DOD's Releases Quarterly Iraq Report

The quarterly DOD report, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, June 2008, has been released. It contains some good news, some troubling, particularly as to Iran and the Kurdish north. The report is definitively at odds with the GAO report below. What follows is a brief summary of the DOD report:



1. Political Stability:

 "With recent improvements in security, the current political environment in Iraq is becoming more hospitable to compromises across sectarian and ethnic divides. In general, Prime Minister Maliki’s tough stand against the Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) militia and the criminal elements in Basrah, and his subsequent operations in Baghdad and Ninewa, seem to have generated an improved atmosphere of political unity."

2. National Reconciliation:

 Maliki's offensives against Sadr have "served to galvanize Iraq’s political parties, revealed strong support for a national response to these problems and demonstrated a willingness of most party officials to build upon the recent gains in security and reconciliation." The political parties are showing an increase in mutually beneficial cooperation.

 "Prime Minister Maliki’s willingness to confront criminal militias and protest Iranian involvement directly with the Iranian Government also generated a positive response from Sunni communities and was cited as one of the primary reasons the Tawafuq party has announced an intention to return to the Council of Ministers."

 Iraq's government has institutionalized power sharing.

3. Politics:

 A motion for a vote of no-confidence in PM Maliki was proposed by the Sadrist bloc in Parliament but received no support outside the block.

 The goals for the next three months are passage of an Elections Law, negotiating compromise legislation on a national hydrocarbon policy, pushing through an amendment to the recently passed Accountability and Justice Law and identifying funding requirements for a 2008 supplemental budget for the ministries and provinces.

 The Parliament recently passed a law updating civil service salaries and a law
on university services.

 The Accountability and Justice Law has been passed but is in the process of amendment to allow those individuals subject to de Ba’athification to apply for a pension, continue to work or return to work.

 The Elections law to set the framework for October provincial elections recently had its second reading.

 The UN is doing a good job of dealing with the highly divisive Kurdish problem and Article 140 - an agreement to allow a referendum in disputed provinces that the Kurds want to claim. They are recommending that the issue be resolved by political accomodation.

 Iraq approved the Amnesty Law on February, 2008. Amnesty review committees have considered nearly 65,000 amnesty applications and approved over 48,000. The bad news is that because of problems with coordination, only 1,700 people on the approved list have so far been released.

4. Government Reform:

 The various government ministries have somewhat increased their performance but still have significant short comings in the areas of technology development, strategic planning and human resource management. The Embassy is addressing these systemic shortcomings, but there are a myriad of challenges to overcome.

 The Iraqi judicial system also faces a myriad of challenges, not the least of which is a logjam of criminal cases. The "lack of timely and complete investigations, combined with poor court administration and intimidation of judges, hampers the ability of investigative courts to process cases in a timely manner." Work on reform in this area continues.

 Great effort is being placed on anti-corruption efforts, including institutional and legal reforms to detect corruption and increase transparency.

5. Transnational Issues:

 "Iran’s negative role in Iraq has emerged as a major security challenge. . . . Iran continues to fund, train, arm and guide JAM Special Groups and other Shi’a extremist organizations. In Basrah, Iraqi troops uncovered massive caches of Iranian-origin weapons and ammunition, including some items manufactured in Iran in 2008. The GoI has begun to directly engage the Iranians on this issue and recently confronted Iranian national leadership with evidence of Iran’s widespread efforts to destabilize Iraq. In response, Iran denied its involvement and sought to blame the Coalition for Iraq’s instability—a response that suggests Iran will continue to provide lethal support to Iraqi extremists."
. . . .
"Despite pledges from [Iran] . . . to stop providing weapons, training and funding to militias in Iraq, evidence indicates that Iran has not yet stopped the flow of lethal aid. Security operations by the ISF to end widespread criminal activity in Basrah in late March 2008 resulted in significant clashes with elements of JAM and SGs that revealed extensive evidence of Iran’s malign influence and ongoing efforts to destabilize the political and security environment in Iraq. Specifically, the discovery of weapons caches and information obtained through interrogation of detainees prove that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) has provided many of the weapons and explosives used by extremists, including rockets, mortars, bulk explosives and Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) components. The IRGC-QF has also provided weapons and tactics training and train-thetrainer programs for many Iraqi militia members. Continuing Iranian lethal aid enables criminal JAM elements and SGs to attack Coalition and Iraqi forces throughout Iraq and may well pose the greatest long-term threat to Iraqi security."

 Syria continues to be a destabilizing influence in Iraq. It remains a transit point for foreign terrorists into Iraq and harbors former Iraqi regime elements involved in supporting terrorism in Iraq.

 While Turkey continues operations against PKK terrorists on the Iraqi side of the border, the Kurds have opted to cooperate with Turkey. A series of agreements on terrorism and trade have defused some of the tension.

6. Economy:

 Oil production in May 2008 reached its highest level since September 2004, with an average daily production of 2.61 million barrels per day, with the increases largely due to security gains.

 The Iraqi economy grew 4.1%, after adjusting for inflation.

 Inflation was reduced two fold from 2006 and is now at 12%.

7. Security:

 Security has improved dramatically. Despite a spike of activity in late March and April 2008 in Basrah and Sadr City, overall violence levels have dropped to mid-to late-2005 levels.

 These improvements coincide with the growing willingness of Sunni and
Shi’a tribal leaders to cooperate with the Coalition in an effort to reduce violence in their neighborhoods and provinces.

 The overall security situation in Iraq is still reversible.

Part II of the report deals with the statistics governing the growth in training and operations of Iraqi military, police and other security forces.

You can find the entire DOD report here.

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An Insider's View of Evolving Events in Iraq and Iran's Proxy War

Col. H.R. McMaster has had several combat tours in Iraq and has served during the past year as a senior advisor to General David Petraeus. He is also a scholar and an author. He was recently asked to speak at an AEI Conference about how the situation in Iraq has evolved. He identifies ten "fundamental changes" on the ground in Iraq over the past year. He also spent a lot of time discussing the Iran's extensive involvement in a proxy war in Iraq, how Iran has been using violence and assassination to extend its hold on Iraq, and how militias and Iranian influence are being rejected by the populace.

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The speech by Col McMaster is long and there is an extensive question and answer session at the end. Below is a summary of his speech including key quotes. I have included some of the questions and answers at the end of the summary. You can find the full transcript of the event here. And I would like to thank Linda Drinkwine of AEI for notifying me when this posted. This from Col. McMaster:

Iraq has changed on a fundamental level over the past year in a way that is “consistent with our interests, . . . [and] consistent with the interests of the Iraqi people as well.” Our fight in Iraq has been against two prominent enemies, al Qaeda and Iran. The former allied itself with elements of the Baathist regime, but is now near defeated. The latter's involvement in Iraq is extensive and has been through support for militias. Specifically, these include “Jaysh al-Mahdi, special group elements of Jaysh al-Mahdi, elements of the Bader Organization Corps and other groups that Iran has backed.” Iran’s goal has been to keep Iraq’s government “very weak” and to extend their influence over the country. That said, one of the fundamental changes over the past year has been:

. . . that the true intentions of Iran had been exposed and are more easily understood not just by us but also by the Iraqi people as really offensive in nature and really trying to keep Iraq deliberately weak so they have a weakened dependent government that has to look to [Iran] for support while at the same time [Iran] creates organizations external to the government, political movements and especially militias, that can be turned against the government they ostensibly support, the Iranians ostensibly support, if the Iraqi government turns hostile to their interests.

The counterinsurgency plan of the past year has included far more than simply “security actions.” Other critical actions have been aimed at building the Iraqi government’s institutional capacity in areas of “economic development, rule of law, security sector reform and really influencing not only key actors within Iraq but broadly throughout the region, to reinforce a movement toward political accommodation and ending the violence.”

Ten things of critical importance have taken place within Iraq over the past year:

1. Security: In terms of the security efforts, “Iraq’s communities have largely stopped shooting at each other.” That achievement belongs not just to U.S. forces, but also to “very courageous and determined Iraqi security forces who took extraordinary risk to make that happen.”

2. Political Accommodation: With the end of internal fighting, people have begun talking and “there has been some real bottom up movement toward political accommodation . . .” Moreover, the grass roots accommodation at the local level successfully placed pressure on the Iraqi government to follow suit. What we are seeing now is “top down movement toward political accommodation. . . .

3. "Hope:" Improvements in security and actions taken towards political accommodation have led to what Col. McMaster characterizes as “a rekindling of hope.” A year ago, Iraq was descending into chaos and on the cusp of a civil war. The big step away from that brink has led to a point where Iraqi’s of all sects and backgrounds are more concerned with “cross cutting issues” such as delivery of basic services, employment and making a “better life for their children.

4. “Al-Qaeda is on its way to defeat:” This is big in and of itself, but it has had huge second and third order ripple effects. The biggest has been “reducing the justification for militias.” As Col McMaster explains:

And I think it has been the effectiveness of operations against Al-Qaeda which has allowed the Iraqi government to have the kind of support it needs in going after the militia problem. Because militias can no longer say I’m a protector of your community. You put up with my thuggery or else there’ll be mass murder attacks in the marketplace tomorrow. That justification has been removed and now the militias are something that can be put on the agenda of the Iraqi government. We can work together to extend the government’s writ into these areas that have been controlled by militias.

And so what this has is it has the effect together – the effect against Al-Qaeda and the militias – of lifting the pall of fear off of these communities. Once you lift the pall of fear off of communities, they are no longer intimidated, coerced by either Al-Qaeda or militia. You have a great deal of freedom of action in other areas. You can begin to move toward political accommodation because you know somebody who is an extremist who controlled your community will not cut your throat if you say publicly I think we ought to reconcile with the tribe down the street.

It also allows people to become participants in their own security and in civil society and in Iraqi security forces. One of the things I think is often overlooked is that Iraqi security forces became unbalanced during this period of accelerating sectarian violence. One of the reasons was the lack of security in the Sunni Arab communities, where people, if they had joined the police, if they had joined the Army, not only would they have been killed but their families would have been killed by Al-Qaeda who controlled these areas. So this improvement of security also has the sort of second and third order effect on security sector reform, rebalancing the security forces. . . .

5. Rejection of Shia Militias: With improved security and their justifications for control no longer extant, Shia militias are being rejected by the communities in which they were operating.

6. Exposure of Iranian Activities and Their Proxy War: The focus on Shia militias has exposed the extent of Iranian activities in Iraq and the goals of those activities. As Col McMaster explains:

When I traveled through the south on a last couple of visits, what I heard – and this is again on the point of militias being increasingly discredited, and this is from Iraqi Shiite leaders who were saying things like Iran is the true occupier of Iraq. They would say jokingly that the Iranians are now all Iraqi nationalists, which is a thinly-veiled swipe at some of the militias in some of these areas.

And so whereas before about a year ago, you wouldn’t really hear Iraqi leaders, especially in these areas in the south, offering criticism of Iran and the parties and communities within Iraq who were playing host to Iranian influence but you hear that almost all the time now among Shiite Arab leaders. And also a connection to Iran, and this again affects the militias, is becoming a liability much like being connected to Al-Qaeda was a liability for so-called resistance movements in the Sunni Arab community. These are again changes that I’ve seen in the last year.

The contradictions of Iranian policies I’ve mentioned at the beginning have been exposed and Iraqis have to deal with them now. They have to deal with them again partly because of that pressure on the political parties, who are embarrassed by the connections to Iran and what Iran is doing. So the sixth thing is, no big surprise, the exposure of Iranian activity and Iran’s true intentions. There are some people in this room who have been way ahead on that and I think we’ve been way ahead on it but of course I think we recognize the fact, our government, our military, that the key thing is to work with Iraqis on this problem and here you have effort between us and Iraq leaders is critical to addressing the destabilizing actions and influence of Iran in Iraq.

7. Trust In U.S. Intentions: U.S. intentions are much more clear to Iraqis. The strategy of the surge and its effectiveness have engendered much greater trust of U.S. forces among the Iraqis.

8. Iraqis Taking Responsibility: Iraqis are taking much greater responsibility for their government and working hard to improve services, provide the conditions for economic growth and to address the employment issue. This is a real effort being made to reform the various Ministries and vastly improve their performance.

9. An Embrace Of Politics As An Alternative To Dispute Resolution By The Gun: Iraqis have embraced politics as a means to improve their lot and settle their differences. Deals are being made, and fighting against the political process means that you get left out of the deals. Also, making deals that are win-win instead of zero sum has never been a part of Iraq’s culture, but they seem to be catching on pretty quickly.

10. Greatly Improved and Expanded Iraqi Security Forces: Iraqi security forces continue to reform and expand and take an ever larger share of the load.

That concluded Col McMaster’s formal remarks. He also engaged in a lengthy question and answer session. I have included some of the more interesting remarks and exchanges below:

H.R. McMaster: . . . The war in Iraq doesn’t end if we leave prematurely. It gets worse. I think we’ve got a glimpse of that before

. . . The best pressure on Iraq in terms of leverage to put on them for reform is going to come from Iraqis themselves. Now, what you see is you see that happening already. Who really were desperate to get rid of the militias in Basra? The people were. And who were they calling on their cell phones everyday? The people within the Iraqi government, Iraqi security forces to do something about the problems in their neighborhoods.

So one of the key things I think that will be important to watch over this year is the development of newly elected provincial governments and how that helps increase social pressure on the Iraqi government at the center to provide better services for those provincial governments. We’ve also seen that work very in places like Anbar, where there was improved security, a functioning provincial government that then lobbied successfully its own government to get the resources it needed to begin the capital spending and improve basic services, improve the lives of their people. So that could be something we could facilitate more, it’s that kind of pressure from Iraq’s own people toward political accommodation.

. . . Demetri Sevastopulo: Hi, Demetri Sevastopulo of the Financial Times. Could you give us a little bit more detail on what you think Iran is actually doing in Iraq. Because when you talk to senior military leaders in Washington, they say it’s very difficult to know if it’s increased or decreased. They say it’s not clear whether Basra is just exposed with everything already or whether they are doing more than they were a year ago. And we get very little evidence. So what have you actually seen?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I think it’s pretty clear. I mean, the evidence is really, you know, every time I see and I see a lot of my friends in the press room, you know I love it, I would never criticize the media. But this sometimes happens in the media when you see the word “alleged” in front of when you know in line of Iranian activity, I was just want to say, come on, man. Because you know if I was, as an Army Colonel to say something, to make a statement about that, there would always be some sort of effort to confirm what I’m saying.

In the case of what Iran is doing in Iraq, it is so damn obvious to anybody who wants to look into it, I think, that is drop the word “alleged” and say what they’re doing, which is, we know for a fact organizing and directing operations against the government of Iraq and against our forces – the government of Iraq forces and our forces – we know they have done that, certainly in the past. We know that they are supplying them with weapons and the most effective weapons that they used to attack the Iraqi people and our forces and these include the long-range high payload rockets that have been coming in from Iraq as well as the explosively formed projectile roadside bombs that come from Iran.

We know that they have trained forces in the employment of these munitions - and in pretty large numbers. We know that they were concerned that their maligned hand being obvious in Iraq would alienate their Arab neighbors so they try Arabize these efforts by using Lebanese Hezbollah for a lot of the training but it’s a pretty cosmetic shift that they’ve made in some portions of the training.

We know for a fact that they have directed assassination operations. They have a reputation of being some of the best assassins in the world. They’ve trained Iraqis to do that. They’ve trained them in skills not only for roadside bombs and in long-range rockets but also in snipers and other skills used to intimidate or kill individuals. And we know that they have been sort of backing all horses to destabilize the situation and we know that their support is continued to key Badr officials who are in influential positions who remain on the payroll of Iran and to advance the interests of Iran and, in some cases, to provide leadership for other militia organizations that are stood up.

We know that they ostensibly have supported this government but have armed, equipped and trained a militia that has been attacking the very government they ostensibly support. And this is not just something in Basra, this is last year. This is in Nasariyah, this is Samwa, this is in Diwaniyahm, this is in Amarah and it was in Karbala in August 26th and 27th of last year. And now again in Basra.

So I think it’s very obvious. Now on this specific question you have - has it increased or has it decreased? I think it’s very clear that what Iran has done over the last year is try to develop a considerable latent capability that it could turn on in short notice. And I think that it may have been that this bold and very quick action by the Prime Minister in Basra foiled what was to be perhaps a much larger and coordinated effort, maybe even coordinated with efforts in other places in the region, like what we’re seen happening right now in Lebanon.

So, anyway, I think it’s very obvious what they’re doing. I think it’s very obvious to Iraqis, it certainly is. The Iraqis I’ve spoken to are incensed about it and I think it’s no longer alleged. Yes?

Demetri Sevastopulo: If it’s been going on for so long, why is it you said earlier that the Iraqis are only recently starting to talk about Iranian involvement? Why did it not bother them before?

H.R. McMaster: Now, that’s a great point. Part of the reason is the intimidation factor. We know that Iran had really been able to establish a pretty high degree of control over some key officials, you know, provided them protection. And then also some assassination cells and elements of militia that would kill anybody who made a statement against Iranian interests. So what I think what has happened is Iran has so blatantly undermined the security situation and it’s so clear now that they want to keep Iraq as a weak, failing state, is what they would like I think, dependent on them for support that many more Iraqis now are disavowing connections to Iran and providing more space, more physical space in terms of intimidation. There’s more sort of a political space to address this issue than there had been previously.

And then also, if you remember Iran was a big supporter of the militias which before and this goes back to the effective operations against Al-Qaeda and the importance of it, those militias were justified in large measure because of the perception that they were protectors against these Takfirists and Salafi jihadistss who play with Al-Qaeda, and the Baathists, the former regime. So all these, what Iran could do was raise the specter of terrorist attacks against Shiite communities as a justification for its support in nefarious activities. Now, the contradiction of what they’ve been doing is much more obvious to many more people than it had been previously.

Kimberly Kagan: I actually would just like to follow up that for a moment because at The Institute for the Study of War we’ve been tracking Iranian influence in Iraq through open sources since this time last year if not before. And I do just want to point you to some references where you can find fully documented reports on what the Iranians had been doing in Iraq and you can make your own conclusions about their efforts. They’re on our website, http://www.understandingwar.org/ and you can find them in our Iraq Report 6: Iran’s Proxy War. You can find them in some of the recent materials that Marisa Cochrane, our research coordinator, has produced on Special Groups activity in Northeast Baghdad.

In fact, she had tracked at the beginning of this year an uptick in Special Groups activity in Northeast Baghdad in part by the bringing in of weapons caches and their discovery and in part by the activities of their network and it seemed to us, at ISW, that that was perhaps a sign that Iran and Special Groups intended to escalate later in the year. And that these actions that we’ve taken both in Northeast Baghdad, Sadr City and down in Basra were, in fact, a response to an escalation on the part of the Iranians. So, I refer you to our website for that issue.

. . . Mark Lavin: Great. Thank you, sir. Brave Rifles by the way. My name is Mark Lavin. I’m a Congressional fellow working on the House Oversight on Government Reform Minority Staff. The question I have for you, sir, was the two organizations are actors in Iraq as our adversaries. How do we define their centers of gravity but also how do we define for them that golden bridge that they can cross over and how do they define our center of gravity?

H.R. McMaster: . . . Our center of gravity, I mean popular support obviously in a counter-insurgency type of environment and what they’re trying to do is gain some degree of popular support sponsorship among the communities in which they operate. They need some kind of freedom of movement and they need safe haven and support bases. These are you might call decisive points for this particular enemy.

I think for some of them it’s critical that they retain some degree of external support for their operations. For example, Al-Qaeda still needs to tap into the so-called foreign fighter terrorist supply network though Syria. They also need to be able to access some of the considerable funds available in the external regime of Saddam Hussein in Damascus and in Amman, Jordan, UAE and other places to continue finance the effort for those who are operating under Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri and Muhammad Youssef Ahmed’s wings of the former Baathist regime but are still funding Al-Qaeda activities as an example. So those are three things. Any extra support, safe havens, support basis and freedom of movement being one. And then, any kind of support from the population.

The golden bridge is political participation, you know. If you want to participate in the future of this country in a way that allows you to represent the interests of your community in the political process, that door is open. There are provincial elections coming up. Also many of these factions, for example if you look at the Office of the Martyr Sadr representation, the Council of Representatives, they are represented within the government. They do have representation within the city government of Baghdad and the provincial government. They control resources that they could use if they chose to do so to actually improve the lives of people rather than to focus on a militia type of approach to advancing their interests, which is obviously utterly failing to improve the lives of their people.

. . . Stanley Kober: Stanley Kober with the Cato Institute. Back to Iran, you said there’s a process of escalation. Escalation sometimes leads to outright war. What if that were to occur? How would that affect the situation?

. . . H.R. McMaster: I would just point out a sort of ironic -or paradoxical situation I guess would be a better word choice - Iran says that what it’s trying to do in terms of supporting violence in Iraqi is to avoid a confrontation with the United States yet these actions obviously put it on a collision course. So I think it’s clear that it’s in nobody’s interest for there to be a expanding conflict, a regional conflict, leaders have made that very clear and so I think, you know, that’s all I can really say about it.

I mean, obviously it we are not doing anything to inspire Iran providing militias with ammunitions that attack Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and our forces. So it’s a, obviously this is a clear choice that someone within that Iranian military and political hierarchy has decided to do.

. . . Yochi Dreazen: Hi, Yochi Dreazen from The Wall Street Journal. One of the other factors that brought violence down obviously in the last year or two years is that mixed communities have become homogenous, so places where you have seemliness between sects, where that could have been a source of friction, they have now separated themselves out further. I’m curious, do you think the new normalcy is that you have homogenized communities, provincial elections perhaps even reify that further. Or do you think that you begin to see these communities reintegrate themselves? And if the latter, what do you think are the possible sources of friction and difficulty as that process unfolds?

Nancy Youssef: I’m Nancy Youssef from the MacLatchy Newspapers. I have a question for you about the current Sadr City offensive. Where does that offensive ,which was pushed by Nouri al-Malaki, fit into this broacher idea of reconciliation and improvement in the security situation and what are some of the risks in executing it given that so much of the violence that we’ve come to know in Iraq has been spurred by outbreaks of violence in Sadr City?

H.R. McMaster: I’ll take a quick crack at these two. First of all, that is the reason why some of the violence has decreased along some of these fault lines within Baghdad. Doug Altman would know even more about this in terms of several months ago how some of these communities began to reintegrate. And I’ve just been reading a lot of the press accounts of Sadiyah, for example, as being one of the neighborhoods where people are coming back together. I think it has to be for it to success.

It can’t be sort of these homogenized pockets because as you know, Iraq is kind of a crazy quilt of ethnicities and religious sects. You know there is a high degree of intermarriage within tribes, for example. And really the key factor that pitted these communities against each other were not just their ethnic or their sectarian identity, it was extremists who were able to operate with relative impunity within these areas to pit these communities against each other through violence and then citing reprisals that led to a kind of a cycle of destructive violence.

So what are the points of friction as they get reintegrated. A lot of it had to do with property claims and whose house is whose. My limited experience has been that Iraqis sort that out better than anybody. I mean, they can figure out by getting, you know, the Muktars, the Sheikhs together, how to broker this but the conditions had to be set security-wise first, which is the biggest obstacle to overcome. And that really is that you have security forces in place that are trusted by both communities.

And there is a certain degree of redundancy there within those security forces or checks maybe between local police forces and Iraqi army forces which may not be directly from those communities and also the back up effect of a Iraqi backing up for these such that the forces that are now securing these communities and people move back in, not only have the strength to deal with current threat but where we’re operating right next to them, but also can deal with intensified enemy actions that are almost certain to come as we reduce our effort and as the communities begin to move back in together.

The other key thing is to bring community leaders together and create some kind of mediating mechanism or forum for them to meet with on a regular basis to talk about their grievances and stress these cross cutting issues to get them off the ethno-sectarian narrative.

Another key thing to do to make it more permanent is to, as we’re talking about earlier, get the Iraqi government should be able to provide the basic services on a nonsectarian basis. And then when people have certain needs, the communities would fall in on themselves, they won’t go to the Imam or the Sheik, they’ll be able to go to their government who is providing security and services for all the communities in a particular neighborhood or district or something at the provincial level. So those are just some quick thoughts on that.

On the Sadr offensive I wish I could comment authoritatively on it but I’m just reading the reporting myself. It’s been in the press since I left and immediately since I left on the first of May so it’s kind of dated almost by now. But I do know that there was a dual effort, a military and security effort as well as a political effort led by the Prime Minister’s office. And there had been a great deal of response to that political effort in the form of, you know, sheiks and community leaders from Sadr city in particular, coming to meet with the Prime Minister, meeting with Iraqi security forces on the group to try to come to some kind of an agreement that would allow the government to establish control in an area that had become a safe heaven and support base for actions directed against the government of Iraq.

And so, the key thing I think would be to extend the writ of the Iraqi government, not just security but also services and capital spending and all the things that Sadr City needs desperately, health care, to Sadr City in a way that has not been possible before based on the capture of that ground by these criminal gangs in that neighborhood. . . .

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Iran's Proxy War In Basra

Britain failed in its mission to secure Basra between 2003 and 2008. The failure was not for lack of effort or, indeed, for any lack of military capability among the British soldiers in Basra. Their soldiers were under daily attack from the locals. Now a leaked report reveals that the attackers were Mahdi Army members being paid with hundreds of thousands of dollars and drugs by Iran - through an Iranian finance team in Basra.

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This from the Telegraph:

Iran has secretly paid Iraqi insurgents hundreds of thousands of American dollars to kill British soldiers, according to a leaked government document obtained by The Telegraph.

The allegations are contained in a confidential "field report" written by a British officer who served in Basra during one of the most dangerous periods of the conflict. The report, which has never been made public, shows the full level of Iran's involvement in the insurgency for the first time.

The document states that the Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) – also known as the Mahdi Army – one of the most violent insurgent groups operating in Basra, used money from Iran to recruit and pay young unemployed men up to $300 (£150) a month to carry out attacks against the British. The findings have been passed to the highest levels in the military.

The leak comes at a time of rising tension between Iran and the international community, as Tehran continues to stonewall UN inquiries into allegations that it has carried out research to develop a nuclear weapon.

The report, "Life Under Fire in the Old State Building", details the activities of British troops under the command of Major Christopher Job, of the 2nd Lancashire Regiment, between November 2006 and March 2007.

In the report, Major Job discloses that in the course of five months his base was attacked 350 times. Old State Building, which is in the centre of Basra, is the most-attacked British base in recent history.

In an attempt to discover who was behind the attacks, the officer says he established a network of informers, who supplied him with detailed intelligence on the actions of the insurgents and who was behind their funding.

The officer states that the reports of Iran's involvement came from a network of 25 sources, which included a former Iraqi army general, prominent businessmen, local sheikhs and council leaders.

He writes: "We learnt from a number of our Key Leadership Engagements [local contacts] that the source of the problem was the level of unemployment in Basra.

"JAM, using funding from Iran, paid the unemployed youths in the region of $300 per month to attack Multi National Forces. We also learnt that JAM had a drugs culture and that youths literally got hooked on being associated with JAM."

Twenty-seven members of the Armed Forces died and dozens were seriously injured in southern Iraq between November 2006 and May 2007, the period that Major Job covers in his report.

A senior British officer who has recently returned from southern Iraq said that the existence of "Iranian finance teams" in Basra was widely known by the British military and Foreign Office, although always officially denied.

He said: "It suited Iran to arm JAM in order to allow them to have the means to hit us." . . .

Read the entire article.

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The State Department's Unilateral Foreign Policy

Until a few weeks ago, I was under the misapprehension that our State Dept. existed to further the foreign policy of the Executive Branch. The first major clue as to how wrong I was came with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Through the disingenuous use of labels and some incredible sleight of hand in their very selective choice of inferences – see here - three State Department personnel who oversaw the writing of that NIE managed to turn what should have been an objective intelligence assessment into a policy document undercutting the President by positing:

1) Iran’s current nuclear enrichment is part of a "civilian" program - despite the fact that Iran has no possible use for the fuel its enriching;

2) Iran’s theocracy is rational by western standards; and

3) The use of force or threat of the same is not necessary to effect Iran’s decision making process. Talks with Iran, if accompanied by other diplomatic measures, is the appropriate way to proceed.

It was a successful coup that portrayed Iran as far less of a threat than that country actually is. And now we have our State Department acting similarly to portray the Iranian theocracy’s actions as peaceful and cooperative as regards Iraq. This is in contradiction of the facts on the ground. The only possible explanation is that this is an attempt to set the stage for unilateral talks with Iran.

What Iran has been doing for some time now is to duplicate in Iraq the same basic game plan that Iran has followed in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. Iran develops a group of proxies - trains them, arms them, funds them - and then turns them loose to cause as much murder and mayhem as possible in the host country. Based on the models in Lebanon and Gaza, it can be assessed that the ultimate goal of Iran is to have their proxies become a political and military force in the host country beholden to Iran. Iran’s actions have been incredibly destabilizing – and deadly - in Iraq and throughout the greater Middle East. There is a phrase that appropriately describes Iran's actions in Iraq, though it does not appear to be in the State Dept. lexicon. That phrase is "acts of war."

According to General Petraeus in an interview on December 17, 2007:

. . . Q: Another factor that has seriously threatened the formation of a stable and secure Iraq is Iran. Lately Tehran seems to have decreased its interference in Iraq. Would you agree to that assessment?

P: There may be Iranian reduction in exporting violence to Iraq. I say "may" because it really is a may. There is not an apparent reduction in training because we have detained individuals in recent months and weeks who recently received training in Iran as late as late October or early November. . .

And from our Dept. of Defense assessment issued earlier this month:

. . . There has been no identified decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shi’a militias in Iraq. Tehran’s support for Shi’a militant groups who attack Coalition and Iraq forces remains a significant impediment to progress towards stabilization. The Iranian Islamic Revolu-tionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) provides many of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups, to include Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM). Although Sadr’s late August 2007 freeze on JAM activity is still in effect, some elements continue to attack Coalition forces with Iranian weapons. The GoI and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq have made it clear to the Iranian Government that IRGC-QF’s lethal activities must cease.

But none of this is true according to the senior State Department official on Iraq, David Satterfield. He is claiming as fact the very dubious inference that Iran’s mullaocracy has somehow decided to put the hold on its deadly meddling in Iraq.

The Iranian government has decided "at the most senior levels" to rein in the violent Shiite militias it supports in Iraq, a move reflected in a sharp decrease in sophisticated roadside bomb attacks over the past several months, according to the State Department's top official on Iraq.

Tehran's decision does not necessarily mean the flow of those weapons from Iran has stopped, but the decline in their use and in overall attacks "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision," David M. Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said in an interview.

. . . Satterfield agreed that Iran was not acting out of "altruism" but rather from "alarm at what was being done by the groups they were backing in terms of their own long-term interests."

At a news conference Friday, Rice sidestepped an opportunity to criticize Iran. The United States, she said, remains "open to better relations" with Iran, adding, "We don't have permanent enemies."

. . . But "we have seen such a consistent and sustained diminution in certain kinds of violence by certain kinds of folks that we can't explain it solely" by internal factors in Iraq, Satterfield said. "If you add those all together, your calculus doesn't come out unless you also add in that the Iranians at a command level must have said or done something, as well."

He declined to discuss specific evidence. "We are confident that decisions involving the strategy pursued by the IRGC are made at the most senior levels of the Iranian government," Satterfield said, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The administration has used that formulation in the past to insist that IRGC training and supplies for militias in Iraq were ordered by Tehran's highest clerical leaders.

Read the article here. As to Sec. of State Rice's statement that we have "no permanent enemies," that's a great soundbite, but highly naive. The Iranian theocracy defines the core of its legitimacy by its enmity to the U.S., and the theocracy has been at war with the U.S. since its inception in 1979. While wanting better relations with Iran is laudable, ignoring the history of our relations with Iran's theocracy will do absolutely nothing to advance those relations.

As mentioned in this blog previously, that decline in Iranian sponsored mayhem and murder can be attributed to the effects of the surge, including the targeting of IRGC agents inside Iraq, the targeting of Iran's "special groups" proxies, and the interdiction of Iran's supply channels. See this report by Bill Roggio specifically addressing this issue. All of that is ignored by our State Department who prefer, solely on the basis of a dubious inference, to paint Iran’s mullaocracy as peaceful and cooperative.

This is suicidal insanity. Whether we should hold unilateral talks with Iran is open to legitimate debate. But we have no chance of dealing with Iran, whether in such talks or by any other means, if our State Department is falsely portraying Iran's actions and intentions. It is akin to justifying the handling of rattle snakes by simply asserting that they are really not dangerous. If one wants to survive an encounter with such a snake, the first thing that must happen is to approach it with the full acknowledgment of its nature.

We now have multiple people at the highest level's of the State Department who have acted to utterly minimize the very real threat posed by Iran. The only conceivable purpose for these acts is to set the stage for unilateral talks. Our State Department is advancing its own unilateral foreign policy agenda. The first step to dealing effectively with Iran is to reign in an out-of-control State Department.

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DOD Report: Iraq’s Security & Economy Improving; Iran Continues Its Lethal Meddling Unabated

The quarterly DOD report, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, December 2007, has been released. It contains some good news, some troubling, particularly as to Iran and the Kurdish north. The report compliments and, in some instances, flushes out many of the problems identified by LTG Barry McCaffery in his own report. What follows is a brief summary of the DOD report:

1. Political Stability:

 Security is substantially improved setting the conditions for improvements across the spectrum of government functions.

 The most notable improvements in governance and the economy are at grass roots.

 The Iraqi central government is grid-locked and not functioning to pass needed legislation.

2. National Reconciliation:

 The central government has succeeded in passing a law authorizing pensions for former civil servants in the Saddam regime.

 The “de-Baathification laws” has received first and second reading but has yet to be voted out of the central government.

 Reconciliation is occurring at the grass roots level as Sunnis join the political process and Maliki has been reaching out to bring Sunnis into the political process, irrespective of specific legislation

3. Politics:

 The Maliki government has been weakened by resignations in August of Sunni ministers and the earlier resignation of Sadrist ministers

 Maliki has appointed technocrats unaligned with any political party to take the positions left by Sadrist ministers. Several of his nominations are being thwarted by manuevering in the parliament.

 Hydrocarbon Laws are still stuck in parliament, but the government has been de facto collecting and distributing oil revenues to the provinces, and there has been no complaints to date that it has been doing so unfairly.

 The Kurdistan Regional Government has passed their own hydrocarbon law in direct challenge to the Central government, which has declared the KRG laws illegal.

 Constitutional review of all the “hard questions” left unanswered in the original Constitution is ongoing but showing no signs of resolution. Some of the biggest issues resolve around Kurdish aspirations for a separate government and “Article 140” issues – i.e., whether major oil-rich territories, including Mosul and Kirkuk, will come under the ambit of the KRG.

 The UN is playing a positive role in resolving the Constitutional issues and, in particular, those associated with Article 140.

 Provincial Elections – The UN is also playing a positive role in setting the stage for provincial elections. The law authorizing these elections is now with Maliki for review. The problems are lack of a census, security and logistics concerns, and large numbers of displaced persons are seen as problems that must be addressed.

4. Government Reform:

 Ministry Reform – work with the various ministries by State Dept. and USAID are receiving mixed results

 Provincial Reconstruction Teams – These are in every province and are doing exceptional work in helping to rebuild infrastructure, foster local governance and economic development.

 Rule of Law – the Iraqi legal system of detention through trial is not yet up to speed. The number of judges in the country only recently went from 100 to 1200.

5. Transnational Issues:

 Iran – Iran’s lethal meddling in Iraq is a significant destabilizing force and has in no way abated.

. . . There has been no identified decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shi’a militias in Iraq. Tehran’s support for Shi’a militant groups who attack Coalition and Iraq forces remains a significant impediment to progress towards stabilization. The Iranian Islamic Revolu-tionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) provides many of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups, to include Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM). Although Sadr’s late August 2007 freeze on JAM activity is still in effect, some elements continue to attack Coalition forces with Iranian weapons. The GoI and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq have made it clear to the Iranian Government that IRGC-QF’s lethal activities must cease.

 Syrian Influence

Terrorists, foreign fighters, and former Iraqi regime elements continue to find sanctuary, border transit opportunities and logistical support in Syria. Syria is estimated to be the entry point for 90% of all foreign terrorists known in Iraq. Recent efforts by the Syrian Government to stem the flow of foreign terrorists and suicide bombers inside of Syria may have had some effect in decreasing the flow of extremists into Iraq. The Syrian Government participates in the Neighbors Process framework, having hosted both the inaugural Border Security Working group in August 2007 and the follow-up Border Security Working group in November 2007. While these are positive diplomatic steps, it is not clear that Syria has made a strategic decision to persistently and comprehensively deal with foreign terrorists. The Syrian Government must take additional measures to further reduce the flow of foreign terrorists transiting Syria into Iraq.

 Tensions on the Border with Turkey

Turkey’s primary concerns regarding Iraq continue to be terrorism conducted by the Kurdistan Peoples Congress (KGK, formerly Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK)) from camps in northern Iraq, increased autonomy for the Kurdistan Regional Government from the central Iraqi Government and the final status of the oil rich city of Kirkuk. After the election of President Gul in Turkey and Prime Minister Maliki’s visit to Turkey, these governments signed a counter-terrorism cooperation agreement establishing a bilateral, interagency security commission to work towards curbing the actions of terrorist organizations, including the KGK and al Qaeda.

6. Economy:

 Oil production now averages 2.28 million barrels per day and is increasing with improvement to security and infrastructure.

 The economy is expanding at a healthy rate of 6.3%, but there are some significant problems that need to be addressed. Weak institutions, a poor business climate, limited access to capital, lack of essential services, poor technical skills and security issues remain obstacles to private sector-led growth.

 Inflation is being brought under control. Year-to-date inflation as of October 2007 is 4.2%, compared to year-to-date inflation through October 2006 of 42.7% and 22.9% in 2005.

 Unemployment and underemployment are estimated at 17.6% and 38.1%, respectively.

 Agriculture, which employs 25% of Iraqi’s workforce, is being modernized with new technologies and the growth of private farms are at the heart of a program by USAID.

 The key to resolving long-term employment issues in Iraq is private sector investment, but this requires a secure positive legal environment, access to capital and access to markets. Access to capital is increasing through U.S. and Iraqi central government programs, but Iraq’s legal system is still in a state of flux and market access still remains problematic.


7. Essential Services:

 The news here is not improving but still poor.

 Improving the availability of basic services such as electricity, water and healthcare to all Iraqis could help improve the public’s confidence in the government. During this reporting period, the GoI’s improvements in budget execution have translated into minimal advances in the delivery of essential services to the people of Iraq, mainly due to sectarian bias in targeting and execution of remedial programs. With the U.S. Government’s 2004 Iraq Relief and Reconstruction fund limited to deobligated funds authorized for reobligation and with significantly reduced appropriations for other reconstruction funding sources in 2008, Iraq will now be required to fund most future reconstruction projects.

 Electricity – both demand and generation are up significantly.

 Water and sewer – this area seems shaky at best

 The Mosul Dam is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The Mosul Dam was built on an unstable rock foundation that is continuously dissolving, resulting in the formation of cavities and voids below the dam’s foundation that could cause catastrophic failure.

8. Security:

 Security has improved dramatically. Violence is down by all measures to a level last seen in the summer of 2005.

 In many parts of Iraq, the reopening of schools, clinics, markets and improvements in essential services all suggest improvements resulting from hard-fought security gains. These improvements coincide with the growing willingness of Sunni and Shi’a tribal leaders to cooperate with efforts to stabilize Iraq. . . .

 Shi’a criminal activities have become growing threats to security and stability as the role of insurgents and AQI wanes.

 “Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Qods Force (IRGC-QF) efforts to train, equip, and fund Shi’a extremists also continue despite reported assurances to Prime Minister Maliki that Iran will cease lethal aid. Unequal adherence to Muqtada al-Sadr’s call for a Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) forces ceasefire has resulted in schisms within the Office of Martyr Sadr and JAM, particularly among JAM special groups, but has also opened the door for increased engagement with the Shi’a community.”

 “AQI retains the capability to conduct spectacular and highly lethal terrorist attacks in parts of central and northern Iraq. This helps explain the rise in car bomb attacks in July 2007 that temporar-ily disrupted an overall downward trend from February through November 2007. AQI has also shifted to a murder and intimidation campaign directed at its former Sunni allies in an attempt to counter the growing anti-AQI tribal movement. This strategy has not been productive, however, and the tribal movement continues to spread beyond western Iraq to other provinces such as Salah ad Din and Diyala, where the CLC program has been important in reducing AQI’s capabilities.”

Part II of the report deals with the statistics governing the growth in training and operations of Iraqi military, police and other security forces.

You can find the entire DOD report here.

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