, experts say. They may be motivated by payments from the insurgency--which is reportedly financed by funds under the control of Saddam Hussein loyalists--hatred of the U.S. occupation, or tribal or ethnic ties. Many Iraqi police and soldiers return home each day after work, where they may come into contact with family members and neighbors linked to the insurgency who demand help, says retired three-star Marine General Bernard Trainor, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Persian Gulf War."Coerced and intimidated security forces. These police officers and soldiers may genuinely want to work with the new Iraqi government but share information with insurgents out of fear. More than 2,000 Iraqis serving in the security forces have been killed in insurgent attacks since May 2003. Is it possible to measure the level of infiltration?Not with precision, experts say. Last October, Aqil al-Saffar, as aide to interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said that as many as 5 percent of the Iraqi government’s troops were insurgents or sympathizers, The New York Times reported. Some experts suggest the number may be higher. "Penetration of Iraqi security and military forces may be the rule, not the exception," Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Security International Studies, said in a January report. Some U.S. commanders agree. "The police and military forces all have insurgents in them. You don’t have a pure force," Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Sinclair of the 1st Infantry Division told the Associated Press. However, focusing on the size of the infiltration misses the point, Gavrilis says. "I don’t think the [overall] level of penetration is as much as most people think it is, because you don’t really need a lot to do a lot of damage." How do insurgents make it into the forces?All recruits are vetted. It’s the ’first line of defense,’ Trainor says. But many experts say the vetting of new Iraqi forces has been inadequate and rushed. Many files on individuals from Saddam Hussein’s regime are scattered, destroyed, or contain unverifiable or outdated information of limited use to current commanders. Iraqis lack sufficient personnel to conduct in-depth background checks on the thousands of new soldiers and police officers who join security forces each month. ’This is part of the downside of the fact that the most important goal has been to create as large a force as possible as quickly as possible,’ says retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international affairs at Boston University. How are Iraqi security forces vetted?Through a mixture of background checks, interviews, physical fitness tests, and observation of their performance on the job, experts say. Iraqi officers ask recruits basic questions about their loyalties, such as whether they support the Iraqi government. All recruits also have to provide at least one reference from someone in their town or village whom commanders judge trustworthy, General Babaker Shawkat Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi army, told the Chicago Tribune. Iraqi military intelligence--which is being trained by U.S. intelligence services--then seeks to verify these references and examine the recruits’ background. Finally, names are checked against CIA and other U.S. databases to make sure no one with a recent prison record--or is a so-called high-value target from Saddam Hussein’s regime--can make it onto the force. Is the U.S. military involved in the process?Since the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in June 2004, Iraqi officials have become largely responsible for vetting their own forces, U.S. commanders say. "We don’t do a systematic vetting process on Iraqi security forces, their government does that," Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wilson, deputy for current operations for the 1st Marine Division, told the Associated Press after the Mosul bombing. Even before last June, however, U.S. commanders often relied on trusted Iraqi counterparts to vet forces, because they were familiar with the country and better able to judge recruits’ backgrounds. Checks for low-level police and other security jobs were at times quite cursory. In December 2003, The Washington Post reported that vetting of local police at one Baghdad station consisted of a two-minute interview in which an Iraqi commander "sized up" the candidates with a few questions about their backgrounds and political opinions. Is vetting uniform across Iraq’s security forces?No. It is generally believed to be considerably more comprehensive in Iraq’s small, professional army--which now has some 4,100 men--than in the police, where turnover rates and recruit numbers are much higher. There are now 53,000 trained police, but the number has varied widely: in March 2004, the force had 70,000 men, and in October 2004, there were 84,950 officers on duty, according to U.S. totals. Iraqi officials say they are still conducting background checks on police officers hired before June 2004. "We have a lot of trouble getting information; we still have 50,000 [Iraqi police] who haven’t been checked out," Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim told reporters December 26. "And it’s not just a question of loyalty or background; we don’t even know whether they’re working." Who conducts background checks on Iraqi civilians working at U.S. bases?U.S. forces, with the help of the Iraqi military, officials say. Investigators screen truck drivers, mess hall workers, and other employees and check them against a U.S.-compiled database of criminals and former regime members, Army Captain Darren Luke, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, told The Boston Globe. Iraqis are then issued identity cards, which they must show at least once when entering a base, and are subject to comprehensive searches for explosives and other materials. Still, U.S. military commanders say they believe their bases are infiltrated; insurgents carrying base ID cards are occasionally captured. Was the Mosul base suicide bomber a member of the Iraqi security forces?An investigation is ongoing, but it appears he was not, according to Iraqi officials and news reports of the U.S.-led probe’s preliminary findings. He was wearing an Iraqi National Guard uniform, investigators agree, but could have bought it illegally at the market in Mosul, where they are readily available. The suicide bomber "was not a member of the national guards because all of our men stationed in the base have been accounted for," Zebari, the army chief of staff, told the Associated Press. On the other hand, the Islamist group that claimed responsibility for the bombing, Ansar al-Sunna, clearly had knowledge of the schedule on the base, indicating the bomber had some inside information. What other examples indicate likely infiltration of the forces?Among them:The carefully planned roadside massacre of 50 unarmed Iraqi cadets headed home on leave October 23.The September arrest in Dyala province of a senior Iraqi National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Talib al-Lahibi, for links to the insurgency.The October arrest of Iraqi National Guard battalion commander Colonel Daham Abd, for allegedly providing ammunition, money, and information to Kirkuk insurgents.Numerous other attacks on Iraqi security forces, especially those that occur while large numbers of them are gathered for a ceremony or other events and are particularly vulnerable. How can vetting be improved?By slowing the hiring process and increasing the length of training of forces, many experts say. Observing the police and soldiers at work--and whether they are willing to risk their lives in combat situations--is perhaps the clearest way to test recruits’ loyalty, Gavrilis says. Iraqis also need assistance in developing an effective counterintelligence agency within the police and military that can help root out disloyal forces, Trainor says. In addition, a professional Iraqi officer corps will help ensure loyalty. Building such a system from scratch can take years, experts say. There has been more emphasis placed on training and vetting since June 2004, when the military appointed Army Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus to head the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq, the unit in charge of training Iraqi security forces. But experts say procedures still appear to be inadequate. After the Mosul attacks, U.S. officials announced that a military assessment team led by Army Brigadier General Richard P. Formica would reassess security and vetting procedures, both on bases and within the Iraqi forces. How does the infiltration weaken the forces?The most immediate effect is that it allows insurgents to get information about troop movements and plans. It also sows distrust between U.S. forces and Iraqi troops, Trainor says. And the presence of insurgent infiltrators undermines trust and cohesion—essential elements for any effective security force. "The U.S. military can do a great job training the Iraqis, but if there is this rot on the inside that is eating away at the attitude of the forces, I’m not sure training will be enough," Bacevich says. "It’s an enormously difficult and potentially fatal problem." Could the infiltration be part of a wider insurgent strategy?Yes. As in Vietnam, where there was widespread Vietcong subversion of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army, some experts say the Iraqi infiltration may be part of a guerrilla strategy to seize power after the January 30 elections. "Many in the Iraqi security forces are simply biding their time right now; they are in league with the insurgents but are not showing their hand," says Kenneth Katzman, senior Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service. "There is a core hoping to get integrated into the post-election force with the intention of staging a coup d’etat." Many insurgents sympathize with Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, Katzman says, "and the Baath Party strategy has always been to get control of the security forces." Some experts predict Iraqi Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the Iraqi population and who won a majority of transitional National Assembly seats in the January 30 elections, will purge the forces and replace many Sunni officers with Shiites. Others say that if the U.S. military remains engaged in Iraq, it will limit purges and attempt to ensure the Iraqi army remains an ethnically and religiously balanced force that won’t tyrannize Iraqi minorities.

This publication is now archived. The Iraq insurgency, which broke out after President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq in May 2003, has killed more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers, hundreds of foreign nationals, and thousands of Iraqis. The following figures tracking the insurgency are based on information from the U.S. Defense Department , the U.S. State Department , U.S. Central Command , Iraq Body Count , The Lancet , Iraq Coalition Casualty Count , The Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, and news reports. U.S. casualties as of January 7, 2004:1,342 dead, of whom 1,056 were killed in action10,252 wounded, of whom 4,856 returned to duty within 72 hours Multiple casualty car bombings (including suicide attacks) from May 2003 through January 4, 2005 : 171 Killed in those attacks: 1,806 Wounded in those attacks: 4,189 Insurgent attacks on coalition forces, through December 16, 2004: 17,140 Insurgents detained or killed since May 2003 (estimate): 32,000 Total insurgents as of January 2004: U.S. estimate: more than 20,000 Iraqi intelligence estimate: 200,000 active supporters, at least 40,000 fighters Non-Iraqi insurgents as of December 2004 (estimate): 3,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since March 2003, estimated by:The Iraq Index: 11,000-38,500Amnesty International: more than 10,000Iraq Body Count:15,094 to 17,299A joint study on mortality rates conducted by the Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, published in The Lancet: 100,000 Non-Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq from May 2003 to January 4, 2005: 240 Countries with more than 10 civilians killed in Iraq from May 2003 to January 4, 2005:United States: 75United Kingdom: 27Turkey: 21Nepal: 15South Africa: 14 Iraqi police killed between January 1, 2004, and September 28, 2004 (estimate): 750 Iraqi security force recruits (not including police) killed between May 1, 2003, and October 26, 2004 (estimate): 1,500Iraqi officials assassinated between June 2004 and December 2004: at least 20 Attacks on oil and gas pipelines, installations, and personnel as of January 4, 2005: 184 Foreign nationals kidnapped in Iraq between May 2003 and December 14, 2004: 160Killed: 33Released: 65Still held: 37Escaped: 3Rescued: 2Status unknown: 20 U.S. forces in Iraq: about 150,000 Other countries with forces in Iraq: 28 Total forces of other countries: roughly 25,000 Non-U.S. coalition soldiers killed (estimate): 151Great Britain: 76Italy: 19Poland: 16Spain: 11Ukraine: 9Bulgaria: 7Slovakia: 3Estonia: 2The Netherlands: 2Thailand: 2Denmark: 1El Salvador: 1Hungary: 1Latvia: 1 Deadliest locations for U.S. soldiers between March 2003 and January 6, 2005:Baghdad: 284 killedGreater al-Anbar province: 161 killedFalluja: 136 killed Deadliest months for U.S. soldiers between March 2003 and January 6, 2005:November 2004: 137 killedApril 2004: 135 killed Months in which the most U.S. soldiers were injured:November 2004: 1,350 injuredApril 2004: 1,206 injuredAugust 2004: 883 injured U.S. states that have lost the most soldiers as of January 6, 2005:California: 157Texas: 120Pennsylvania: 66New York: 64Florida: 60Illinois: 57 American military helicopters downed as of December 31, 2004: 34 Iraqi forces fully or partially trained as of January 5, 2005: 121,737In the following categories:Police: 53,135Civil Intervention Force: 1,091Emergency Response Unit: 205Border Enforcement: 14,786Highway Patrol: 1,327Bureau of Dignitary Protection: 484Army: 4,414National Guard: 40,063Intervention Force: 5,246Special Operations Force: 674Air Force: 508Coastal Defense Force: 508 Iraqi security forces required, U.S. goal: 273,889

This publication is now archived. Why have Iraq’s Shiites opted to form a single electoral slate?Iraqi Shiites--some 60 percent of Iraq’s population--have never held political power and see the January 30 election as a way to attain the dominant voice in the new government. To ensure their voting power is not diluted, the leading Shiite political parties have agreed to join forces in a single electoral slate of candidates. The list, called the United Iraqi Alliance, is dominated by powerful religious Shiite groups: the Islamic Da’wa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Who is behind the idea of a unified Shiite slate?The country’s most influential figure: the senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa commanding his millions of followers to cast ballots and is running a massive get-out-the-vote effort through mosques and shrines. His devotees will most likely support the United Iraqi Alliance, which could result in a Shiite electoral landslide. "Everyone is saying the Sistani list is going to be the clock-cleaner in this election. No other list is even going to come close," says Kenneth Katzman, senior Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress. What is an electoral slate?A list of candidates. The rules of the January vote to elect a 275-member transitional National Assembly requires that, instead of voting for legislators to represent particular local districts--as in the U.S. voting system--all Iraqis will choose from a single national ballot. The ballot will contain various lists, or slates, of candidates. Each voter will choose one slate, and each slate will receive National Assembly seats according to the percentage of the nationwide vote it wins. Candidates will be seated according to their position on the list, with those at the top seated first. Is the United Iraqi Alliance exclusively Shiite?No. The Sistani slate includes some independent Kurds, Sunnis, and other minority groups in an apparent attempt to give it the broadest possible appeal to Iraqi voters. But the list is dominated by Shiites, who make up at least two-thirds of the candidates, press reports say. The two main Kurdish parties--the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan--have created a separate slate and are expected to win the majority of the Kurdish vote. The raging insurgency in Sunni Muslim areas, meanwhile, has raised concerns that Sunni Arabs will not turn out to vote on Election Day. The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni religious party, registered a 275-member candidate list December 9, but announced December 27 its withdrawal from the election for security reasons. Dozens of Sunni leaders have called for a six-month postponement of the election, but the U.S. and Iraqi governments are insisting it take place on time. Iraq’s population is approximately 15 percent to 20 percent Kurdish and 20 percent Sunni Arab. Which Shiite groups and individuals are on the unified slate?The 228-member slate was submitted to the Independent Iraqi Election Commission on December 9, but most of the names of the candidates on the list remained secret. Its main participants are:SCIRI: This large, popular Shiite religious party opposed Saddam Hussein’s regime, predominately from exile in Iran. It is led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who reportedly holds the top slot on the Sistani-backed list. His brother, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, headed the party until he was killed in a Najaf car bombing in August 2003.Da’wa: Da’wa was a major Shiite opposition party under Saddam Hussein. Thousands of its members were executed by the regime. This religious party has strong support among Shiites in southern Iraq. Its leader, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is vice president of the interim Iraqi government and is reportedly second on Sistani’s list. Da’wa and SCIRI have a history of working together; at one point, it was thought they would break away to form their own independent list.Iraqi National Congress (INC): The INC is headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Shiite exile and banker whose coalition of anti-regime exile groups received U.S. support before and after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Chalabi--No. 10 on the Sistani list--lost his official U.S. backing in May amid accusations he had passed U.S. secrets to Iran. He denies any wrongdoing. He has recently emerged as a champion of Iraqi Shiite interests; previously, he advocated a Western-style, secular Iraqi democracy. In July, he organized the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella organization of some 38 Shiite parties, as a rival to SCIRI and Da’wa.The Shiite Political Council: Until December 7, this coalition of small Shiite parties had threatened to run its own slate of candidates. Last-minute negotiations reportedly shifted some of its representatives closer to the top of the United Iraqi Alliance list, which appeared to satisfy council leaders. On November 30, the group’s spokesman, Hussein al-Mousawi, criticized the Sistani list, calling the slate’s top-tier candidates "extremist Shiite Islamists who believe in the rule of religious clerics." After joining the list, he seemed resigned to the reality of power politics: "I don’t think the Shiite Council can make a difference to the equation either way," he told The Chicago Tribune. Is Shiite cleric Mutqada al-Sadr on the list?Apparently not. Despite lengthy negotiations, Sadr--the youthful, anti-occupation cleric whose militia battled U.S. forces in Baghdad, Najaf, and other southern cities in April and August--did not create a political party or register as part of the Shiite coalition. "We have not participated in this list and we are still suspending our participation in the elections. We have been subjected to a campaign of suppression, and the arrests against Sadr’s followers are continuing," said Ali Shemeism, an aide to Sadr, according to the British newspaper, The Independent. A letter written by Sadr was read December 10 in a Baghdad mosque urged followers not to participate in the vote, because "the elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion." But some of the list’s organizers--such as former nuclear scientist Hussein al-Shahstrani, reportedly No. 7 on the list--say that Sadr is supporting the alliance. Adding to the confusion, some INC representatives say Sadr supporters have joined the list as independents. Which minority groups are represented on the slate?About one-third of the total seats are reportedly allotted to Kurds, Sunnis, and Turkmen, including:Independent Sunni candidates from the northern city of Mosul, recently the site of heavy fighting and insurgency attacks.Representatives from the Shammar tribe, one of the most powerful Iraqi tribes.So-called Faili, or Shiite Kurds. Most Kurds are Sunnis.Yazidi candidates, representing a small, primarily Kurdish, pre-Islamic religious sect. What role will women play?Every third candidate on every slate is a woman, as mandated by the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), or interim constitution, that was approved in March 2003 by the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council and U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer III. Women will also be permitted to vote. Which well-known politicians are not on the unified slate?Among them:Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord appears likely to head a separate slate of secular Sunnis and Shiites. One reason Allawi was not invited to join the unified Shiite list: some influential Shiites feared that Allawi would insist on remaining as prime minister if the list won, Katzman says. Allawi has the strong backing of the United States and Britain.Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim president and a Sunni tribal leader, announced November 23 that he had formed a new party to run in the elections. Called the Iraqis’ Party, it is made up of secular Sunnis and Shiites, including the current ministers of defense and industry. Will the election occur on time?It’s still unclear. The Shiite majority, Allawi, and the Independent Electoral Commission support an on-time vote. The U.S. government also favors moving forward as scheduled. However, a number of hurdles could cause a delay:Continued violence: If the insurgency doesn’t quiet down, it will be difficult and dangerous to register voters, campaign, and vote. An increasing number of voices are raising the possibility of a security-related delay. Special Adviser to the U.N. Secretary General Lakhdar Brahimi said December 4 that the vote shouldn’t proceed unless "first and foremost, security improves. The situation does not work. We have to find something which does," he told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, according to a Reuters translation.Sunni participation. If major Sunni parties decide to boycott the vote, there will be limited representation of Sunnis--who make up some 20 percent of the population--in the transitional National Assembly. An influential Sunni clerical organization, the Muslim Scholars Association, called for a boycott, and a coalition of some 15 Sunni-led political parties advocates a six-month delay in the vote. Because the Assembly will draft a new Iraqi constitution, the exclusion of Sunnis could raise sectarian tensions and threaten civil war, experts warn.Organizational impasses. While U.N. Special Envoy to Iraq Ashraf Qazi said November 22 that January elections were technically feasible, some other diplomats and election organizers have expressed concern that preparations will not be completed in time. The commission has hired about 600 regular Iraqi staff so far, but some 150,000 poll workers have to be hired and trained by Election Day, says Jeff Fischer, the director of the Center for Transitional and Post-Conflict Governance at at the International Foundation for Election Systems, which is helping to organize the vote. Voter registration began November 1, but in recent weeks 90 of the 540 registration centers have closed because of the threat of violence. Voter education campaigns are just beginning, and many details about how voting will occur remain to be worked out. "The logistical difficulties of setting up an election have been severely underestimated by most observers," says Noah Feldman, a former constitutional adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation government in Baghdad. "And the challenge of securing polling places has not yet been addressed in any substantive way," he adds. How many political parties have registered?More than 220 parties and individuals, Fischer says. The groups span Iraq’s political landscape: Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Turkmen, Assyrian-Chaldean, and communist. The Baath Party of Saddam Hussein is banned from participating in the election, as are candidates who held high rank in it. Which posts are being chosen?Voters are to choose candidates for three types of assemblies:All Iraqis will cast votes for the transitional National Assembly, which will serve as the legislature until elections for a permanent body are held.Iraqis who live in the semi-autonomous northern region will also cast votes for the 105-member Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly, the regional lawmaking body.Voters will also elect councils in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces, which will provide the framework for elected local government. The electoral commission has not yet decided on the makeup or size of these councils, experts say. What will the transitional National Assembly do?Its first act will be to choose a president and two deputy presidents from among its own members. This so-called presidency council will also appoint a prime minister and other government ministers. The National Assembly will be responsible for drafting a constitution by August 15, 2005. According to the tight timetable laid out in the TAL, Iraqis will vote in a referendum on the constitution by October 15, 2005. If they approve it, elections for a permanent government will be held in December 2005. If they reject it, the National Assembly will be dissolved and an election held for a new transitional assembly that would try again to write a constitution.

This publication is now archived. What will define victory in the battle for Falluja?The major military offensive under way in Falluja will weaken the Iraqi insurgency by destroying one of its main logistical hubs, killing and scattering insurgents, and bolstering the authority of Iraq’s government, U.S. military officials say. But some outside experts say the degree of damage it will inflict on the militants is difficult to measure. Many insurgents have fled the city and are expected to regroup elsewhere. And Falluja’s civilians may be impressed by the show of force backing the government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi--or they may sympathize with the insurgents. "We are walking a fine line," says Walter P. Lang, former head of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, referring to the U.S. approach in Falluja. "Our belief is that if we can show sufficient strength without causing too much damage, we can shift the balance of power to the Iraqi government’s side." What are the Falluja battle’s objectives?U.S. commanders assumed that disrupting operations and retaking the city from the rebels and terrorists would hurt the insurgency, regardless of whether all the fighters were killed or captured. The U.S. military also wanted to establish the presence of the Iraqi government in the city and ensure its residents could vote in the upcoming elections in January. "Disrupting what has been a major safe haven for former regime elements and foreign fighters, in particular Zarqawi and his folks, will be a significant event," Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard B. Myers told reporters November 9. He was referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist behind many beheadings, kidnappings, car bombs, and other brutal attacks in Iraq.Counterinsurgency experts also point to several other goals, many of them psychological:To show that the U.S. military is committed to securing the entire country for the Allawi government.To demonstrate that the Iraqi security forces are becoming more effective.To reverse the "loss of face" suffered by the United States when it backed off from a major military offensive in Falluja in April.To begin to convince "fence-sitters"--Iraqis whose allegiance wavers between the insurgents and the Allawi government--that momentum is on Allawi’s side and he is going to win this fight. "A lot of research shows that when people in an insurgency decide which side to support, they choose the one they think is going to win," says Steven Metz, chairman of the Regional Strategy and Planning Department of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. How many troops are fighting in Falluja?U.S. military planners say between 10,000 and 15,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers and some 2,000 Iraqis are participating in the assault, which began on November 8. It is the largest single military operation in many months, commanders say. There are some 2,000-3,000 insurgents in Falluja, Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, said in a November 9 news conference. By November 12, the U.S. military said 600 militants had been killed, along with at least 22 U.S. troops and five members of the Iraqi security forces. More than 200 wounded U.S. fighters have been airlifted to Germany for medical treatment. Some 80 percent of the city was under the control of U.S. and Iraqi troops, the military said. Has the fighting been as intense as expected?While there has been heavy fighting in some parts of the city, other sections have fallen with light resistance. General Metz told reporters that the insurgents were showing little coherence since the initial U.S.-led assault, and U.S. objectives were being met on or ahead of schedule. Some reports indicated that the fighting intensified, however, as U.S. forces trapped insurgents between advancing American lines and the cordon around the outer edge of the city. "Our goal right now--we feel we’ve broken their back and their spirit--is to keep the heat on them," U.S. Marine Lieutenant General Thomas Sattler told reporters November 12 at a briefing at Camp Falluja, just outside the city. What explains the weaker-than-expected resistance in some areas?One major reason, Metz said, may be that some of the rebel leaders appear to have fled before the fighting started. Among the leaders Metz suspects has escaped is the terrorist mastermind Zarqawi. "It is fair to assume he has left," he said. What permitted insurgents to flee?U.S. forces did not establish a tight cordon around the city until November 7, just before the start of the major offensive, military commanders said. In addition, Falluja residents had plenty of warning before the attack. Some 50 percent to 90 percent of the civilians in the city of some 200,000 appear to have fled, the commanders said. Some insurgents probably slipped out undetected in the wave of civilian refugees. The New York Times quoted one insurgent November 10 who said that some 50 percent of the militants in Falluja had stayed to defend the city. The insurgents who remained were "rear-guards, to put on a show of force," Lang says. "They’ve left some behind who are interested in being martyred," says Steven Metz. Why didn’t the U.S. military close off the city sooner?U.S. and Iraqi commanders faced a difficult choice. If they sealed the city well before the assault, they risked killing and wounding thousands of civilians in the battle against the insurgents. If they permitted the city to clear out before U.S. forces entered, some insurgents would inevitably escape. Because wide-scale civilian casualties could stoke greater anti-government anger, Allawi and U.S. commanders chose to keep the roads out of Falluja open until the last moment. Where did the insurgents flee to?Since the start of the Falluja offensive, insurgents have staged attacks in a string of cites, including Baghdad Tikrit, Kirkuk, Hawija, Samarra, Ramadi, and the northern city of Mosul. Some of these attacks may be coordinated by the insurgents leaders who fled Falluja, some experts say. At least 14 Americans have been killed in insurgent strikes outside Falluja since the offensive started, the Associated Press reported November 10. Iraqis are also under fire; a car bomb ripped through a crowded Baghdad commercial street, killing 17 people November 11. These attacks seem designed to show that the insurgency is thriving, despite the loss of one of its safe havens, experts say. Will U.S. forces will have to conduct more major battles against the insurgents?Almost certainly, experts say. A key characteristic of the Iraqi insurgency is its decentralized, networked nature--the Sunni insurgency alone may be comprised of some 35-50 Sunni groups with various levels of coordination, Lang says. As a result, there will be more anti-insurgency battles. Falluja isn’t the "be all and end all of battles," says Major Jason Amerine, an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Instead, he said, Falluja should be thought of as "a cancerous tumor we had to remove, but there are still more tumorous cells out there that have to be destroyed." What is the political reaction to the offensive?The initial reaction of leading Sunni groups--Falluja is a predominately Sunni city--has been harshly critical. The Muslim Scholars’ Board, an organization of strongly anti-occupation clergy that is an influential voice in Sunni politics, announced that it intends to boycott the January elections. The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), which was the main Sunni party in the Allawi government, announced it would withdraw from that coalition. "We are protesting the attack on Falluja and the injustice that is inflicted on the innocent people of the city," said party head Mohsen Abdel Hamid. However, the lone IIP minister in the interim government, Industry Minister Hakim al-Hasni, opted to stay in his post, Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported. As a result, he was expelled from the IIP. What has the cost been in lives and property to the people of Falluja?Reports of civilian casualties are sketchy. The fighting has destroyed countless buildings, and aid workers say hundreds of families remain trapped in the city. U.S. soldiers were allowing women, children, and elderly to leave Falluja through the security cordon, but--to prevent insurgents from leaving--men between 15 and 55 were turned back. Water and electricity have been cut off since November 7. The International Committee for the Red Cross said November 12 that thousands of elderly and women and children have had no food or water for days. "The Red Cross is very worried. We urge all combatants to guarantee passage to those who need medical care, regardless of whether they are friends or enemies," spokesman Ahmad al-Raoui said. U.S. officials said that food and medicine were being delivered to some areas of the city where the fighting has quieted, and commanders said they were working to minimize civilian losses. What will happen after Falluja is taken?As soon as the fighting stops, the Iraqi government plans to arrive with medical relief, food, and reconstruction aid, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. In addition, U.S. and Iraqi troops will maintain a robust security presence for an unknown period of time to prevent insurgents from flooding back, Steven Metz says.Then U.S. forces will consider the necessity of conducting a Falluja-style operation in Ramadi or another city. Lang predicts that it will take offensive operations in "four or five" cities before the Sunni elites that support the insurgents get the message that they are better off siding with the interim Iraqi government. "This will not be the last use of force in Iraq to rid Iraq of the former regime elements and the foreign fighters who do not want Iraq to be successful," General Myers said on November 9. "So there will be other opportunities, maybe not as dramatic and as big as Falluja, but there will be other opportunities."

This publication is now archived. Starting with the January 30 elections, a number of crucial political events are scheduled to occur in Iraq this year: January 30: ElectionsIraqis living in Iraq and 14 other countries will vote for 275 members of a new transitional assembly. Iraqis will also vote for 18 provincial governorate councils with 41 members each, except for the Baghdad governorate council, which will have 51 members. Residents of northern Iraq will also vote for 111 members of the Kurdish regional assembly, a semi-autonomous governing body.After the votes are counted and the results certified--a process election experts say could take up to two weeks--the new transitional assembly will take office. The assembly will choose a president and two deputy presidents from among its members; the three will form a new presidency council. The assembly will then write a permanent constitution to take the place of the current interim constitution. That interim document, known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), went into effect when it was signed on March 8, 2004, by the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), a 25-member body appointed by the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority. The IGC disbanded after U.S.-led occupation authorities returned sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, 2004. August 15: Draft of a permanent constitution completedIf the assembly cannot make this deadline, members can petition the presidency council for a six-month extension; the request for an extension must be made by August 1. The transitional assembly could also choose to amend the TAL--which states that members of the transitional assembly will draft the constitution--and appoint selected Sunnis to drafting committee, even if Sunnis win few or no seats in the January 30 elections. Conditions for voters in Sunni regions of the country are so dangerous that many experts predict low voter turnout in those areas. "That way there’s some wiggle-room" to keep Sunnis involved in the government, says Marina Ottaway, a senior associate and democracy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. October 15: Public referendum on the draft constitutionOnce the constitution is written, there will be a national referendum to approve it. If a majority of Iraqis back the law, elections to select a permanent government will occur in 60 days. If more than two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates reject the draft, the constitution fails. Experts say the Kurds pressed for this two-thirds vote provision, over the objections of the majority Shiites, in order to ensure minority rights would be protected. In the event that the constitution is rejected, the transitional assembly will be dissolved and a new one elected on December 15; it will have one year to try to draft another constitution. December 15: Elections for a permanent Iraqi governmentIf the constitution is approved, elections will be held for a permanent Iraqi government. The nature of this new government--presidential or parliamentary, religious or secular--will be determined by the new constitution. December 31: Permanent Iraqi government takes officeAgain, assuming the constitution is approved, a new, permanent government is seated. (If it is not, a new transitional assembly elected December 15 would take office and restart the constitution-writing process.) Experts stress that Iraqis have a lot to do in one year: write a constitution, hold a national referendum, and host multiple elections. This pace may be difficult to maintain, especially if delays occur along the way. In addition, Ottaway warns, the new assembly elected January 30 could choose to alter the TAL, perhaps drastically. "From now on, everything can change," she says.

This publication is now archived. Did the Bush administration exaggerate the evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction?Yes, say skeptics who claim the failure to date to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) calls into question the Bush administration’s justification of the Iraq war. Administration officials fiercely disagree, saying that the war wasn’t motivated solely by Iraq’s suspected weapons arsenal and, in any case, that they are confident evidence of WMD will eventually be discovered. What is the fallout for the administration if no weapons are found?It raises disturbing questions about the quality of intelligence collected and its uses. The United States could lose credibility with allies in future international conflicts. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote on June 15 in the Detroit News, "International support for taking military action, particularly pre-emptive action, will depend on the extent to which the evidence the United States offers to back up its action is seen by the world as reliable and trustworthy." Has the lack of WMD turned U.S. public opinion against the administration?Some say the administration risks losing the trust of its domestic constituency. According to a CBS News survey conducted on June 11 and 12, 58 percent of Americans polled said it’s important to find proof of weapons of mass destruction and 44 percent said U.S. officials had exaggerated the threat. In the same poll, though, President Bush’s approval rating remained high--66 percent--and about the same percentage of respondents said they were confident that WMD would be found. How has the administration responded to charges it overstated the case?Administration officials deny the charge that they exaggerated the evidence or selectively chose data to bolster their case for war. They point out that U.S. leaders— including prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton and members of his administration— have long argued that Iraq sought WMD. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary Powell appeared on talk shows in early June to defend the administration’s case. "Iraq had a weapons program," President Bush said June 9. "Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we’ll find out they did have a weapons program." Who are the critics?Some of the most prominent critics are congressional Democrats, including senators Levin and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was quoted as saying administration officials "took the truth and they embellished it." Levin has called for a bipartisan congressional probe of the administration’s use of prewar intelligence about Iraqi weapons. Will Congress investigate?Yes. The Senate Intelligence Committee will start closed-door hearings this week to review the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons. The House Intelligence Committee also plans hearings. Democrats are pushing for public hearings, but the Republicans, who are in the majority, have yet to agree. Are there other investigations?Yes. British legislators have also begun to review prewar intelligence. Prime Minister Tony Blair was Bush’s steadiest ally in the war in Iraq. The majority of the British public was antiwar, however, and the Blair government’s documentation of Saddam’s alleged arsenal has been harshly criticized. The most glaring misuse of information, critics say, is the allegation that Iraq attempted to import large quantities of uranium from Niger. Britain released a report in September that made this claim, but the documents on which the accusation was based were later proved to be forged. President Bush also cited the Niger evidence in his January State of the Union address. What was the administration’s case for war?Saddam Hussein’s possession of unconventional weapons, in violation of numerous United Nations resolutions, formed the heart of the administration’s pro-war argument. Other justifications for war included the desire to free Iraqis from a brutal dictator and the fear that Saddam’s regime supported al-Qaeda and other terror organizations or would supply terrorists with WMD. The case was laid out in detail in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5 presentation to the United Nations Security Council. What evidence did officials offer of Iraq’s banned weapons programs?Because they lacked an overwhelming amount of hard proof, U.S. officials and others tried to establish Iraq’s guilt indirectly. They cited several instances in the past when Iraq was known to have possessed banned weapons or the materials to make them, and then pointed out that Iraq had failed to offer credible explanations to account for them. They said that if the weapons had been destroyed, there would have been physical evidence, records, or eyewitness accounts to back up Baghdad’s claims. Iraq did not supply the information. What banned weapons did Iraq fail to account for?In various speeches, statements, and briefings, President Bush, Secretary Powell, and Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), cited several examples:Anthrax. The United Nations in 1999 concluded Iraq had the ability to produce more than 25,000 liters of the biological warfare agent; Bush said that amount is "enough doses to kill several million people."VX. Blix said Iraq had not adequately addressed UNMOVIC’s questions about a suspected program to produce the deadly chemical agent and whether it had been weaponized. Bush said U.S. intelligence reports indicated Iraq could produce as much as 500 tons of " sarin,mustard, and VX nerve agent."Botulinum. Bush said the United Nations reported in 1999 that Iraq could produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum nerve toxin, the single most toxic substance known to science.Munitions. Bush said U.S. intelligence shows Iraq has more than 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Powell, in his February 5 presentation, said Iraq hadn’t accounted for 500 mustard gas artillery shells.Weapons inspectors found 16 122-millimeter chemical rocket warheads in mid-January. Iraq said they were part of a group of 2,000 rockets dating from the 1991 Gulf War; Iraqi officials said the 16 had been misplaced. Blix said 6,500 Iraqi bombs were missing; together, he said, they could deliver 1,000 tons of chemical agents.Growth medium. Blix said approximately 650 kilograms of bacterial growth medium were missing. Iraqi officials conceded in 1999 they had imported the medium, which can be used to cultivate germs, but an Iraqi weapons declaration issued December 7 failed to mention it. Blix said the amount of missing growth medium could produce "about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax."Unmanned aircraft. U.S. officials said Iraq had developed pilot-less aircraft that could be used to disperse biological and chemical weapons.Mobile laboratories. U.S. officials said they learned from Iraqi defectors that Iraq had built several mobile laboratories to produce biological weapons. Did Iraq have a nuclear weapons program?According to U.N. weapons inspectors, there was no evidence in 2003 that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA), said in January 2003 that if inspectors were able to continue their work for "the next few months," they could "provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program." Weapons experts note that Iraqi scientists retained the technical know-how to build nuclear weaponry. What was the U.S. view?Officials said Iraq lacked only the necessary fissile material to produce a nuclear bomb. As a result, they said, Baghdad tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes that could be used in gas centrifuges to make weapons-grade uranium. The IAEA disputed that interpretation of the tubes’ use. Powell also told the Security Council that Iraq tried to acquire "magnets and high-speed balancing machines" that could be used to enrich uranium. Have any weapons been found so far?Teams of American inspectors have uncovered two trailers that U.S. officials say are mobile laboratories that could have produced biological agents. Unnamed intelligence analysts have been quoted in the press questioning that conclusion. The Central Intelligence Agency announced June 11 that former weapons inspector David Kay will be sent to Iraq to oversee the hunt for WMD. He will work with the Pentagon search team, the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group. Why haven’t weapons been found?Critics say there are probably few or none to be found. But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on May 27 at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting, noted that "[Iraq] is a country the size of California." He added: "It is not as though we’ve managed to look every place. There are hundreds and hundreds of suspect chemical, biological, or nuclear sites that have not been investigated as yet." According to Rumsfeld and others, plenty of promising leads remain. What leads are they following?Administration officials and their backers have stressed recently that interviews with Iraqi scientists and others who worked on illegal programs will provide detailed information about Saddam’s weaponry. Ahmad Chalabi, a co-founder of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, said that "there were thousands of people, engineers, and scientists [working on illegal programs], they know where the weapons are." Others say the technical documents found by search teams will provide clues. "People who say there are no weapons are going to be quite embarrassed within weeks or months, when the material comes out," an anonymous senior U.S. official told The Washington Post.

This publication is now archived. What’s the U.S. plan for trying Saddam Hussein and other top leaders?Bush administration officials announced April 7th a two-part plan for prosecuting the Iraqi president and senior members of his regime. Officials said Iraqis who have committed war crimes in the current war will be tried in U.S.-run courts. For crimes against the Iraqi people committed before the current war, the United States will help returning Iraqi exiles and citizens to establish an Iraqi-run process. What war crimes would the United States prosecute?U.S. officials have already begun to document Iraqi fighters’ violations of the international rules of war. Iraqi soldiers could be prosecuted for mistreating, torturing or executing American prisoners of war (POWs), posing as civilians, using non-combatants as human shields, and faking surrenders. The United States may also attempt to prosecute Iraqi officials for war crimes committed against U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War, officials said. What crimes would an Iraqi court prosecute?It has not been decided. But they would likely include so-called "crimes against humanity" and other alleged violations of international humanitarian law. Crimes could include:Use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.Repeated use of chemical weapons by Iraq against the Kurds.Ethnic cleansing of Iraq’s southern Shiites.Summary executions of thousands of political opponents.Torture of political detainees.War crimes committed during and following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991. Will the United Nations be involved?Bush administration officials said they don’t envision a U.N. role in the prosecution of war crimes committed in the recent conflict. They specifically dismissed the idea of a special U.N.-operated court, like the ones established to adjudicate crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. "We are of a view that an international tribunal" to try crimes that occurred in the current war "is not necessary," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues.Administration officials haven’t ruled out U.N. involvement in the Iraqi-led courts. But it is apparently their intention that Iraqis, with the help from the United States and other nations, will conduct the trials—not international jurists working under U.N. authority. "We are prepared to assist in any way we can by providing technical, logistical, human, and financial assistance," Prosper said. "We also believe that the members of the international community should also step forward and be prepared to assist." Do other countries want the U.N. to be more involved?Yes. But the issue of postwar justice is part of a larger debate over who should lead Iraq once the conflict ends. In that debate, the United States has indicated that it wants to dictate the form and membership of what would effectively be an interim government and limit the U.N. role to providing humanitarian assistance. Governments opposed to the war—such as France, Germany, Russia, and China—have insisted that the United Nations have a hand in establishing the postwar government. Britain is in the middle of the two sides. Experts say this unresolved debate will influence decisions affecting war crimes courts. Why is the Bush administration against U.N. involvement?One reason may be that U.S. intelligence officials want direct access to prisoners, which they would surrender once suspects were in U.N. hands. Another reason may be that U.N. tribunals do not impose the death penalty. What kind of information would intelligence agents seek?They would quiz the prisoners about their connections to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, says Ruth Wedgwood, a Council fellow and an adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on international law issues in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials could conceivably offer plea bargains to suspects, she adds, granting reduced sentences and other benefits in exchange for information. Does the United States have the right to try Iraqi officials?International lawyers say yes, for violations of the rules of war that took place during the current conflict. What body of law governs such trials?The 1949 Geneva Conventions, which form the backbone of international humanitarian law. They indicate that that a nation detaining prisoners of war can and should try them for violations of the rules of war, experts say. Trials are to take place in a military court offering "the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality as generally recognized," according to Article 84 of the third convention. U.S. trials of Iraqis will be the first application of this rule since World War II, says international lawyer Robert Goldman.Britain will have the same right to try Iraqis for war crimes against its soldiers in a British court, experts said. And U.S. officials have said that Kuwaitis may want to try Iraqis for Saddam’s 1990 invasion. Will the trials take place in U.S. military courts?U.S. officials haven’t precisely described how they will run the trials. W. Hays Parks, the special assistant to the U.S. Army for law of war matters, said Monday there are three options: courts martial, military commissions, or federal district court. International law experts, however, said they expect the majority of war crimes trials to be in some kind of military setting, as dictated by the Geneva Conventions. It has also not been decided if the trials will be open or secret. How does the U.S. war crimes process compare to the Nuremberg trials?The victorious Allied powers set up a war crimes trial at Nuremberg to hold members of the Nazi regime personally accountable for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France formed a group called the International Military Tribunal to try 22 accused officials from November 1945 to October 1946. A team of U.S. judges later presided over 12 additional trials. The Geneva Conventions were not yet in effect at that time. Who would stand trial for crimes in a U.S. military court?That hasn’t been decided. Those who have broken the rules of war are in many cases low-level operatives, like individual fighters from the Fedayeen Saddam militia and Republican Guard forces. But international lawyers say top leaders, including Saddam, could be also held accountable for the general conduct of their troops. Can U.S.-led war crimes trials impose the death penalty?Yes. The death penalty is permitted by the Geneva Conventions’ rules of war, according to international law experts. How will the U.S. trials be received internationally?Though they are legal, they may still be seen as "victor’s justice" by many, international lawyers warn. For that reason, some experts encourage more international involvement. What’s the extent of U.S. involvement in the Iraqi-led justice process?The United States has started to train 35 Iraqi expatriates as judges and has begun working with them to develop a plan for post-conflict justice in Iraq, U.S. officials said. It also plans to involve resident Iraqis, and will provide funding and training for the postwar Iraqi justice system. Many Iraqis jurists who served in Saddam’s government will likely be removed. How are U.S. plans for an Iraqi court being received?Some international lawyers and human rights groups said Monday they were disturbed by the U.S. plans. American influence over the selection of Iraqi judges may make the court look like a tool of the United States. "It runs the risk of becoming a marionette court for the United States," said Richard Dicker, international-justice director at Human Rights Watch.Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs and president of the American Society of International Law, says that "the U.S. is making a serious mistake if it does not invite the U.N. to organize the tribunal. A court that is created by Iraqis under U.S. command is not going to wash. No matter how strong the case is, the question is: who is going to believe it?"Others, such as Oscar Schachter, a professor emeritus of international law at Columbia University, say they favor an Iraqi court in principle because it gives Iraqis more control over their justice process. This appears to be in line with the Bush administration’s thinking. U.S. officials have criticized the decade-old U.N. war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia as too expensive, inefficient, and far removed from the lands where the abuses took place. How would lower-level Iraqi officials be dealt with?We don’t know. Some options would be: granting them amnesty through a truth and reconciliation process, preventing them from serving in the new government, or prosecuting and punishing them. Could Iraqi officials be tried in front of the new International Criminal Court?U.S. officials have ruled out the possibility because neither the United States nor Iraq has ratified the agreement creating the court. In addition, the court is authorized to consider only crimes committed since July 2002, which would leave out many of the worst abuses of Saddam’s regime. What other U.N. options are there?Some international lawyers support the idea of setting up a special ad hoc tribunal like the ones established to try war criminals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. More recently, the United Nations has sponsored "hybrid" war crimes courts in East Timor and Sierra Leone, where international jurists serve together with local lawyers to try accused war criminals. In the U.S. plan, what would take place first: the Iraqi-led trial or the U.S.-led trial?We don’t know. It could take a while for the Iraqi-led court to get going and gather evidence, so some international lawyers think the U.S. trials would take place first.

This publication is now archived. What is the status of the high-ranking Baathist leaders on the coalition’s most-wanted list?The majority of the 55 individuals pictured on a deck of cards distributed to coalition troops at the start of the war have been captured or killed. The 12 individuals still at large, most experts say, support the violent insurgency against coalition forces and the Iraqi Interim Government, but their control over the insurgents has waned. How many on the list have been captured?Forty-one, including three who surrendered. Saddam Hussein, the No. 1 target on the list, was taken into custody December 13, 2003, at his hiding place at Al Dawr, about nine miles from his hometown of Tikrit. Two fugitives on the list--Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay--were killed while attempting to evade capture. Other U.S. attempts to kill leaders on the most-wanted list failed, according to a Human Rights Watch report entitled "Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq," released in December 2003. Who remains at large?Following is a list of the 12. Amatzia Baram, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and an expert on Iraqi tribes, helped provide biographical information about some of them.No. 6: Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, former vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Second in command to Saddam Hussein in the RCC, Iraq’s top decision-making body, Ibrahim was considered an important force behind the insurgency in its early stages and continues to have influence now, some experts say. Analysts say he was one of the targets of the failed air strikes against top Iraqi leaders early in the war. Ibrahim’s "not a great genius, but he’s very dedicated to bringing the Baath Party back to power and glory," Baram says. He suspects Ibrahim is involved in some of the attacks that have taken place in northern Iraq, including explosions targeting the northern oil pipeline and suicide bombings in Mosul. Baram says Ibrahim, who is rumored to have leukemia, is likely in hiding somewhere between Mosul and the Turkish border, paying people to carry out insurgency operations.No. 7: Hani abd al-Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti, director of the Special Security Organization and responsible for security and investigations. He was an assistant to Qusay Hussein and is Saddam Hussein’s nephew on his mother’s side. Al-Latif has a long history as an intelligence operative--he rose through the ranks of the Muhabarat, Iraq’s secret police--and was known as an expert in torture.No. 14: Sayf al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha al-Rawi, chief of the Republican Guard. He is a professional Army officer from the city of Rawa on the Euphrates River. He is not connected to Saddam Hussein’s family or tribe, but advanced through the ranks on his own, Baram says, based on merit and loyalty. Some experts say he is likely involved with the insurgency.No. 15: Rafi abd al-Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti, head of the Directorate of General Security. He was also one of the targets of the air strikes and is now thought to be playing a part in the insurgency. He is related to Saddam Hussein’s mother’s family and is a "classic internal security guy," Baram says: a loyal, professional, intelligence apparatchik.No. 16: Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and another member of Saddam Hussein’s extended family.No. 21: Rukan Razuki abd al-Ghafar Sulayman al-Nasiri, one of Saddam Hussein’s senior bodyguards, a member of his inner circle, and head of Tribal Affairs in his government. Razuki is related to Saddam Hussein on his mother’s side and was his trusted bodyguard for nearly 30 years. He was one of the dictator’s three "foremost companions" who accompanied him everywhere, and led his personal safety battalion of 40 other "companions." Razuki is thought to be active in the insurgency.No. 24: Taha Muhyi al-Din Maruf, an Iraqi vice president and member of the RCC. A Kurd, he abhorred serving Saddam Hussein but was forced to act as his nominal vice president, Baram says. "I would suggest that the Americans stop looking for him," he says. "It’s a waste of their time. He never killed a mouse." Captain Bruce Frame, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), says al-Din was a member of Saddam Hussein’s government and so a legitimate target. "We went in there to get rid of the Saddam regime and provide the means to a free Iraq, and these people were leaders in the brutal former regime," he says.No. 36: Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, presidential adviser and half-brother of Saddam Hussein.No. 40: Abd al-Baqi abd al-Karim al-Abdallah al-Sadun, regional chairman of the Baath Party in the Diyala region.No. 44: Yahya Abdullah al-Ubaydi, regional chairman of the Baath Party in the Basra region.No. 45: Nayif Shindakh Thamir Ghalib, regional chairman of the Baath Party in the Najaf region.No. 49: Rashid Taan Kazim, regional chairman of the Baath Party in the Anbar region. What is the fugitives’ impact on the insurgency?Many experts say the Baathists leaders initially led and funded the insurgency. Kenneth Katzman, senior Iraq analyst at the Congressional Research Service, says some $1 billion in Central Bank funds were taken by Baathists as Baghdad fell. Some $600 million has been recovered, he says, but the rest is being used by leaders to buy weapons and pay for operations such as suicide bombings and assassinations. Private funding for the insurgency also comes from Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, Baram says. Do the fugitives control the insurgency now?No. Many experts say that, as the insurgency has expanded, the older Saddam Hussein-era leaders have been supplanted by younger Islamist radicals. "The younger faction has largely taken the lead," Katzman says. "[The Baathists] lit the spark, but at this point it’s being run by young men." Baram says. "None of the [Baathists] is in charge of the whole thing, no way." In fact, Baram says, "so far there’s no evidence" that any single group or entity is directing all the attacks. The insurgents are organized into regional hubs based in certain areas--Baquba and Mosul, for example, or Falluja and Ramadi--and coordinate and carry out operations in their own areas, Baram says. Given the level of coalition surveillance and pressure on insurgents, "it’s too difficult to conduct country-wide operations," he says. Why have the Baathists surrendered leadership of the insurgency?They’ve done it unwillingly, some experts say, as international terror groups increase their influence on the current fighters. "The resistance is very Islamicized and internationalized," Katzman says. "The insurgents have more in common with [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, [Osama] bin Laden, Hamas, or Hezbollah than Izzat Ibrahim or members of Saddam Hussein’s old regime." But other experts disagree. "Foreign fighters haven’t assumed any public leadership role," says Jeffrey White, an expert on Iraq’s military and security at the Washington Institute for Near East Peace. "I don’t think they’re actually running the insurgency." Are coalition forces pursuing the leaders on the most-wanted list?"They’re supposedly still chasing them, although probably a little less aggressively after Saddam was caught," Katzman says. Pursuing insurgents across Iraq is a tough job, according to experts. "This is ’Battle of Algiers’ stuff," White says. "The Sunni resistance [led by former high-level Baath leaders] has a measure of public support and seems to be very broadly embedded across the Sunni community. It’s hard to find real allies [there] willing to prosecute a war against the resistance." David Gompert, an adviser on Iraqi national security to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), said in an interview with Agence France Press June 14, "If you take away the head, which is what happened as the deck of cards was collected, what’s left is a distributed collection of killers and executioners and the like who by virtue of becoming more autonomous and self-sufficient are more difficult to locate." Who will be in charge of pursuing the fugitives after the June 30 handover?Experts say not much will change after June 30: the U.S.-led coalition will lead the hunt for the fugitives, with Iraqi forces contributing as they are able. U.N. Resolution 1546 states that "the multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq ... including by preventing and deterring terrorism." It also gives the coalition the right to take prisoners and confiscate weapons in the course of security operations. "Iraqis can contribute to the hunt, but [the United States] would still retain the right to do it after the handover," Katzman says. "The resolution gives us that authority." Frame says that the coalition and the Iraqi security forces, working as partners, will continue to pursue insurgents, but after June 30 Iraqis will be in charge of the prisons where fugitives are held. "When we capture people, we’ll turn them over to Iraqis. It’s their country," he says. Is the most-wanted list still relevant?Some experts say no. "I hope we’re not spending much time on" pursuing the last members of the most-wanted list, says Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The list is not directly connected to the insurgency campaign." Katzman agrees: "It’s an old list at this point. They’ve largely been taken over by events. Even if all 12 were captured today, I don’t think the resistance would end." The insurgency is now creating its own leaders, experts say. "We’ve killed or captured most of the first wave, but those guys have been replaced," White says. "New members are stepping up."

This publication is now archived. What is the United Nations’ role in Iraq?It is a big player on the humanitarian scene--its agencies have, for example, distributed 1 million tons of food and millions of liters of fresh water to Iraqis since April. The United Nations does not have any political authority in the U.S.-led coalition government in Iraq. But Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq, is discreetly carving out a political role for the United Nations by involving it in a widening range of Iraqi affairs, experts say. What defines the U.N. role in Iraq?U.N. Resolution 1483. It was passed 14-0 by the 15-member Security Council May 22 (Syria abstained) to legitimize the U.S-led Iraqi occupation and smooth strained relations between the United States and nations, such as France, Germany, and Russia, that opposed the Iraq war. The Bush administration resisted giving the United Nations a substantive role in Iraq, and the resolution spelled out the U.N. role in vague and ambiguous terms. What role does Resolution 1483 assign to the United Nations?The main tasks of the U.N. Special Representative to Iraq, the post filled by Vieira de Mello, include: "working intensively" with U.S. authorities to establish a representative government, "coordinating" humanitarian relief, "facilitating" reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, "promoting" the protection of human rights, and "encouraging" international cooperation to aid the country. Until October, the United Nations is also continuing to manage the Oil-For-Foodprogram, which was established by the United Nations in 1995. It allows Iraq to sell oil to pay for imports of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies. Before the 2003 Iraq war, up to 60% of the Iraqi population relied on the program for food. What is Vieira de Mello working on?The seasoned diplomat, who arrived in Iraq June 2, has met with key Iraqi leaders and sponsored a conference in Baghdad to discuss how Iraqis could legally hold Saddam Hussein’s regime to account for human rights violations. Vieira de Mello and other U.N. officials have also advocated a larger Iraqi voice in the formation of a postwar government. The United Nations is "playing a role. It’s a discreet but very active, intensive role," he told reporters on June 24 in his first Iraq press conference. Which leaders has he met?The most influential is the Grand Ayatollah Ali Mohammad al-Sistani, the reclusive, 73-year-old Shiite cleric who so far has pointedly refused to meet with representatives of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). What’s the importance of Vieira de Mello’s meeting with Sistani?Sistani is widely considered the senior Shiite religious figure in Iraq; approximately 60 percent of the country’s population is Shiite. His agreeing to meet with U.N. representatives but not U.S. officials is "an attempt to send a message that the United States is being viewed as an occupying force and that the U.N. is more neutral," said a leading U.S. expert on Iraqi Shiites, who, citing the politically sensitive situation, asked not to be named. "I would even go so far as to say it suggests the U.N. commands more credibility in the eyes of Shiites." Who else has Vieira de Mello met with?Two other major Shiite religious figures: Imam Muqtada al-Sadr, the son of a revered Iraqi Shiite leader murdered in 1999 by Saddam’s regime, and Imam Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who founded an Iraqi opposition group, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), while in exile in Iran and who has since returned to Iraq. What is the relationship between these clerics and Washington?Both leaders, who command significant public support among Iraqi Shiites, have a tense relationship with the United States. The 30-year-old Sadr has issued strong statements criticizing the U.S.-led occupation. SCIRI--which worked with Washington as an Iraqi opposition group before the war--has fallen under suspicion for its ties to Iran and coalition forces have raided its Baghdad offices. What did the Shiite leaders tell Vieira de Mello?While their views varied somewhat, all expressed concern about the lack of Iraqi involvement in the U.S-led authority running the country and warned that sidelining Iraqis would lead to the failure of the coalition’s efforts. Sistani told Vieira de Mello that the coalition’s current plan to select the delegates to write a new Iraqi constitution was "unacceptable," according to a copy of a statement Sistani gave the U.N. envoy and subsequently obtained by the Agence France Presse. Sistani’s statement called for an election in which Iraqis could select delegates and a referendum to approve the constitution. Vieira de Mello promised to convey the cleric’s views to the appropriate coalition authorities, a U.N. spokesman said. How significant was the U.N.-sponsored human rights conference in Baghdad?Some experts say the Baghdad meeting, held June 30-July 1, could be important. That’s because, before the war, Washington’s vision of a system to prosecute Saddam-era crimes did not include a direct U.N. role. The meeting brought together representatives of emerging Iraqi human rights organizations and U.N. and other international officials. Vieira de Mello seems to be "inserting the U.N. into the justice discussion" says Barbara Crossette, a former U.N. correspondent for The New York Times. What else has the United Nations been doing?Through its many affiliated assistance agencies--the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF (U.N. Children’s Fund), UNDP (U.N. Development Program), and UNHCR (U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees)--it has used networks it developed in Iraq in the 1990’s to supply medicine, distribute school supplies, and provide food and clean water. An additional 1.2 million tons of food are scheduled to arrive in Iraq before the Oil-for-Food Program ends in October. The United Nations has also raised $870 million from dozens of countries to help pay for emergency humanitarian aid to Iraq. Has the continued insecurity in Iraq affected food deliveries?Yes. The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, said in late June that U.N. workers faced "severe restrictions" on their movements inside the country. Aid convoys have been attacked on the road from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, and food warehouses have been looted. Is there a good relationship between the United States and the United Nations on the ground in Iraq?Vieira de Mello has called it smooth, though it is not without its sources of tension. For example, U.N. representatives are eager to maintain their neutrality from the U.S.-led occupying force as they work in Iraq, another U.N. member state. And because the wording of Resolution 1483 is vague, the U.S.-U.N. relationship is being worked out day-by-day. How does this play out in practice?CPA head Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and Vieira de Mello invite each other to meetings, and U.S. officials say the U.N. envoy provides advice. Vieira de Mello said he envisions himself as a "midwife" to an Iraqi interim government, which under the current plan will first take the form of a 25-30 member political council to be appointed by coalition authorities in mid-July. "They [U.S. officials] treat us as a partner, whether equal or not, I will let you judge," Vieira de Mello told reporters. What do the Iraqi people think of the United Nations?Some commentators predicted that Iraqis would distrust the United Nations because of the harsh U.N. sanctions put on Iraqis for more than a decade after the 1991 Gulf War. But many Iraqis who speak with Vieira de Mello seem eager for U.N. help, reports The Washington Post. The U.N. envoy has said that while the Iraqi people’s primary goal is to have their country run by an Iraqi-led government, they also want "the U.N. to play a strong and important role in the future, not just in the short term, but in the long term." "I think it’s false to assume Iraqis are against the U.N.," Crossette says. "They’re [the United Nations] considered a neutral party. Sergio is getting out there, and he does represent a neutral third force." What is the future of the United Nations in Iraq?It’s unclear. While U.S.-U.N. tensions appear to be abating somewhat since the diplomatic train wreck that preceded the Iraq war, the United Nations in Iraq still has "a politically marginal role," says Arthur Helton, the director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, Vieira de Mello, who is scheduled to give his first report to the Security Council in mid-July, is due to leave Iraq at the end of September— and the U.N. role in Iraq could diminish if he is replaced by a diplomat with less skill and "heft," Crossette says. But experts add that there is an opportunity for the United Nations to step into roles, such as postwar justice and mediating U.S.-Iraqi disputes, that the coalition can’t fill. "Maybe he [Vieira de Mello] can insinuate himself into things…As the U.S. gets bogged down with security, the U.N. can move into that space, and Sergio is good at that," Crossette says.

This publication is now archived. What’s the status of the Iraqi security forces?Their numbers have grown dramatically since the end of major combat operations in May 2003, and they are increasingly serving as the front-line security forces in Iraqi cities. This shift is most evident in Baghdad, where U.S. military officials have begun to reduce the number of U.S. bases inside the city from a height of 60 in June 2003 to eight by May 2004, with only two in central Baghdad. As their ranks swell, Iraqi forces have become a prime target for insurgents, in part because they are not as well-protected as U.S. troops. How many Iraqi security troops are there?Between 150,000 and 200,000, according to coalition officials. These forces are split into five security services, some of which have overlapping mandates:The Iraqi Police Service (IPS), with some 70,000 personnel.The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), a paramilitary force of some 31,000 who conduct counterterrorism and other security operations with coalition forces.The New Iraqi Army (NIA), with some 3,000 personnel.The Border Patrol, with some 8,300 personnel.The Facilities Protection Service (FPS), with some 70,000 personnel who guard government buildings and installations. Who commands Iraqi security forces?The coalition forces, which are led by U.S. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. There is not yet an Iraqi Ministry of Defense, though U.S. officials say one will be established before June 30, when the coalition is scheduled to return political control to an Iraqi government. The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)-- the 25-member, coalition-appointed body that currently serves as Iraq’s interim government--does not have command authority over security. L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the occupation’s civilian government in Baghdad, coordinates activities with the coalition’s military forces but does not command them. Will Iraqis take control of their security forces on July 1?No, U.S. officials say. Iraqi security forces will become a partner in the military coalition and fall under its command, according to the interim constitution signed March 8 by the IGC. The constitution states that the coalition will retain "unified command" over the Iraqi forces "until the ratification of a permanent constitution and the election of a new government pursuant to that constitution." The election is scheduled to take place by December 31, 2005. U.S. officials have also said that U.N. Resolution 1511, which authorized a multinational force to "take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq," provides legal justification to keep coalition forces in Iraq for the near term. Will U.S. forces leave by December 31, 2005?That’s a sensitive political issue that hasn’t been directly addressed, but most experts say it’s unlikely American troops would leave then. Sanchez, speaking to reporters March 11, said U.S. forces will remain in charge of security in Iraq for at least another year and stay until local security forces are robust enough to take over. Are the Iraqis ready to provide security on their own?Most experts and coalition officials say no. It is "quite clear that the Iraqi security forces, brave as they are, and beaten and attacked as they are, are not going to be ready by July 1," Bremer said February 14. Michele A. Flournoy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says, "I think that we can’t hand over control of security until there’s a legitimate Iraqi government in place recognized by the international community and the Iraqi people themselves. I think people recognize that the political handover is going to have to precede the security handover because the security side just isn’t ready yet." What’s the current state of security in Iraq?While some experts say crime appears to have eased somewhat in the last few months--in part because of the increased presence of Iraqi security forces on the streets--the continuing insurgency and general lack of law and order mean that Iraq remains very dangerous. "After almost one year of intense efforts, a stable and secure environment remains elusive," concludes "Iraq: One Year After," an independent task force report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Coalition officials predict an upswing in terror attacks as June 30 draws closer. Iraqi security forces, experts say, are likely to remain a key target of these attacks. What’s the status of the local armed groups?There are three large militias:The Badr Brigades. This Iran-trained organization has some 10,000 men and is active in the Shiite-controlled south. They are the military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite political party that has a seat on the IGC. SCIRI was part of a coalition of opposition groups that received U.S. financial support in the years before Saddam Hussein’s ouster.The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) pesh mergafighters. One of the two main groups of Iraqi Kurds, the KDP has about 25,000 relatively well-trained troops. With forces under the control of the other main Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the KDP fighters helped coalition forces topple Saddam Hussein and now maintain security in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq.The PUK’s pesh merga fighters. The other main Kurdish militia is also thought to number some 25,000 men. Both the PUK and the KDP have seats on the governing council.Numerous smaller militias have emerged. They are attached to particular tribes, religious leaders, and other local power holders. Among the most prominent is the Jaish al-Mahdiarmy, a militia loyal to a fiercely anti-U.S. Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. This militia is based in Baghdad; estimates of its membership range into the thousands. What is the coalition’s policy toward these groups?Officially, private armed groups are banned by the coalition, but in practice, experts say, little effort has been made to disarm them. "For now, we’ve de facto accepted them," says retired army Major General William L. Nash, the director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. One reason smaller private groups are difficult to control: Iraq is a heavily armed nation. Coalition guidelines allow every family to possess one personal firearm, and after the war the arsenals of the former Iraq Army were largely unsecured. What’s the status of training and equipment for the Iraqi police?Police who lack prior experience are supposed to receive eight weeks of training, and those who served in the Saddam Hussein regime are scheduled to receive three weeks. But training has not kept pace with recruitment, according to the Department of Defense. The coalition is aiming to have some 80,000 fully trained police officers by January 2005. Of the 77,100 Iraqi police on duty as of February 20, 2004, only 3,600 had been fully trained. Some 26,000 were partially trained, and approximately 47,000 had received no training, according to "Draft Working Papers: Iraq Status," published February 20 by the Defense Department and reprinted in the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index. "There are training, organizational, and equipment shortfalls in the Iraqi Security Forces, there’s no question about that," said Brigadier General Carter F. Ham, the commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, on March 9. There are also shortages of equipment, including vehicles, firearms, and communications equipment, according to press reports. How many Iraqi security forces have been killed by insurgents?Since January 1, car bombs have killed dozens of Iraqis at police stations and military-recruiting facilities in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Erbil, and the southern Shiite city of Iskandariyah. In February, Iraqi security forces came under attack from insurgents an average of four times a day, according to Pentagon statistics. Iraqi officials have placed the total number of Iraqi security forces killed since May 1, 2003, at between 300 and 600. The number of American soldiers killed each month declined to 20 in February 2004 from 82 in November 2003, the highest monthly total since the end of major combat operations, according to Pentagon statistics. One reason for this shift: U.S. forces in Iraq are increasingly emphasizing "force protection"--keeping themselves safe--Flournoy says. A total of 264 U.S. troops were killed in action between May 1, 2003, and March 12, 2004. What is the New Iraqi Army?It is meant to take the place of Iraq’s former army, which had some 400,000 men on the eve of the 2003 Iraq war. In a controversial decision, the CPA dissolved the former Iraqi Army on May 23, 2003; the NIA was established by executive order on August 8. Coalition planners envision a reconstituted force of some 20,000 volunteer soldiers, plus another 20,000 employees to perform logistical and administrative tasks. The NIA’s mission will be purely defensive and its composition will reflect Iraq’s religious and ethnic diversity. Coalition planners have said the force will not be used for internal security purposes; under Saddam Hussein, the army was used to repress the regime’s suspected foes. However, planners are now reportedly considering using the force for some internal counterinsurgency operations. What is the pace of army training and recruitment?Slow. According to a December report in The Washington Post, some 480 of the 900 soldiers in the first army battalion resigned, largely over low pay. Since then, three battalions have been created; the force is expected to total 27 battalions by September 2004. In recent months, formal training has been shortened from eight to six weeks, and coalition officials are employing a "train the trainer approach," in which Iraqis are being taught to train their fellow soldiers, according to press reports. How are soldiers recruited?The coalition has relied on local tribal leaders, political leaders, and other elites to nominate volunteers who, once they join the force, enter brigades of mixed ethnicity. Former soldiers can apply to the new army, but high-ranking officers from Saddam Hussein’s army may not join, according to coalition rules. When will the Iraqi Army be able to protect the country from attack?Not in the near future, many experts say. No Iraqi air force or navy is being created, and the new brigades are being trained only with assault rifles and light machine guns--though heavier weapons may be included in future training. By disbanding the old army, the CPA guaranteed that Iraqis will rely on the coalition for national security for years to come, some experts say. Besides the lack of a Defense Ministry--which was disbanded along with the army in May 2003--there are also few senior NIA officers, as recruits must start out as enlisted men and work their way up the ranks. "What I’m more concerned about than the numbers [of soldiers] is building a system that will train the Iraqis to run the army themselves," says Nash. What is the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps?Originally established by coalition executive order on September 3, 2003, as a temporary force to augment coalition troops, the ICDC has taken on a larger role and now participates in counterinsurgency and other military operations. It is variously described as a kind of national guard or constabulary force that provides internal security. "It is rapidly becoming the primary counterinsurgency force," says retired army Colonel Gary Anderson, who advised the Pentagon on the creation of the ICDC. "It’s now under debate if it should be tied [after June 30] to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior or under the Iraqi Defense Department." The coalition’s current plans for the ICDC call for 36 battalions by mid-2005, which would include some 30,000 to 40,000 men. How are ICDC members trained and recruited?They are chosen locally by the American commanders, often based on the recommendations of local Iraqi leaders. The result is that ICDC divisions tend to have clear ties to the areas they patrol. In some cases, they consist partially of existing local militia groups, some reports say. ICDC members are trained and commanded by the coalition division they are attached to, Anderson says. A standard training regime is a week of pre-boot camp, a week of boot camp, and two weeks of monitored on-the-job training. This relatively light training regime has raised concerns: "Current training efforts [for the ICDC] are not comprehensive and do not yet represent a serious, long-term plan to create a viable security entity," according to the Council-sponsored Iraq task force report. ICDC members are equipped with AK-47 assault rifles and in some cases carry heavier arms. About 70 percent of them have experience in the army or an Iraqi security force, Anderson says. Are any ICDC units not locally based?One special battalion--called the 36th battalion--consists of 80 or so fighters from the militia of each of the five main prewar Saddam Hussein opposition groups: the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi National Accord, the KDP, the PUK, and SCIRI. Trained and overseen by U.S. Special Operations troops, these fighters work together in mixed platoons and have, among their other achievements, foiled two plots involving attacks on the Baghdad headquarters of the CPA, Anderson says. The unit develops its own intelligence information. How many border police are there?Approximately 8,000, according to coalition officials. That number will soon increase, CPA officials say, in the wake of the March 2 terror attacks that killed some 180 Shiites during religious observances in Baghdad and Karbala. The CPA blamed that attack in part on non-Iraqis who entered from Iran, and CPA Administrator Bremer pledged some $60 million to accelerate enlargement of the border patrol toward the coalition’s goal of 25,000 officers. Coalition officials are also vetting the force to remove members with high-level Baathist ties and links to smuggling. Border police have the same training program and pay scale as the regular police service, according to the CPA website. Later this year, the Interior Ministry is slated to open a new, $8-million Border Enforcement Academy in Sulaimaniya, according to the CPA. What is the Facilities Protection Service?A security corps whose duties include the protection of governmental buildings and facilities. The FPS is made up of a mix of first-time, newly trained, and seasoned guards; the experienced members have military or police training or experience. Each ministry is free to hire and train its own FPS guards, based on Ministry of Interior training standards. What is the FPS training regime?Newly hired FPS guards undergo a three-day training program, according to the CPA. Currently, FPS guards are trained by coalition forces or by Iraqis who themselves have received coalition training. Guards undergo training at the Baghdad Police Academy or at sites chosen by the ministry that hires them. They are equipped with 9 mm pistols and/or assault rifles.

This publication is now archived. Who is in charge of law and order in postwar Iraq?For now, the United States and Great Britain, and it appears that will remain the case for some months. In response to postwar urban chaos--looters and arsonists rampaging through Baghdad and elsewhere--U.S and British troops have begun patrolling cities. Efforts are being made to reconstitute an Iraqi police force cleansed of Saddam Hussein loyalists, and U.S. officials are recruiting police to help from other countries. Who is commanding the troops that have taken on security duties?General Tommy Franks, the chief U.S. commander in the region, supervises security operations. Retired Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, who is in charge of civil reconstruction, oversees Iraqi police forces; Garner reports to Franks. As the de facto occupying powers, Britain and the United States are obliged under international law to provide security. No one in authority is willing to be pinned down on when responsibility for law and order will pass to a new Iraqi government. Will the United Nations be involved in policing Iraq?That’s unlikely. Because of the bitter divisions the war has caused at the United Nations, there is little prospect U.N. peacekeepers will be dispatched to Iraq. President Bush has said that the United Nations will play a "vital" role in rebuilding Iraq, but he and other top U.S. officials want to limit U.N. participation to humanitarian relief. Coalition forces are expected to dominate security operations. Will other countries help with security?Yes. Italy’s Parliament has voted to deploy a team of 2,500 to 3,000 personnel to Iraq, including military engineers and carabinieri (military police). Denmark is considering a proposal to send up to 25 police officers and 380 troops to help with reconstruction and protect aid agencies, and the Netherlands has said it might send 600 marines to help maintain order. Bulgaria, a vocal backer of the Iraq war and a participant in peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, says it will send peacekeeping troops to Iraq in May. Canada, Spain, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have also reportedly offered to help with security. Is the United States meeting its security obligations?Tens of thousands of Iraqis have protested the presence of U.S. troops, who they have accused of not doing enough to establish law and order, prevent looting, and restore basic services such as electricity. Amnesty International has called on the Pentagon "to urgently deploy adequate numbers of troops with appropriate training to maintain law and order in Iraq." But, according to Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks of the U.S. Central Command, "At no time do we really see becoming a police force." How important is security to Iraq’s future?At the moment, it should be the highest priority, experts say. "Public security is the foundation or enabler for all else with respect to postwar reconstruction," says retired Army Major General William L. Nash, who was a commander in the 1991 Gulf War and a U.N. civilian administrator in Kosovo. It’s essential, he says, to a country’s economic, social, and political development. Experts also say that, along with protecting Iraqi civilians and U.S. and British troops, assuring the security of aid workers and their facilities is a top concern because it affects the delivery of humanitarian assistance. What are the major concerns?According to some experts, security issues in Iraq are among the most complex the U.S. military has ever confronted. Iraq is an ethnically and religiously diverse country of 25 million people, many of whom may have access to weapons. There are large numbers of regime loyalists still unaccounted for and many other citizens who bear grudges against the Saddam regime or may try to assert control in the current power vacuum. What is the immediate threat?Guerrilla-style attacks on U.S. and British troops and on Iraqi civilians by remnants of the regime are expected to continue. Some experts expect a rash of revenge killings. The widespread looting of government offices, public buildings, humanitarian aid facilities, and private homes that occurred just after the fall of has diminished. What are the first steps a police force should take?One of the most important things, experts say, is to deploy a widespread police presence to reassure the public and reduce the temptation to commit crimes. Has that occurred?It is starting to happen. In several Iraqi cities, U.S. and British troops--including military police and U.S. Special Operations Forces--are detaining looters and conducting patrols. Troops are also carrying out joint patrols with local police in Baghdad, Basra, and other cities. Nighttime curfews, which experts say can be a powerful crime-fighting tool, have been imposed in some cities. Units have also begun to examine Iraqi police for ties to Saddam’s regime. Will the United States be able to rid Iraq’s police force of Saddam loyalists?It’s not clear. Washington reportedly intends to make use of existing law-enforcement structures as much as possible. The plan is to restructure the Shurta, Iraq’s national police, and expel members with close ties to the fallen regime--but it’s not certain exactly how these ties would be evaluated. According to Brooks, "We’ll have to rely heavily on what the population tells us about these individuals, and we’ll also have to rely on any additional information that we may have about individuals. But the bottom line is Iraqis need to go back to work."The Bush administration has said that this process will take a year to complete and it may be months after that, officials say, before the success of the project can be judged. Some experts have said that in southern Iraq and in Baghdad, for example, it’s difficult to find anyone in a position of authority without ties to the former regime. When will Iraqis take over responsibility for their own security?It will vary by location. Iraqis have already taken on a limited security role in many areas. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said on April 6 that it might take more than six months to cede power to the Iraqi Interim Authority, the transitional government that is being set up, but afterward shied away from offering a timetable. How are Iraqis helping to enforce law and order?In cities such as Basra and Karbala, hundreds of Iraqi volunteers are reportedly patrolling the streets. In Basra, Shiite religious leaders called on the local population to stop looting and turn in their weapons. In Baghdad, the United States has urged police officers to return to work, and hundreds of Iraqis are reportedly seeking jobs in the reconstituted force. How many U.S. troops are needed to secure Iraq?This is a subject of debate. General Eric K. Shinseki, who commanded U.S. peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, has said a force of several hundred thousand troops is needed. Pentagon officials say the number is closer to 100,000. Are U.S. forces capable of taking on a policing role?Some experts warn that most U.S. forces are not trained or empowered to perform tasks such as settling civil disturbances and enforcing the law. In an April 15 International Herald Tribune, op-ed, Nash and Rachel Bronson, director of Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, argue that there are insufficient numbers of U.S. military police and civil affairs officers in Iraq to maintain peace and suggest that foreign constabulary forces could play an important role. "Italy’s carabinieri, France’s gendarmes, and Spain’s Guardia Civil specifically train to straddle the blurry security line between war and peace," they write. How do constabulary forces differ from combat units and civilian police?Constabulary forces are organized like military units but are less heavily armed than combat soldiers. They are chiefly responsible for controlling riots and large-scale organized violence. They receive more weapons training than police typically do, but they perform such police-related tasks as handling evidence, making arrests, investigating crimes, interrogating suspects, and negotiating in hostage takings. In Iraq, constabulary forces would be under the control of the U.S. military administration. What role have constabulary forces played in other post-conflict situations?The best recent example, according to Nash, is the Italian carabinieri’s role in the Balkans. In Bosnia and Kosovo, he says, the Italians successfully carried out a variety of missions, including riot control and making arrests. Will American civilian police play a security role in Iraq?That’s the plan. The State Department is collecting bids from U.S. contractors to put together a team of some 1,000 former police officers and lawyers to train Iraqi police and help restructure the country’s judicial and prison system. What is the cost of policing postwar Iraq?It could reach hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars, according to senior defense officials. Where will the money come from?It’s not clear. According to U.S. officials, funding would come through the State or Defense departments and would require new appropriations by Congress. Bush administration officials are hoping that contributions from allies, frozen Iraqi assets, and proceeds from the Iraqi oil industry will help offset security costs.

This publication is now archived. How organized are the ongoing attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq?There are some signs that Iraqi resistance is growing increasingly organized, though experts caution that information from the field remains contradictory and incomplete. Twelve U.S. or British soldiers were killed in a surge of attacks during the week of June 23. The U.S. combat death toll since President Bush announced the end of major combat operations May 1 stands at 22. Where are the attacks taking place?Most of the deadly attacks have occurred in a triangle of Sunni-dominated territory that is home to many Saddam Hussein loyalists. That area stretches 100 miles north of Baghdad to Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, and 30 miles west to the town of Fallujah, the site of perhaps the fiercest insurgency. But violence has also broken out in Shiite regions south of the capital. On June 26, a U.S. Army military policeman in Najaf was ambushed and killed while investigating a car theft. On June 24, six British soldiers were killed after being besieged by a mob in a town 90 miles north of Basra. What are the signs that some attacks are organized?Some show a fairly professional level of military skill, with coordinated movements of groups of fighters, U.S. officials and military experts say. In another indication, U.S. forces rounding up Saddam loyalists have found large caches of money and weapons that appear to be intended to help the resistance. The attackers have been using many of the same strategies favored by organized groups of Saddam backers during the war--ambushes, drive-by shootings, sniper attacks, and ruses. Is any Iraqi group claiming responsibility for the attacks?More than one group has emerged in recent days to claim responsibility for attacks and exhort Iraqis to resist the occupation. U.S. officials say they have no way of analyzing the credibility of these claims. On June 26, the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera aired statements from two alleged resistance groups, the Mujahadeen of the Victorious Sect and the Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq. Last week, The Washington Post reported that, in Fallujah, a group of armed fighters from Saddam’s Baath Party and security agencies had organized a loose network called the Return, or Awdah in Arabic, with the aim of driving U.S. forces out of the country. Are only troops being targeted?No. Some recent attacks appear to be against Iraqis--apparently to discourage cooperation with Americans and hinder reconstruction progress. Haifa Aziz Daoud, a mother of five and the manager of power distribution for half of Baghdad, was killed in her home June 25, The New York Times reported. Another power official came under grenade attack the following day. Insurgents have fired rocket-propelled grenades at the courthouse and the office of the U.S.-backed mayor in Fallujah, and on June 18, fired a mortar round into a building being used by U.S. forces in Samarra, a city between Tikrit and Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and injuring 12. What do U.S. officials say about the level of organized resistance?Over the past several weeks, U.S. officials have cast doubt on the idea that the attacks could be the opening salvos of an organized, nationwide resistance movement commanded by remnants of Saddam’s regime or Saddam himself. On June 27, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said some of the violence could be attributed to the approximately "hundred thousand people turned out of [Iraqi] prisons" in the weeks preceding the start of the war and to "leftover remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime that are doing things that are against the coalition." Air Force General Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said June 24 that it was "uncertain" whether the attacks were being organized. Do military experts believe the attacks are organized?In general, experts say the attacks in Iraq look like a mixture of organized and local insurgency. "Some of it is pretty good military planning, and other stuff just looks like fighters hitting targets of opportunity," says Major General William Nash (ret.), a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), agrees. "It’s much more likely to be a mix of organized and local resistance," he says. Who are the attackers?Some are holdouts from Saddam’s most loyal security forces, including Baath Party fighters, the Fedayeen Saddam militia, the Iraqi Special Republican Guard, and Iraqi intelligence services, U.S. commanders say. Some appear to be militant Islamic volunteers from other countries; a group of suspect Palestinians and Jordanians, for example, was recently captured in Baghdad. A third type of fighter appears to be "just some plain Iraqis who are poor and are being paid to attack U.S. forces," Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the U.S. Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, said June 18. And sometimes, such as in the mob attack near Basra, the assailants appear to include ordinary Iraqis angered by the coalition’s presence and actions in Iraq. How many forces loyal to Saddam are still in Iraq?It is difficult to know, but if prewar estimates of Iraqi military strength were accurate, the numbers could be in the thousands. Analysts estimated that among the most loyal forces were 60,000 to 70,000 Republican Guard troops and 15,000 men in the Special Republican Guard--the military unit closest to Saddam. In addition, there were some 30,000 Fedayeen Saddam militia members, as well as tens of thousands of men working in some capacity for Saddam’s security services. What happened to the Republican Guard and other fighting units after the war ended?Far fewer Iraqi soldiers were captured than coalition forces expected, which means most soldiers--even from the elite security units--blended into the Iraqi population. During the war, U.S. and British troops captured some 13,800 Iraqis from among the elite forces and the 300,000 to 350,000 regular Iraqi Army troops. Independent analysts place the number of Iraqi military killed at between 5,000 and 10,000; the U.S. government said it did not keep track of Iraqi deaths. In the 1991 Gulf War, by comparison, some 71,000 men were captured. Estimates of the number killed range widely, but some analysts place the number between 75,000 and 100,000. How serious is the threat against U.S. forces?It’s hard to judge. Rumsfeld said June 18 that the attackers are organized into "pockets of dead-enders," small groups usually made up of about 10 or 20 gunmen. But some experts caution that, unless it is put down quickly and aggressively, the low-level, loosely coordinated insurgency campaign apparently underway could grow more organized over time. "I’m concerned," says General Wayne Downing, who resigned in 2002 as director of the National Security Council’s Office of Combating Terrorism. "Because there are so many of the low-level Saddam loyalists still out there and because we don’t have proof that Saddam and his sons are dead. Many Iraqis believe that Saddam and his regime could still come back." How many attacks have there been?The Pentagon has not released a total, but some reports indicate there may be as many as a dozen attempted attacks per day. Six U.S. soldiers died in hostile incidents in May; sixteen were killed in June, according to the Department of Defense. At least 63 U.S. soldiers have died since President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq May 1, most in noncombat-related accidents. During the war, 138 U.S. soldiers died, including those killed accidentally. In what way do the attacks show evidence of military training?In one recent ambush, U.S. commanders say, five or six Iraqis provided cover fire while one slipped out of a ditch and placed an explosive under a U.S. tank. Iraqis in Fallujah have been using a system of flares to signal the approach of U.S. troops. They have also cut off electricity in parts of the town before an attack, according to press reports. What countermeasures are U.S. troops taking?The United States has begun large-scale military operations to root out the insurgents. In Operation Peninsula Strike, which took place in mid-June, hundreds of infantrymen supported by helicopters and armored vehicles swept into a region 40 miles north of Baghdad. Four hundred Iraqis were arrested; all but sixty were subsequently released, press reports said. Operation Sidewinder, which began June 29, will be an extended campaign to search suspect areas and homes for resistance fighters. Military experts say aggressive strikes against insurgents, coupled with efforts to improve public services and quality of life for Iraqis, are the key to stopping the attacks. "It has to be a mixture of carrots and sticks. These things go hand-in-hand," Cordesman says. Are there enough coalition soldiers in Iraq to stop the attacks?Experts disagree. Colonel Ken Allard (ret.), a military analyst at CSIS, for example, says that security would improve if there were more coalition forces on the ground. There are currently 146,000 U.S. troops and approximately 12,000 British troops in Iraq; 20,000 to 30,000 troops from Poland, Italy, Spain, and other nations are expected to arrive in August. Major General Robert Scales (ret.), the former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, on the other hand, says that gathering information about who is organizing and conducting the attacks is more important than bringing in more troops. "What’s missing isn’t troops, what’s missing is intelligence," he says. How could U.S. forces gather more information about the insurgency?Through the same combination of "carrots and sticks"--improving living conditions to gain the confidence of Iraqis and conducting aggressive operations against the violent resistance--that will reduce the incentive to fight coalition troops, some experts say. Capturing Saddam or proving he’s dead would also encourage more Iraqis to provide information on the insurgents, experts say. Are the U.S. troops using disproportionate force to control dissent?Perhaps. Of particular concern, say human rights groups, are two incidents in which U.S. forces fired into crowds of demonstrators, reportedly killing 17 people in Fallujah on April 28 and two in Baghdad on June 18. A June Human Rights Watch report charges that U.S. forces lack training in peacekeeping and crowd control tactics and requests an official inquiry into the Fallujah crowd shooting. House-to-house searches, especially those conducted without an Iraqi man present, have incensed traditional Muslim families in Fallujah and elsewhere. If the counterinsurgency campaign is to succeed, a balance must be struck between aggressive policing and respect for the local population, military experts say. Training and deploying more Iraqi police forces could help, Downing says.

This publication is now archived. What’s preventing other nations from sending troops to stabilize Iraq?A key reason is that many nations--particularly those that opposed the war--are reluctant to send soldiers unless steps are taken that would, in their view, increase the mission’s international legitimacy. Discussions have begun on a new U.N. Security Council resolution that could address this issue by strengthening the U.N. role in Iraq, but these talks are at an early stage. What are some of the other reasons?The war was broadly unpopular in most countries, so many world leaders fear a domestic political backlash if they agree to contribute to a U.S.-led occupation force. This is particularly true because the mission is dangerous, and casualties among peacekeepers are expected. In some cases, feelings are still bruised from the bitter U.N. debates that preceded the war. Also, some nations are generally reluctant to place troops under a U.S., rather than multinational, command. What’s the status of negotiations on a new resolution?U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that the United States could consider another resolution if it would lead to more foreign troops in Iraq. Initial discussions have reportedly begun with France, Germany, and Russia. But the idea was not discussed at length at the July 22 Security Council meeting on Iraq and no draft resolutions have been publicly released. "I don’t think there’s anything quite going to the point yet of whether somebody--us or somebody else--might put forward a resolution. It’s a matter of discussion," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Why is the Bush administration considering more U.N. involvement?Largely because things aren’t going as smoothly in Iraq as some Washington planners had hoped, creating military and political pressures on the administration to share the burdens of peacekeeping. What are the political pressures?The administration is taking fire from Capitol Hill for its failure to attract a broader peacekeeping coalition, and the near-daily deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is a political liability, says Lee Feinstein, a U.N. expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. What are the military pressures?Many U.S. forces in Iraq are worn out and largely unprepared to perform policing and peacekeeping tasks. At a July 23 briefing on Defense Department plans for relieving troops currently on duty in Iraq, the acting Army chief of staff, General John M. Keane, said the Pentagon would "further seek to internationalize the force." The large numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq make them an easy target for insurgents, who may be less inclined to attack non-U.S. soldiers. Including peacekeepers from countries that opposed the war could also help mend diplomatic relationships that were strained during the tense run-up to the war, some experts say. What are the U.S. reservations toward another resolution?While President Bush called for more assistance from other nations in an Iraq speech July 23, some experts say the United States does not yet seem willing to yield authority to other nations. "The United States wants to share the burden and risk, promote legitimacy, and yet retain the basic control as the occupying force in Iraq," says Arthur Helton, the director of peace and conflict studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Because there is considerable anti-U.N. sentiment in the Bush administration, many officials are reluctant to award the United Nations greater authority. Prewar rifts at the United Nations continue to contribute to an atmosphere of distrust on both sides, says Edward Luck, a U.N. expert at Columbia University. What countries have called for additional U.N. authorization?France, Russia, Germany, India, Pakistan, and Portugal, among others. What’s the significance of India’s decision to withhold troops?India’s government announced July 14 that it needed additional U.N. authorization before it would send troops to Iraq. The decision was particularly disturbing to U.S. officials, who had hoped for 17,000 Indian soldiers to help relieve the 147,000 U.S. and 12,000 U.K. troops in Iraq, some of whom have been deployed to the Middle East since well before hostilities began in March. India, some experts say, is also a bellwether for other developing nations that will perhaps follow New Delhi’s lead on the Iraq peacekeeping issue. Are countries that supported the war already committed to sending troops?Some are, but there is growing concern in Washington that their contributions will not be enough. Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine are expected to contribute some 20,000 to 30,000 troops over the next three months, according to U.S. officials. In addition, some 18 nations have already sent small contingents (totaling about 1,000 soldiers) of mostly non-combat troops to Iraq. What resolution regulates the current U.S. authority in Iraq?Resolution 1483, which recognizes the United States and Great Britain as occupying powers in Iraq until an "internationally recognized, representative government" is formed. At a June 22 breakfast meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations, representatives of the Iraqi Governing Council said this resolution provides nations with all the legitimacy they need to support the occupation. President Bush, in his July 23 Rose Garden speech, appeared to agree with this assessment, calling upon other nations to "contribute -- militarily and financially -- towards fulfilling Security Council Resolution 1483’s vision of a free and secure Iraq." What would a new resolution say?Some experts predict it could give the United Nations more explicit authority over some aspects of Iraq’s reconstruction, but not hand it full responsibility for peacekeeping. Luck says a resolution could include some or all of the following:authorize and encourage nations to contribute forces to a U.S.-led occupying authority--or, less likely, create a separate U.N. force that would work side by side with the occupiers;broaden the U.N. role in forming a new Iraqi government and managing Iraq’s economy;authorize a formal U.N. mission for Iraq;require periodic reporting to the Security Council about the progress in Iraq;recognize the Iraqi Governing Council as a positive step toward Iraqi self-rule. Would a second resolution persuade many more nations to send troops?It’s unclear, because so far, even those nations seeking a second resolution--such as Germany and France--have not promised to send troops if one passes, says Feinstein.It also depends on the resolution’s contents. Some leaders may insist that their soldiers serve as peacekeepers under U.N., rather than U.S., command, while others may be satisfied with contributing to a U.N.-authorized force led by the United States. Money is another concern for some nations; Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, for example, has said he would need financial assistance to send peacekeepers. In addition, some nations may seek concessions from the coalition--such as greater access to lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq--as part of an agreement to send troops, some experts say.

This publication is now archived. Robert C. OrrRobert C. Orr the director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Washington program, was a member of a five-person team sent, at the U.S. government’s request, on a June 27-July 7 fact-finding mission to Iraq. The team’s report recommended a series of measures to "win the peace." On July 17, 2003, Orr participated in a Council-sponsored conference call to brief editorial-page editors at U.S. newspapers on the trip and the report’s conclusions. Following is an edited transcript of the briefing: Other Briefings What is the headline from your trip?There are a couple headlines. This is an amazingly large and ambitious project that the United States has undertaken in Iraq, and the challenges that we are reading about in the papers every day are very real. At the same time, the challenges in the different parts of Iraq look different. We’re reading most about the heavy security challenges in what is generally called the Sunni triangle in the middle of the country. There’s a very different reality in the north, as well as in the south-central and the southern regions.We need to look at all of those different pieces to understand that, after addressing the security concerns, there is a screaming need to get economic activity restarted in Iraq. There is not a functioning economy at this point, and idle hands do not bode well for the future there. I think also there is agreement among all of us on this mission that now is the time to build a new reconstruction coalition. There was a very successful coalition that won the war, but we need a brand-new coalition, a much broader coalition, to win this peace. And that will have to involve a number of countries and institutions that were not involved in any way during the war. Are you optimistic about the prospects of the United States and Britain turning over the governance of Iraq to a local authority within the next two or three or four years?This is a huge challenge. The time frame that you mentioned is very important. If you’re talking two to five years, then, yes, I am optimistic that we can make this work. A lot of people are talking about six months, a year, eighteen months; I think that is much less realistic. This is a long-term commitment. The United States will need to keep a significant presence on the ground. The Iraqis are ready to take some things over. But the fact is, when Iraqis say, "We want you to leave as soon as possible," and we reply, "Okay, when should that be?," they push the timeline back a few years. They know that they won’t be ready to manage the security situation for years. I think we have to be in this for the long haul. Tell us about what you found in the north and south of Iraq, and give us an idea if the picture we’re getting is generally more pessimistic than it should be because most of the stories are coming out of central Iraq.Up in the north, things are much more prosperous. The Kurds and other populations in the north have learned how to work together over the last decade. They’ve built a base of prosperity, and there is a budding democratic politics, so it feels and looks very different from the other regions. In the south, as well as south-central, the majority Shiite areas, there are great expectations. [Shiites] understand what democracy means for them, that if promises are followed through to have a democracy, the Shiites will have an ability to control their own destiny for the first time in decades. That is very appealing to them. That said, there are a lot of other agents working in each of these zones. It’s not that we only have to worry about the triangle and the active resistance there. In the Shiite areas in the south and in the central area there are still violent attacks, there are moves by groups outside Iraq to try to influence the population; certainly Iran is involved with that. We saw evidence of Wahaabi [a conservative school of Islam] influences from Saudi Arabia. A lot of people are trying to shape the Shiite environment in the south and the south-central part of Iraq.Is our view too negative because we’re focused on the triangle? I don’t think it is. Until we get the security situation straightened out in the triangle, and in Baghdad, normal politics and normal economics won’t be possible throughout the country. Does the United States need to increase the number of forces it has in Iraq? Did the team address that?We did look at this question. Our conclusion on it was that there is a military review under way. While I am not an expert [on] force numbers, we did note that American and coalition presence was very light in a number of areas where the people on the ground said they needed some more support. Perhaps even more important than the troop-numbers question is the troop-composition question. You can meet security needs through different sources. You can do that with American troops, you can do it with international non-American troops, and you can do it with Iraqis. A lot of the uses of American forces currently are to defend static positions: to defend electricity pylons, for example. There are two-and-a-half battalions defending the palace in Baghdad, to secure that. If we can hire Iraqis, many of whom have the skills and are unemployed, to provide a lot of that static security, it would release a number of American forces to go do other things that are necessary. The Pentagon is definitely looking at this question right now and [at] numbers. I would think our competence is really to say that the numbers question is one to be looked at but so is the composition question, internationally and inside Iraq. And the effort to win "hearts and minds?"That is absolutely crucial. The military officials on the ground and in CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] have said that the attacks [on soldiers], while organized, are no strategic threat to this mission. While that is true, I think militarily we have to keep in mind the parallel reality of the politics of the country. There is a large, frozen group of Iraqis in the middle who did not support and hated Saddam Hussein but who are not actively supporting the coalition or the United States simply because they’re terrified that Saddam might come back. They’ve seen this before. And those fears are being fed by clandestine tapes and rumor mills. Until people feel safe enough to step out and put their necks on the line, I don’t think we can be said to be winning this either. The hearts and minds campaign is, really, first providing security, and second providing basic services. Electricity, water, sanitation--all are in short supply, and a number of Iraqis expressed great frustration that, even after the first Gulf War, as one Iraqi put it, "Even those thugs of Saddam got the services up and running in two months. Here we are three months later and you Americans, who are magic workers, still haven’t managed to do it." So we need to get the security straight, and we need to provide some basic services. Then the political opportunities and the hearts and minds will take care of themselves. Are you optimistic that the United States can find a compromise with France and Germany and perhaps other nations that are refusing to send troops unless they are placed under the umbrella of the United Nations?A number of countries would like a more explicit U.N. blessing of this mission and an outlining of rights and responsibilities before they commit troops. India [on July 14] said it was not willing to do so without another U.N. resolution on this. The Defense Department is negotiating with a number of other countries. [Pentagon officials] and Secretary [of State Colin] Powell are looking at this question: is another U.N. resolution possible and would it bring in a whole new set of troop contributors? India saying "No" was a wake-up call, one that we need to heed. Once [administration officials] find out from other troop contributors that a U.N. resolution might help, I think there is some flexibility on that within the U.S. government now. And if [a new resolution is passed], I think they can get a significant number of troops.The parallel issue that isn’t getting [as much] attention is the need for qualified civilians. There’s a huge demand on the ground for everything from agricultural engineers to electricity engineers, road builders, accountants, and bankers. Because of the security situation, not all those civilians are getting into the theater. We need to get serious about recruiting not only American civilians but international civilians who can start to meet some of those needs. In our report we recommend a decentralized model. We need to set up 18 little [L. Paul] Bremers [the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority], one in each of the provinces. People who can deliver the services. Did you meet with Sergio Vieira de Mello, the special U.N. representative to Iraq?Yes, we had a brief meeting with him and then a couple of follow-up meetings with some of his people. The United Nations has a relatively small team there. They are a very expert group. They have a high percentage of Arabic speakers, which are in short supply in the coalition. The United Nations has had people on the ground for a number of years, so it has a number of connections and linkages to the people that we need to take advantage of. I think [there will be negotiations about] which specific tasks the United Nations takes a lead on and on which things it [takes a supporting role]. The United Nations has run the largest and only effective food distribution system in all of Iraq in recent years. Is food still being distributed?Yes. [When we asked Iraqis] if it was important that this food continued to flow or was it becoming irrelevant [because] other opportunities were springing up, the answer we got back, from those of higher means and lower means, was that they continued to need the food baskets that the United Nations was providing through the Oil for Food Program. What is your opinion about the progress being made pacifying the country, especially in Baghdad and the area north of Baghdad? Do you have any recommendations to speed the pacification effort?The key security issue is, first, protection for the coalition so it can do its business. Second, [protection] for Iraqis, in particular key Iraqis working with the coalition. And also providing a general sense of security among the population at large. There is no sense of security in any part of the country except perhaps the north. Even in the Shiite areas that are terribly happy to be liberated of Saddam, [people] can’t move around freely. We need to provide a level of security that gets average Iraqis feeling like they can live their lives.In terms of how we might speed this up, the military strategy of going after the bad guys needs to continue at the same time [that] we dramatically expand and accelerate the hiring and training of Iraqi police and security guards. [And] we could bring in a lot more outside private security [personnel to] oversee a lot of the training and the follow-up of getting these Iraqi forces stood up. That is not necessarily something American soldiers have a comparative advantage in. Is the situation getting better generally, gradually, or is it pretty much the same?On the security side, it’s not getting better in the triangle, and there’s kind of a status quo feel to large parts of the country because of this phenomenon of the frozen population, as I call it, that just doesn’t want to commit itself to anything yet.The one area that Ambassador Bremer has rightly targeted and has really been pushing is the Iraqi Governing Council. Getting that set up was a huge effort and a very important one. That council is going to have a lot of weight on its shoulders here, and we’ll have to see if they’re up to it. But the fact is Iraqis want to see Iraqis in control, so making that process succeed is very important. The U.S. military and the coalition forces have set up town councils all over the country, and Iraqis are getting involved in expressing their views and starting to take control of their destiny. We need to make sure that those local views are getting reflected up to the national level and that there’s not a split between the national governing structures and these incipient local structures. We need to make sure that there are some resources so that when the local folks decide that sewage and schools are their top two priorities that in fact we can make sure that they can pay for sewers and schools and that their views on the constitutional process get pushed up the chain to this national council. Is one of the problems in Iraq that no one defines the postwar tasks as their job?Certainly, in historic terms, you’re absolutely right that postwar missions tend to be orphans. The troops have not been trained to do a lot of the things they’re being asked to do. That’s the bad news. The good news is that they have jumped into areas and made things work that is not in their bailiwick and you don’t hear a lot of grousing among the troops. A lot of the young soldiers feel very good about being able to rebuild communities, but they’ve done just about everything they can do on that front, and to take this to the next step, we really need to get civilians in there with pots of money who can really make an economy work, who can train a police force, who can make sure that the electricity supply is uninterrupted. Would it be useful to hire American civilians, police officers, people like that, to perform policing duties in Iraq?Absolutely. We need not only American police officers, we need Jordanian police officers, we need Italian carabinieri, you name it. We need police and we need them now, both to train and to walk the beat with existing police. We are hiring back a lot of the old police. They are not terribly proficient at a lot of things, and they are not terribly trusted, but with proper oversight in some areas they’ve shown promise. We need to get a lot of police out there and we need to, as we say in the report, open all spigots. We need a full-blown recruiting effort on an international basis.