This study will address the evolution of military power and security and their relationship to state formation in Iraq from 1921 to the present. Throughout history, military power and other types of security and law-and-order infrastructures have been intricately tied to the emergence and evolution of the state. The eminent German sociologist Max Weber once wrote that the state cannot be defined in terms of its ends, but rather in terms of the specific means peculiar to it. He defined the state as “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”1 Once they have achieved control over the instruments of violence, rulers use them to further build up their states, to provide law and order, to repel interlopers, to oppress their own people, or to engage in policies of aggrandizement.2 Iraqi rulers have misused these instruments of violence against both their own people and others, and more often than not have been poorly served by them. As the dominant power in post-Saddam Iraq, the United States has to address, among other key issues, this relationship between state formation, security and military power as it begins the process of reconstructing that hapless country. For the United States to succeed, it needs also to avoid the mistakes made by the British, who created Iraq in 1921, and by successive independent rulers.
Iraq was a closed society for over 30 years under the Baath party (1968-2003), but the political literature on the country has burgeoned. Most of it has dealt with political history, patterns of state formation,3 political economy,4 the roles of the respective ethno-sectarian communities,5 and increasingly with the combat capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces and the patterns of civil-military relations.6 However, there has been no study of the relationship between military power and security on the one hand and state-formation on the other. This introductory study is intended to be the first step in redressing this lacuna.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Although a detailed treatment of the concept of security-sector reform (SSR) is beyond the scope of this study,7 the concept of SSR should be the starting point for dealing with and finding solutions to the intertwined issues of military power, security and state formation in post-Saddam Iraq. The vast and growing literature on SSR has been applied to myriad countries ranging from the post communist and transitional states of Eastern Europe to Africa, Asia and Latin America.8 I will use the definition of security sector issued by the Stability Pact for South East Europe:
All those organizations which have authority to use, or order the use of, force to protect the state and its citizens, as well as those civil structures that are responsible for their management and oversight. It includes: (a) military and paramilitary forces; (b) intelligence services; (c) police forces, border guards, customs services and corrections; (d) judicial and penal systems; (e) civil structures that are responsible for the management and oversight of the above.9
Our understanding of the term security sector must not be limited to merely the regular armed forces of a state. All states have security sectors, including Costa Rica, which only has police and paramilitary forces but no regular army.
Over the past decade, security sectors around the globe have undergone vast transformations because of two very different kinds of pressures. First, there are post-modern reforms associated with relatively stable and advanced societies that are coping with altered security environments, changing values concerning the roles of military forces and the roles of women in the armed forces, societal pressures on military expenditure, and rapidly evolving technologies.10 Secondly, there is SSR that is concerned with reform of over-sized security sectors in countries that have undergone wars, civil conflict, economic collapse or transition from authoritarian forms of governance. Both the concept and practice of SSR are intricately related to (1) the promotion of economic development and progress through lessening the burden of a large military sector, and (2) the implementation of good governance and democratization through the demilitarization of society and the subordination of military power to constitutional control.
HISTORICAL LEGACY
For hundreds of years, Mesopotamia was a poverty-stricken backwater of the Ottoman Empire, the eastern flank of Sunni orthodoxy, exemplified by the sultan in Istanbul, against the Shii heterodoxy of the shah in Iran. Reforms in the mid-nineteenth century helped ameliorate the ramshackle conditions of the bureaucracy and administration, strengthened the control of the central government, and led to conscription of the natives in defense of the empire. Mesopotamia’s most notable contribution to the defense of Sunnism – even though a substantial segment of the population in the south was Shii – was the provision of able-bodied men from the most martial segments, the Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds, to the Ottoman army.11
Monarchical Era, 1921-58
The Ottomans lost Mesopotamia to the British at the end of World War I, whereupon the British set about creating a new state headed by an imported monarchy and dominated by a Sunni Arab elite, traditionally the best-educated minority. The British set up a parliament, a judiciary, a modern bureaucracy and allowed the formation of political parties. But the new state was far from a liberal constitutional monarchy. The new state would also require a national army, and its first units were established on January 6, 1921. Defense of the new country from external aggression was to remain in the hands of the British for the foreseeable future, however. The Iraqi army was designed from the very beginning as an internal-security force. Over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, it performed its tasks with gusto with the full support of the British. Using natives to suppress natives was infinitely cheaper than using British soldiers.12 A British military mission was attached to the new Iraqi army for the ostensible purpose of helping to train the officer corps, but it retained considerable control over decision making within the army until 1932.13
As the army expanded and took in officer cadets of middle-class and lower-middle-class origins, the officer corps became more politicized. Iraqi political life at that time provided the officers with ample opportunity to intervene in the political process. These officers became radicalized out of the national humiliation of British domination, the corrupt and “unpatriotic” behavior of the ruling elite and senior officers, and the inability of the cabinets to maintain domestic stability. Iraq’s complex political and social situation and weak state institutions provided fertile soil for conspiratorial politics on the part of the military.
In 1936, the army under General Baqr Sidki, the acting chief of staff, overthrew the existing government. This was the first twentieth-century coup in the Arab Middle East. Between 1937 and 1941 there were seven cabinet changes, either as a result of overt coups or pressure brought to bear on civilians by the army. A coup by nationalist officers in 1941 so thoroughly threatened British control that Britain reoccupied the country. The Iraqi army was cut down in size, hundreds of officers were purged, and the British began exercising tighter control over it.14
The nationalists in uniform went underground, formed several disparate anti-regime cells and bided their time.15 The monarchy – more and more beholden to its British masters – developed a suspicion of the populace and resorted to rule by police methods. The country remained in ferment; there were several popular rebellions. After the defeat of the coup of 1941, the monarchy thought that the military had been de-fanged and that the provision of benefits and privileges to the remaining officers would mollify it. The monarchy remained oblivious to the virus of discontent that was rapidly infecting the Iraqi officer corps in the 1950s, the beginnings of the heyday of Arab nationalism.
Early Republican Era, 1958-68
In 1958, a coalition of disgruntled army officers overthrew the monarchy and established a republic under a charismatic general, Abd al-Karim Qasim. Qasim was unable to build strong state institutions and to rein in the myriad ideological currents that were bitterly hostile to one another. A deep divide existed between officers sympathetic to Communist ideas and those sympathetic to pan-Arab nationalism. Qasim tended to sympathize with the left and the Iraqi Communist party. This helped provoke a revolt-cum-coup attempt by Sunni Arab nationalist officers in Mosul in 1959. It was bloodily put down and led to the execution of 11 senior nationalist officers. But Qasim was unable to prevent a nationalist coup in 1963 by the Iraqi branch of the Arab Baath party, whose ideology is a hodgepodge of pan-Arab nationalist, state-capitalist and socialist ideas. The Baath regime did not last long and was itself overthrown in November 1963 by non-Baathist officers and civilians.
Until 1968, the Iraqi political scene was dominated by Sunni Arab officers with a pan-Arab-nationalist orientation. They were quite conservative, some very religious.16 Many of the latter had a connection with the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni fundamentalist movement that had made some inroads into the Iraqi Sunni Arab community.17
Kurdish officers became less relevant and influential in the armed forces than under the monarchy. Their percentage declined because of desertion to Kurdish rebel groups in the north.18 The outbreak of a major insurgency by the famed Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani in 1961 resulted in the desertion of dozens of Kurdish officers. This heightened the suspicions of the Iraqi state towards the Kurds in general and loyal Kurdish officers in particular. By the mid-1960s, the Kurdish officers fell into four distinct groups: (i) those who loyally supported the state and fought against rebellious Kurds because they believed in the Iraqi state; (ii) those who opportunistically continued to serve because of the benefits accruing from military service; (iii) those who maintained contact with the Kurdish insurgents; and (iv) officers in charge of paramilitary or auxiliary units from tribes or clans such as the Jaf, who were traditional opponents of the Barzanis.
Even as the percentage of Kurds in the officer corps declined, that of the Shiis did not increase. The senior and mid-ranking officer corps remained largely closed to Shii Arabs, who gravitated mainly towards mass political parties in order to further their fortunes or those of their group. Some joined the Arab-nationalist Baath party, others joined the Iraqi Communist party, and some sought to form religious parties to counteract the influence of secular ideologies.19 Moreover, Shii officers faced subtle institutional discrimination: limited acceptance of cadets into the military academy, appointment to non-prestigious branches such as the infantry, billeting in the Kurdish north for years on end without rotation back to the center or the south, and derision from conservative Sunni Arab officers for their allegedly peculiar religious beliefs and values.
In 1963, a breakdown of the ethno sectarian composition of the 1944-45 graduates of the military academy who were mid-ranking and senior officers in the early 1960s showed that 20 percent were Shii Arabs and 10 percent were Kurds, Turcomans, Yazidis and Christians. Almost 70 percent of the graduates were Sunni Arabs, of whom 45 percent originated from Mosul, a traditional supplier of officer material, 15 percent from another core Sunni Arab town, Ramadi, and 10 percent from Baghdad.20
War-fighting Capabilities
What are the factors that enable a state to generate military capabilities that can be used to wage war effectively? Or conversely, what hinders a state from succeeding in creating such capabilities? Many independent variables enter the picture. Given the constraints of space in this study I can only provide a brief analysis of the impact of some of these independent variables on the ability of the Iraqi state to generate an effective military.
First, the non-Western world’s generation of effective military capabilities has always been subject to the vagaries of relations with the Western world, which has contained the most powerful and advanced militaries since the sixteenth century. For example, from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, the colonial nature of the formation of the local military was an important constraint. The British did not see the need for Iraq to develop an externally focused military. They wanted a force to deal with internal threats to stability and to hold off external aggressors. They did not want a well-equipped and well-trained army that would widen Iraq’s independence and freedom of movement within the context of regional politics. As The Economist put it in 1950, when Iraq was still under British tutelage:
The armed forces of Iraq have been built up solely for purposes of internal security; they are large and good enough to enable Iraq at least to hold its own against aggression by any of the other Arab countries or against a rising by the turbulent Kurdish minority; but they could not withstand an attack by a large power.21
The British put the stress on internal security and repeatedly rebuffed Iraqi attempts to acquire sophisticated weapons and to enlarge the armed forces so that they could at least defend the country.
Second, the nature of civil-military relations within a country can have an impact on the creation of effective military capabilities. If civil-military relations are unstable and the military intervenes in the political process, it is almost certain that the officer corps will focus on politics. In Iraq, the mid-ranking officers were political from the very beginning of their careers because of their disdain for the monarchy’s subordination to the British and the existence of political corruption and cronyism. Given their pronounced political proclivities, the Iraqi officers became masters of intrigue. They maximized their political roles at the expense of their professional (military) roles: training themselves and preparing for war. As a result, fearful of the officers’ political proclivities, the monarchy, in turn, “politicized” the army by spying on the officer corps, interfering in promotions, transfers and unit training schedules and cross-country movements.
After the 1941 overthrow of a military regime headed by anti-British middle ranking officers sympathetic to the pan Arab nationalist cause, the British and the monarchy executed the leaders and purged almost 3,000 officers from the armed forces. The army itself was downsized and its movements watched carefully. Units on the march in or around Baghdad were not allowed to have live ammunition, for fear they might undertake a coup. When the “free officers” overthrew the monarchy in the revolution-cum-coup of 1958, they, in turn, proceeded to purge the army of large numbers of politically suspect officers. Similarly, between 1958 and 1963, the republican regime of Abd al-Karim Qasim removed 2,000 competent but politically suspect officers from the 8,000 in the armed forces.22
Third, the existing characteristics of Iraqi society intruded into the military. As Stephen Peter Rosen pointed out in a seminal study, social structures can affect the generation of military power.23 An army is a reflection of the society of which it is a constituent element. If political life is characterized by corruption, graft and tenuous legitimacy on the part of the ruling authorities, and if society is characterized by poor relations among classes, regions and ethnic groups, the armed forces will reflect these fissures. In Iraq, they certainly did. A British intelligence report from the 1930s sums up the impact of political corruption on war-fighting capabilities:
Most of the senior appointments are held not so much through soldierly qualifications as through political graft and knowing people in high places. Intrigue is to be found everywhere and is not confined to army matters; officers mix freely with the local politicians and are prepared to follow anyone who they think will benefit them. Officers only see their men on parade and are not in close sympathy with them. The men as a whole however are stupid and dull in intellect.24
Another intelligence report commented on the poor state of relations between personnel from the various ethnic groups:
Feelings often run high between these various elements. The Arabs consider the Kurds treacherous and say they never know whether they will be shot in the back by the Kurds in action. They treat the Kurdish soldiers with opprobrium. This the Kurds resent in their turn, and the whole force is full of mutual jealousy and hatred and mistrust.25
Not surprisingly, Iraqi combat capabilities during the period under review were poor. Iraq fought a brief war against an “external” enemy – Britain – in 1941 and lost. Of course, it could hardly have beaten the British, but the Iraqi army’s performance was lackluster. In the words of one expert who had extensively studied the political role of the Iraqi armed forces:
The commanders showed neither initiative nor ability, and the noncommissioned officers and men were completely without fighting spirit. The 4th Division in the south did not lift a finger (to fight the British), and the 2nd Division in the north initiated no action….It is hard to find an explanation for the walk-over victory over the Iraqi army, but the fact is indisputable. One reason may have been the excessive politicization of the officer corps. The activism of the officer politicians brought them victories over the politicians in their own country, and even over rival officers in their own army, but it made the army weaker.26
The monarchy sent an ill-prepared and ill trained contingent to fight in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Once again the Iraqis fared poorly, this time against an enemy that was not as well-equipped as the British.27 The Iraqi army did not even do well in internal security campaigns against recalcitrant Kurdish tribesmen in the north. Its lack of expertise, training and professionalism ensured that it suffered heavy casualties against the Kurdish guerrillas, the Peshmergas, during the 1960s. Throughout that decade, it remained largely a counterinsurgency force with mountain troops for operations against the Kurds and with some heavy armored and mechanized units around Baghdad for protection against coups.
BAATHIST ERA, 1968-2003
No individual played a greater role than Saddam Hussein in the shaping of the contemporary Iraqi state and the relationship between the state and military power. Saddam was well aware that the greatest threats to state formation in Iraq were the centrifugal forces of ethno-sectarian communities and an uncontrolled military. Saddam wanted a rich and powerful state that would not be subject to the vagaries of domestic political instability. He found a number of ways to deal with political and ethno-sectarian opposition, including the use of violence by means of the military instrument and myriad security and intelligence services. In 1975, following the dramatic rise in financial resources and the end of the debilitating Kurdish insurgency, Saddam sought to transform the military from an instrument of internal security into a modern and well-armed force. This was critical to his vision of a powerful new Iraq. A strong military would enable the regime not only to defend the country but to promote and support ambitious regional goals. Moreover, Iraq would be able to offer its military in defense of other Arab countries. He articulated this grandiose goal on several occasions, most notably during the Iran-Iraq War: “Our unflinching and unwavering will draws its strength from our knowledge that we are defending not only Iraq, but the entire Arab nation.”28 The armed forces had to be tamed, however, and their propensity to seize power quashed.29 The requisite vehicles were two distinct approaches implemented concurrently.
First, Saddam used modern totalitarian mechanisms of party control in which all aspects of society come under the scrutiny of the party or movement: constant surveillance by a system of overlapping security and intelligence services, regime-protection divisions to control the army, intensive ideological indoctrination, the presence of political officers within units, purges, rotations and executions.30
Second, Saddam instituted neopatrimonial controls. Totalitarian regimes never achieve complete control over the armed forces; they simply cannot attain ideological uniformity among the officer corps. Saddam insinuated close relatives and members of his clan and wider tribe as well as trusted Sunni Arab tribes into top positions in the armed forces and security services.31 In return for their loyalty, Saddam used the financial resources of the state to provide a wide variety of perks.
Generation of Effective Military Capabilities
Despite Saddam’s determination to generate armed forces with powerful combat capabilities, the evidence clearly shows that their war-fighting prowess was not considered as important as achieving political control over them. This was clearly reflected in the purges of professional officers and their replacement by politicized flunkies and the implementation of rigid controls over command, control and communications. Iraqi forces continued to fare poorly against Kurdish guerrillas in the 1970s because of the shortage of competent professional officers and the tight control exercised by the regime.
The bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 revealed a large number of technological, material and organizational weaknesses within the Iraqi military.32 Material shortcomings are much easier to see and ostensibly to deal with than those that stem from “social” factors; the latter are deep-seated and often reflect profound political and social fissures. The rigid controls that Saddam exercised over operational matters during both the Iran Iraq and Gulf wars were a source of anger within the officer corps, an anger that exploded after the dual debacles of the battles of Faw in January and Mehran in July of 1986, when better-led Iranian forces defeated well-entrenched Iraqi troops in both battles. Saddam did not trust the officer corps and did not wish to have the middle-ranking and senior officers formulate operational plans without supervision.33 Moreover, as the armed forces expanded dramatically from the mid-1970s onwards, “ensuring political loyalty was as much a preoccupation as professional competence.”34
Saddam may also have felt that too much operational independence on the part of the officer corps would inflate the egos of successful commanders and would also conflict with the political goals and directives issued by the civilian leadership. Officers who are too successful begin to seek a more enlarged role for themselves and may thus express opinions that are political rather than operational. Thus, even too much military success could impinge in a negative manner on civil-military relations. Saddam’s fears were evident towards the end of the war, when Iraqi forces were successful in turning the tide of the war against Iran. Saddam felt compelled to issue the following “advice” to the officer corps:
On my call on the officers not to be conceited after the battle liberating Al-Faw, I moreover say that I prevented them twice from leaving the Iraqi land to chase the Iranian forces to their territory. They wanted to cross the Shatt al-Arab because they were able to do so as the land was open without restrictions. I prevented them and told them to stop at their land’s border.35
Saddam also exercised tight control over the officers for societal reasons. Iraqi military power has traditionally rested on fragile social foundations. Saddam’s infamous statement made during the Gulf crisis of 1991 that the United States was a society that could not withstand 10,000 casualties in a battle, whereas Iraq could, was bravado. Saddam could not afford excessive casualties among Iraqi forces during the Iran-Iraq War. Excessive casualties would have affected each of Iraq’s three major ethnic groups in different ways and would have damaged the stability of the state and the security of the regime.
The regime could not afford heavy casualties among the Kurds, who were the least nationalistic element within the country and often inclined to desert to guerrilla forces in the north. During the Iran-Iraq War, the regime found it necessary to promise the Kurds that they would serve primarily in the north against Iranian infiltration rather than in the bloody stalemate on the southern front. Nonetheless, Kurdish soldiers deserted by the thousands to join the Kurdish guerrillas, who took advantage of Iraq’s preoccupation with the war against Iran to launch yet another insurgency against the Saddam regime.
The Shii Arabs constituted the bulk of the infantry, the forces that suffer the highest casualty rate in any war. Iraqi infantry casualties in the offensives against the Kurds in the 1970s were extremely heavy, particularly among the Shii rank and file and the maghawir infantry units. This caused disturbances within the Shii community in 1974. In this context, during the war with Iran, it was to be expected that heavy casualties in the infantry units would hit the Shii the hardest.36 Not surprisingly, Iraq exhibited considerable reluctance to rely on regular infantry during operations.
Last but not least, most of the officer corps and enlistees in elite units came from the Sunni Arab middle class and the tribes of the center. Heavy casualties among this group could have threatened the ethnic base of the regime. Heavy casualties in the battles of Faw and Mehran in 1986 among the Sunni Arab personnel may have contributed to grumbling and dissension among the elite and the officer corps.
The Iraqi defeats in operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom were unavoidable. But in the minds of many military observers, former Iraqi officers and regime officials, the Iraqi defeat was made easier as a result of the nature of Saddam’s controls over the armed forces and the deep societal fissures he had created and promoted over the years.37
To summarize, the evolution of the Iraqi state and its military power has been warped by
- excessive foreign control;
- politicization of the officer corps and interference by that body in political life;
- weak and unstable political institutions that invited military interference;
- excessive interference in and control over the armed forces by the civilian authorities;
- over-militarization of the state and society;
- a legitimacy crisis on the part of the regime that led to the emergence of extremely political movements, which infiltrated the armed forces;
- use of the regular armed forces in internal security and suppression of certain sectors of the population and a consequent blurring of the boundaries between external and internal security;
- deep-seated ethno-sectarian tensions and discrimination within the officer corps and the rank and file;
- misuse of the armed forces in wars of aggression;
- poor combat capabilities.
AFTER OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM
The United States conducted a brilliant military campaign in March-April 2003 to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. But, from the very beginning, the plans for the post-war period went off the rails. By late spring 2003, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), whose mission was reconstruction and restoration of basic services and security, was floundering for a wide variety of reasons that cannot be addressed here.38 Two of ORHA’s biggest disasters lay in the failure in the immediate aftermath of the war to restore law and order and to address the disposition of the Iraqi army. First, after the end of conventional military operations, law and order collapsed in most Iraqi cities, with the capital being the worst hit. Iraq’s population had little respect for the professionalism of the Iraqi police force under Saddam. What kept them in line were the ferocious security and intelligence services. With the collapse of the regime, these disappeared, and their personnel joined the insurgency or organized criminal entities. The police officers went home – police stations were looted – and an orgy of violence, homicides, rape, looting and kidnapping erupted in Baghdad.
Second, ORHA did little to account for the status of the Iraqi military and its personnel, who remained idle and frustrated, uncertain of their future. Iraqi officers and enlistees demonstrated in mid-May 2003 in front of ORHA Headquarters. They demanded back pay – they had received their last paychecks from the defunct regime in February 2003 – and clarification of their future status.39 The myriad failings of ORHA under General Jay Garner prompted the Bush administration to send Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III to take over the running of occupied Iraq. Bremer succeeded in shaking things up with a series of edicts.
Dissolution of the Armed Forces
On May 24, Bremer issued one of his most important edicts when he declared the complete dissolution of the Iraqi armed forces, to include the regular army, special regime-protection units such as the Republican Guards, the Special Republican Guards and the security/intelligence services, as well as an end to conscription. This was not an auspicious move, particularly as the situation in the country remained very unsettled. Two major reasons have been put forward for the dissolution of the armed forces or have become apparent as a result of further investigations by journalists.
First, there has been a claim by some within the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that the Iraqi armed forces simply dissolved themselves and that Bremer’s edict merely “legalized” that self-dissolution. This is a vacuous assertion. The fact that the Iraqi army melted in the face of the coalition during the war does not mean that it dissolved itself. Furthermore, the officers and men did re-emerge following the cessation of hostilities to ascertain their future status. That would have been the time to set up a well-planned and organized process of demobilization and reintegration of thousands into civilian society, vetting those who wished to stay on in a smaller armed force. Second, it has been argued that that key officials within the Pentagon and former Iraqi exiles had pushed for the dissolution of the armed forces in order to remove a threat to the consolidation of power by the returning exiles. However, dwelling on the reasons why the Iraqi military was dissolved is not as fruitful as addressing the impact of the dissolution and the measures taken to restore security and law and order in the country.
A number of factors and events over the spring and summer of 2003 prompted the CPA to move ahead with the formulation of plans for a wide variety of new Iraqi law-and-order and security forces.40 First, the dissolution was a public-relations disaster for the United States and the CPA. There was a universally negative reaction to the threat posed to security by almost 500,000 idle and frustrated men.41 The edict alienated a large and important sector of Iraqi society and raised to a fever pitch the sense of injured nationalism and suspicions concerning U.S. intentions. A senior Iraqi officer identified merely as Brigadier General Salah was quoted by a Baghdad paper as saying:
After the United States entered Iraq and overthrew the regime for its own political and military calculations and economic interests and to weaken Iraq’s combat capability after it destroyed all its weapons during the fighting, it discovered that Iraq in the coming stage does not need a big army. The United States will set up a very small army, the sole duty of which will be to protect the border and control security. Its dissolution of the army secures its interests and Israel’s interests; it does not care about our fate and the fate of our families (my italics).42
While the history of the Iraqi army has not been covered with martial glory, the vast majority of Iraqis take pride in their army. Indeed, Iraqis, especially the officer corps, believe that Saddam, more than any other leader in Iraqi history, warped its noble purpose and its honor. In the words of one senior officer from the Sunni Arab Al-Jiburi tribe:
Like all other armies, the Iraqi Army is one of the most important national pillars and a symbol of the homeland and the people’s pride and dignity. Our army has always been like this until three decades ago, when it was undermined and suffered organized and deliberate destruction by the ruling regime. The Army’s armament and equipment were modernized and its formations enlarged but it sank at the same time to lower dangerous levels, most noticeably the levels where its hierarchy and rules deteriorated, its exemplary discipline turned into indiscipline, and the rules of assessment for promotions were corrupted. Cronyism and parochial, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal discrimination became rampant (my italics).43
Bremer’s actions prompted cries of dismay from Iraqi officers, who threatened to take their revenge by conducting suicide operations or by joining the burgeoning low-level insurgency that was beginning to concern the U.S. military.44 An estimated 5,000 officers and enlisted men staged a demonstration on May 26 denouncing the occupation. Through their spokesman, Lieutenant General Sahib al-Musawi, they demanded:
- rescinding of the proclamation dissolving the Iraqi armed forces,
- implementation of plans to set up a new force structure using elements of the old armed forces,
- immediate payment of military salaries,
- acceleration of plans to form a new Iraqi government that is representative of all its people.45
The Iraqi military personnel warned that if these demands were not met, organized resistance would start against the occupation authorities.46 Indeed, the collapse of professional careers and the loss of income had a disastrous effect on the material and psychological well-being of military personnel. Many ended up hawking cheap goods or foodstuffs as street vendors, poignantly portrayed in the comments of Sergeant Hasan Abu Ali:
After 23 years of service in the army, during which I wasted my youth, I ended up selling tea on this sidewalk. It is true, this is not shameful. But where are my rights and salary? Did US democracy come to devour them? I know officers who, out of despair because they ceased to receive their salaries, have begun to work secretly in areas far from where they live. They take jobs that do not befit army officers, such as selling vegetables or sweets. They also work as bellhops in commercial stores.47
Others have joined active resistance or insurgent groups that emerged not too long after President Bush declared an end to major hostilities in Iraq on May 1, 2003.
Not surprisingly, the occupation authorities decided to ensure that members of the disbanded military would continue to receive stipends and pensions to prevent them from engaging in armed resistance.48 The CPA also decided to move ahead with the reconstitution of Iraqi police and security forces as a result of a variety of pressures.
Second, Bremer was faced with the growing insistence on the part of the Interim Governing Council (IGC) of leading post-Baath regime Iraqi politicians to improve security and law and order in the country and also to involve Iraqis more in security functions. While Bremer had been responsible for the setting up of the IGC as a body subordinate to the CPA, he found over the course of the summer and fall of 2003 that it was not as malleable as he would have liked. One area in which the CPA and IGC clashed was over the role of Iraqis in the restoration of security and law and order.
Third, the most important factors propelling the CPA to move ahead in reconstituting Iraqi security forces were the lack of law and order in the urban centers and the onset of a low-level but deadly insurgency in the center of the country. As a result of the collapse of policing functions and the outbreak of insurgency, U.S. forces were stretched thin. The U.S. insistence on going to war without a U.N. mandate meant that many countries with well-trained professional forces were not interested in contributing to the post-war restoration of security and stability in Iraq.49 Furthermore, few of the U.S. allies in the so-called coalition of the willing can send forces that are sufficient in number, training or equipment to make a difference in Iraq.
By early fall 2003, the CPA effort to restore law and order, internal security and the rebuilding of the Iraqi armed forces was spread among several groups, ranging from the reconstituted police force through the hastily set up paramilitaries to the new Iraqi army.
Iraqi Police Force
The Iraqi police force is the only part of this pantheon of law and order and security entities that is not new. The exigencies of restoring security and law and order necessitated the recalling of former Iraqi police officers back to their jobs. On the whole this has been achieved: almost 90 percent of police personnel reporting to duty in 2003 served under the former regime. Coalition efforts should have been focused on the police force from the very beginning, since it is the rampant crime and collapse of law and order that have been the major problem for Iraqis across the board. However, the Iraqi police force suffers from deep-seated structural problems. These include the pervasive authoritarian culture and mentality of the former regime and the existence of widespread corruption and cronyism. The police suffer from poor training, a shortage of equipment – including weapons – a lack of benefits and inadequate pay. Moreover, if a police force suffers from poor relations with the community that it ostensibly serves, this indicates the need for serious remedial measures. While the Iraqi populace has a traditional fear and suspicion of the police because of the former regime’s brutality and the association of the police with the security services, it now despises them for their amateurishness and “collaboration” with the occupation forces. Police personnel have become demoralized by their inability to deal with the wave of organized crime by better armed groups and by the friendly-fire casualties they have suffered at the hands of their ostensible U.S. military allies, who allegedly treat them with disdain. Last but not least, the police force is penetrated by personnel sympathetic to the insurgents.
Creating a police force that is in line with the goal of bringing about an Iraq ruled by law and institutions is a long-term mission. It clashes with the short-term requirement of using the existing police force to restore law and order. These issues have not been adequately dealt with by the CPA. It is not merely a matter of throwing money at the problem. Short-term and long-term plans must be devised to revamp and retrain the whole police force while the vast majority of its personnel continue to perform their daily duties. Training of the force has been episodic and fitful. Several countries with good professional forces such as Germany, France and Jordan have offered to take on all or part of the task. The CPA should make sure that only one country ends up with the job of being in overall control of national police training in Iraq. To have several countries training the force at the same time would create unnecessary conflicts associated with different police cultures and standards.
Iraqi Civil Defense Corps
The rise of the insurgency and the palpable lack of security in Iraq have led U.S. officials and senior military officers to create a paramilitary force.50 In August 2003, Bremer issued Order No. 28 creating the ICDC as a temporary institution – i.e. the future government of Iraq could decide to disband it – whose goal would be to “complement operations conducted by Coalition military forces in Iraq to counter organized groups and individuals employing violence against the people of Iraq and their national infrastructure.”51 Specifically, the ICDC is to be tasked with (1) patrol of urban and rural areas; (2) seizure of contraband and illegal weapons; (3) provision of fixed-site, checkpoint, area, route and convoy security; (4) provision of riot and crowd control, disaster-response, and search and rescue services; and (5) liaison with coalition forces.
Order No. 28 clearly states that the ICDC is distinct from both the new Iraqi army in process of formation (see below) and from the Iraqi national police. It will “complement the police force but will be designed to perform operations that exceed the capacity of the police.”
Facilities Protection Service
This group was formed in accordance with CPA Order No. 27 to ensure the protection of critical infrastructure and government facilities from sabotage or attack: “The FPS is an organization of trained, armed, uniformed entities charged with providing security for ministry and governorate offices, government infrastructure, and fixed sites under the direction and control of governmental ministries and governorate administrations.” The order stipulates that the FPS may consist of employees of private security firms that are engaged in performing security services for ministries or governorates through contractual obligations. According to journalistic sources, there were about 10,000 employees of the FPS as of September 2003.52
Department of Border Enforcement & Border Guards
Iraq’s borders, which were once tightly controlled by five different government entities, are now very porous. The CPA recognizes this and has set up the Department of Border Enforcement (DBE). This department alone will carry out the job of previous government entities, whose primary goal was to prevent the normal transit and movement of people and commercial goods to and from Iraq. The primary goal of the new DBE is to ensure that transit and movement of people and goods is regulated according to the legal norms of Iraq and of its neighbors.
New Iraqi Army
This force was set up in accordance with CPA Order No. 22 as the first step towards the creation of a national defense force to replace the dissolved Iraqi military. The missions of the NIA are the “military defense of the nation, including defense of the national territory and the military protection of the security of critical installations, facilities, infrastructure, lines of communication and supply, and population.”53 The task of the NIA is to develop further military capability during the period of the authority of the CPA “in order to provide the basis for militarily effective, professional, and non-political armed forces for the military defense of the nation” following the termination of the CPA’s tenure. The order proceeds to add that the NIA “shall not have or exercise domestic law enforcement functions, nor intervene in the domestic political affairs of the nation.” The NIA is designed to be a light motorized force consisting of no more than 40,000 personnel, at least in the interim. There are numerous problems with the NIA, which the CPA will have to resolve in the coming months.
First, there is considerable confusion concerning the missions and tasks of the NIA. Order No.22 seems to suggest that the NIA will be involved in internal security because it has been tasked with the protection of vital infrastructure. Yet the order proceeds to add that it shall not have any domestic enforcement functions, ensuring that the NIA will have nothing to do with internal security functions in the future, even with the “mere” protection of critical infrastructure.
Second, there has been little guidance on how to subordinate the armed forces to civilian control. This is going to be a major issue in the future, when Iraqi independence is fully restored.
Third, many Iraqis were shocked and humiliated by what the CPA had in store for their national defense. CPA officials must conduct an extensive information campaign to stress to the Iraqis that the NIA’s present is no indication of its future disposition. Indeed, the new Iraqi army’s continued existence following the transition to full Iraqi sovereignty would be subject to the decisions of an internationally recognized representative government. Should the future government decide to abolish the armed forces, that would presumably be its prerogative. However, given the unstable neighborhood and the desire of Iraqis to have an army capable of defending their nation, it is highly unlikely that any future government would undertake such a drastic step. On the contrary, from the available evidence, Iraqis are determined to have a military that would be able to defend their country competently. There is also considerable evidence that there is no desire for an oversized and aggressive military establishment that would wage wars of aggression on behalf of vacuous ideologies. Many Iraqis, including former officers who had been purged from the armed forces by the former regime agree that, while the country will need a competent military, that future Iraqi military must not intervene in the political process and must not engage in internal-security activities. Finally, should the international community help the Iraqis succeed in forming a moderately sized competent military establishment to defend the country and its territorial integrity, this would contribute to controlling Iraqi proclivities towards weapons of mass destruction.
ANALYSIS OF CPA SSR EFFORTS
Success in the task of implementing effective SSR is critical to the reconstruction of the country, to the process of restoring its sovereignty and to putting it on the road to democratic governance. As we can see from the above analysis, the CPA effort to reestablish law and order and security and to recreate new armed forces in Iraq has resulted in some notable achievements. But the effort is suffering from several problems, which can be divided into those of a general nature and those that are specifically related to the forces that have been created. As the problems of the individual forces have already been addressed above, it is best to conclude this section with a focus on the general problems.
First, the CPA has created or reconstituted too many forces either with no clear missions or overlapping missions. Consequently, the CPA has spread itself thin, and some key security establishments, such as the police force, are not receiving the time and effort they need. The CPA should focus its efforts on the national police force and the myriad internal-security forces. Training of the police force must also include a strategy of training the trainers in order to ensure that the Iraqis will have a solid police infrastructure once the coalition leaves. The development of professionalism, greater cohesion and solid organizational structure of the latter forces should be a key task in the coming months. The CPA might well consider creating an Iraqi National Gendarmerie (ING) that would have control over the FPS, the ICDC and the DBE. As with the national police, the ING would come under the control of the Ministry of Interior. While the ING would be more militarized than the national police, in that it would have wheeled light-armored vehicles and utility helicopters, there must be a clear-cut demarcation between the national police and the ING (i.e. internal-security forces) on the one hand and the New Iraqi Army on the other. Moreover, less effort, focus and funding should be spent on the NIA as opposed to the national police and the internal-security forces in the coming two years. What matters now is the restoration of law and order and internal security. Otherwise, there will be no reconstruction and revival, and the country will descend into further chaos. As for external defense, Iraq is unlikely to face a conventional external threat from any of its neighbors while the coalition is heavily involved in the country – the next several years.
Second, the strain on U.S. forces and the outbreak of the insurgency have forced the CPA to accelerate training of Iraqi units across the board in order to “bring them into the fight.” This approach is fraught with potential pitfalls. It is true that Iraqis are ultimately responsible for security within their country. Based on anecdotal evidence, many of the individuals joining the various forces that have been created by the CPA have done so because they will get a decent and steady paycheck in a country suffering from an unemployment rate of 60-70 percent. But the evidence from other states in turmoil or conflict has conclusively shown that expediency is never a very good approach in the practice of security-sector reform. It takes time and patience to implement effective SSR. If poorly paid, ill-equipped and badly trained Iraqi forces are thrown into the fight prematurely because it would be expedient, we risk penetration of those forces by the insurgents, high casualty rates, and the perception that Iraqis are being sacrificed to save U.S. lives in an election year.
If the United States does not succeed in restoring law and order and security in Iraq, it will not be able to move the country forward towards stability, economic prosperity and a “democratizing” future. At best, Iraq will revert back to weak state institutions, military involvement in the political process, rule by strongmen, and oppression of ethno-sectarian groups by the dominant elite. At worst, Iraq could become a failed state.
1 Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p.78.
2 For details, see Martin van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000); Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
3 The best studies of Iraqi state-formation on which I have relied heavily in this historical survey are Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Baathists, and Free Officers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978); Pierre-Jean Luizard, La Question Irakienne (Paris: Fayard, 2002); Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Samira Haj, The Making of Iraq, 1900-1963: Capital, Power and Ideology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997); Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001); Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985); Majid Khadduri’s trilogy, Independent Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1932 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951); Republican Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since the Revolution of 1958 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); and Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since 1968 (Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1978).
4 On political economy, see Isam al-Khafaji, “In Search of Legitimacy: The Post-Rentier Iraqi State,” in Social Sciences Research Council – Contemporary Conflicts at http://conflicts.ssrc.org/Iraq/khafaji/pdf/.
5 Among the best studies on communities of Iraq, see Faleh Abdul Jabar, Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2002); Faleh Abdul Jabar and Hosham Dawod, eds.; Tribes and Power: Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2003); Faleh Abdul Jabar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2003); Yitzhak Nakash, The Shiis of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) Second Paperback Edition.
6 On civil-military relations under Saddam, see Ahmed Hashim, “Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power,” Middle East Journal; Andrew Parasiliti and Sinan Anton, “Friends in Need, Foes to Heed: The Iraqi Military in Politics,” Middle East Policy, Vol. 4, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 130-140.
7 One of the most extensive recent analyses on which I have relied implicitly is Jane Chanaa, Security Sector Reform: Issues, Challenges and Prospects, Adelphi Paper No. 344, International Institute for Strategic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
8 See, inter alia, Dylan Hendrickson, A Review of Security-Sector Reform, Working Paper, Conflict, Security and Development Group, Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, University of London, September 1999; Ann Fitzgerald, “Security Sector Reform – Streamlining National Military Forces to Respond to the Wider Security Needs,” Journal of Security Sector Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2003.
9 Stability Pact for Southeast Europe, Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Security Sector Reform to the Working Table III, November 27, 2001, p. 5; also cited in Islam Yusufi, Security Sector Reform in South East Europe, Research Report, Center for Policy Studies, Budapest, Hungary, February 18, 2003, p. 8.
10 For more details on post-modern reforms, see Charles Moskos, John Allen Williams and David Segal, eds., The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 113; Istvan Gyarmati and Theodor Winkler, eds., Post-Cold War Defense Reform: Lessons Learned in Europe and the United State (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002).
11 For more details on the relationship between the Ottoman state in Iraq and the attempt to develop military power, see Reeva Simon, “The Education of an Iraqi Ottoman Army Officer,” The Origins of Arab Nationalism, Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih and Reeva Simon, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp.151-166.
12 The British maintained units of the Royal Air Force in Iraq in order to provide flying artillery to the ground units of the Iraqi army in their operations against unruly tribes. The units were also there to maintain overall British control over the country.
13 Mark Heller, “Politics and the Military in Iraq and Jordan, 1921-1958: The British Influence,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. l4, No. 1, November 1977, p. 81.
14 Batatu, p. 766.
15 For details, see A. Abbas, “The Iraqi Armed Forces, Past and Present,” Saddam’s Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? (London: Zed Books, 1989), p. 208.
16 For example, Colonel (Engineer Corps) Rajab Abd-al-Majid, who was executed in 1959 by Qasim for his role in an attempted coup-cum revolt by nationalist officers, came from a highly religious background from Anah, a Sunni Arab area.
17 The religious Sunni Arab officers could be divided into two distinct groups. First, there were those who were both religious and quite “political” about their religiosity. These officers were members of or had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and included the following: General Iyad Khalil Zaki, a MB member who was in the Republican Guards until the Baathist regime transferred him to the infantry, where he would be liable to cause less trouble; Colonel Hikmet Shahin, a commander of the Second Infantry Division in the 1960s, and Colonel Tarek al-Hashimi, instructor at the Staff College. were retired because of their refusal to join the Baath party following the coup of 1968. Second, there were those who were intensely religious and very private about their religiosity. These included General Abdel Karim al-Itawi, General Abd al-Jabbar alShanshal, and Colonel Faiq Hamid al-Azami, who were allowed to continue serving in the armed forces when the Baath took over in 1968. See Ahmed Al-Zaini, Al-bina al-maanawi lil-quwat al-musallaha al-iraqiyah (The Building of Cohesion within the Iraqi Armed Forces).
18 See H. Batatu, p. 765.
19 The best recent study of the rise of mass political consciousness among the Shiis is Faleh Abdul Jabar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2003).
20 Ahmed al-Zaidi, p. 159.
21 “Defenders of the Middle East,” The Economist, July 22, 1950, pp. 177-8.
22 See Mark Heller, “Politics and the Military in Iraq and Jordan, 1920-1958: The British Influence,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 4, November 1977, p. 84.
23 Stephen Peter Rosen, “Military Effectiveness: Why Society Matters,” International Security, Vol.19, No.4, Spring 1995, pp.5-31.
24 Cited in Mohammad Tarbush, The Role of the Military in Politics: A Case Study of Iraq to 1941, p. 119.
25 Ibid, p.120.
26 Beeri, p. 39.
27 See Major Michael Hoffpauir (U.S. Army), “Tactical Evolution of the Iraqi Army: The Abadan Island and Fish Lake Campaigns of the Iran-Iraq War,” M.A. of Military Art and Science, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KA, 1991, pp. 13-16.
28 Nasir al-din al-Nashashibi, “Interview with President Saddam Husayn,” Al Anba (Kuwait), April 27, 1983, p. 13.
29 For more details, see Ahmed S. Hashim, Military Power and State-Formation in Iraq, manuscript.
30 See Hamid al-Shawi, “Le Baath et l’Armeé en Irak et en Syrie” (The Baath and the Army in Iraq and in Syria), Maghreb-Machrek, No. 71, January-March 1976, pp. 66-69; Mark Heller, “Iraq’s Army: Military Weakness, Political Utility,” Iraq’s Road to War, Amatzia Baram and Barry Rubin, eds. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 36-50; Ahmed Hashim, “Saddam Husayn and Civil-Military Relations in Iraq: The Quest for Legitimacy and Power; Amatzia Baram, “Saddam Hussein, the Baath Regime, and the Iraqi Officer Corps,” Armed Forces in the Middle East, Barry Rubin and Thomas Keaney, eds. (London: Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 206-230.
31 For details, see David Baran (pseudo.), “L’État-major de Saddam Hussein,” Institut Français des Relations Internationales, Working Paper No.1, March 2003; Amatzia Baram, “The Iraqi Armed Forces and Security Apparatus,” Journal of Conflict, Security and Development, Issue 1, 2001, pp. 113-123.
32 Studies that point to Iraqi weaknesses in war-fighting include Aaron Danis, “A Military Analysis of Iraqi Army Operations,” Armor, November-December 1990, pp. 13-18; John Antal, “The Sword of Saddam: An Overview of the Iraqi Armed Forces,” Armor, November-December 1990, pp. 8-12; Wallace Franz, “Defeating the Iraqis,” Armor, January-February 1991, pp. 8-9; David Eshel, “Saddam Hussein’s Spearhead – A Combat Assessment,” Military Technology, No. 1, 1991, pp. 256; Major John Antal (United States Army), “The Iraqi Army: Forged in the (Other) Gulf War,” Military Review, Vol. 71, No. 2, February 1991, pp. 63-72; the most detailed analysis is to be found in Kenneth Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
33 James Zumwalt “The Iraqi Military’s Achilles Heel is Saddam Hussein,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2001, Part 2, p. 13.
34 Charles Tripp, “The Consequences of the Iran-Iraq War for Iraqi Politics,” The Iran-Iraq War: Impact and Implications, Efraim Karsh, ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), p. 69.
35 “Saddam Addresses Officials,” Al-Thawrah, May 29, 1988, pp. 1-2; also in FBIS-NES, June 3, 1988, p. 29.
36 Doyle McManus, “Shia Muslims in Iraq Pose Threat,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1980, p. 1.
37 See John Kifner, “Marines See Iraqi Army Bound By Fear, Not Loyalty,” The New York Times, March 18, 2003 (accessed on-line); Molly Moore, “A Foe That Collapsed From Within,” The Washington Post, July 20, 2003, p. 1; Anthony Shadid, “A War Waged With A Sword At His Throat,” The Washington Post, April 13, 2003, p. 1; David Filipov, “Iraqi Deserters Describe Front-Line Despair,” Boston Globe, April 03, 2003, p. 1.
38 For further details, see, inter alia, Gerard Baker and Stephen Fidler, “The Best Laid Plans? How Turf Battles And Mistakes In Washington Dragged Down The Reconstruction Of Iraq,” Financial Times, August 4, 2003 at http://ebird.dtic/Aug2003/s20030804206168.html.
39 Cesar Soriano, “Iraqi Troops Now Request Postwar Roles,” USA Today, May 16, 2003, p. 11; “Police Rearm, Soldiers Protest in Crime-ridden Baghdad,” MSNBS.com at http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/ ap05t-12-131536.asp?reg=MIDEAST; “Iraqi Soldiers March to Demand Back Pay,” Ventura County Star, May 12, 2003; Azadeh Moaveni, “Thousands of Ex-Soldiers In Iraq Demand To Be Paid,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2003 (accessed online).
40 “Bremer: U.S. Ready to Begin Rebuilding Iraqi Army,” USA Today, June 12, 2003.
41 For an excellent account of the impact of the dissolution on the mind-set of the Iraqi military personnel see Kareem Fahim, “Playing With Soldiers,” The Village Voice, July 2-8, 2003 at http://www.villagevoice.com/ issues/0327/fahim.php.
42 Abbas abu al-Nur, “Officers on the Verge of Suicide,” Al Saah, May 31, 2003, p. 2, translated in FBIS Near East/South Asia, May 31, 2003 (accessed online).
43 Muhammad Fakhri Razzuqi, “Two Iraqi Officers to Al-Zaman: Army is a Main Tool in Any Change,” AlZaman, January 8, 2001, p. 2 in FBIS-NESA, January 8, 2001.
44 See Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Newsline, May 27, 2003; Marc Lacey, “Their Jobs In Jeopardy, Iraqi Troops Demand Pay,” The New York Times, May 25, 2003, p. 1.
45 “Iraqi Officers Give U.S. Ultimatum On Army Dissolution,” in IslamOnline.com at http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-05/26/article05shtml.
46 Marc Lacey, “Jobs in Jeopardy, Iraqi Soldiers Vow to Fight If Allies Don’t Pay,” The New York Times, May 25, 2003, p. 1, 14; Ilene Prueher, “Jobless Iraqi Soldiers Issue Threats,” Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 2003 (accessed online).
47 Ibid.
48 See Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.S. To Form New Iraqi Army,” The Washington Post, June 24, 2003, p. 1; Remy Ourdan, “Premiere Victoire des Soldats Irakiens Demobilises: Ils Vont Être Payés” (First Victory of Demobilized Iraqi Soldiers: They will get paid), Le Monde, June 24, 2003 (accessed online); Scott Peterson, “U.S. decides to pay Iraqi soldiers and Form New Army,” Christian Science Monitor, June 24, 2003 (accessed online); Hamza Hendawi, “Bitterness in Defeated Army Soars,” San Diego Union-Tribune, July 20, 2003 (accessed online).
49 Dana Milbank and Colum Lynch, “Bush Fails to Gain Pledges on Troops or Funds for Iraq,” The Washington Post, September 25, 2003, p. A1.
50 Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Plans Iraqi Force for Civil Defense,” International Herald Tribune, July 21, 2003.
51 CPA/ORD/28 from CPA website.
52 See Anna Badkhen and Vivienne Walt, “U.S.-trained Iraqi Guards Lack Guns,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 23, 2003, p. 1.
53 CPA/ORD/7 August 2003/22 from CPA website.
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