Iraq the Unraveling

Iraq's vice president, a Sunni Arab, says the recent killing of 13 people associated with a local political leader in eastern Anbar province was carried out by Iraqi army troops commanded by Colonel Raheem Kareem Resan. This somewhat undercuts the "those crazy Anbaris and their wacky tribal disputes" line previously issued by the Baghdad government.

Also someone is bombing the houses of policemen in Fallujah.

It looks to me like relations between Iraqi security forces and the people of al Anbar are deteriorating. If this is the wave of the future, fasten your seatbelts for 2010.

AZHAR SHALLAL/AFP/Getty Images

Someone killed 13 people in al Anbar province, many of them relatives of a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Is this more pre-election jockeying, or what? The Baghdad government is calling it a tribal dispute. That may be true -- but it certainly is what I would say if I wanted to just chalk it up to those rowdy Anbaris.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening in Anbar?

KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images

I didn't see this in my regular newspapers. It happened up in Baqubah. Police took two wounded, army apparently none. I don't know what it means. Maybe just a personal dispute, maybe more than that.

Photo:  ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images

In the new issue of the New York Review of Books, Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group offers a good summary of why he thinks the coming year will be a turbulent one in Iraq. I think he is right -- and that 2010 will stand alongside 2003 and 2007 as a turning point. In short,

...just as Odierno will be pulling out his first combat brigades, starting in March, Iraq will be entering into a period of fractious wrangling over the formation of a new government. If Iraqi national forces fail to impose their control, an absence of political leadership could thus coincide with a collapse in security; if politicians and their allied militias resort to violence, the state, including its intelligence apparatus so critical for maintaining internal stability, could fracture along political, ethnic, and sectarian lines."

Fasten your seat belts. Meanwhile, here is a bunch of headlines from this morning:

• Bomb wounds 4 civilians in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 10:37:30

• 4 wounded in 3rd explosion in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 09:03:50

• 2nd sticky bomb in Baghdad wounds 5 people
  November 4, 2009 - 08:22:02

• 3 wanted men nabbed in Wassit
  November 4, 2009 - 08:07:17

• Sticky bomb injures 7 people in western Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 07:33:56

Bfelice/flickr

One of the most interesting sub-genres of journalism is the article reporters write as they leave a country or beat. Often, they vent feelings and views they've kept pent-up for year.

Here is a classic of the type. As she leaves Iraq, Alissa Rubin of the New York Times summarizes the harsh lessons she learned from years of living in Baghdad:

. . . Army checkpoints -- legal ones -- are the only ones that stop you, but huge posters of Imam Ali punctuate the streets, a signal that this is now Shiite-land. Imam Ali is revered as a founder of the Shiite branch of Islam, but a poster of him is also a silent rebuke to Sunnis, a way of marking territory, of reminding them that the Shiites run things now. It is a sign of victory as much as peace.

And victory in Iraq almost always begets revenge.

In my five years in Iraq, all that I wanted to believe in was gunned down. Sunnis and Shiites each committed horrific crimes, and the Kurds, whose modern-looking cities and Western ways seemed at first so familiar, turned out to be capable of their own brutality."

I think this is a good prism through which to view Iraq's upcoming national elections.

Photo: ALI YESSEF/AFP/Getty Images

Over the weekend, someone dynamited the bridge outside Ramadi on the main highway that goes from Baghdad west to Jordan and Syria. There also were two bombings in Fallujah, one killing 11 Iraqi soldiers, the other taking down an Iraqi officer's house. Also 14 people were killed in the bombing of a mosque in Tell Afar. This is all so 2004.

AFP/Getty Images

This is an e-mail that is circulating about a recent confrontation in Baghdad between non-Iraqi bodyguards and Iraqi security forces. I haven't been able to confirm it, but I am told by a second party that it came from someone he trusts and is accurate.

If this is a portent of things to come, Iraq is gonna get mighty interesting real fast. Bodyguards may have to put up with this sort of treatment, but I don't think U.S. military would stand for it.

Subject: Here's what's circulating regarding PSD incident

The Entry Control Points (ECP) into the International Zone (IZ) have been increasingly difficult to deal with. It is nothing that is intolerable. However, in an increasing basis Protective Security Detail (PSD) teams have been instructed to exit vehicles for search, download weapons and such. That is okay, because after all, Iraq, like it or not, is its own country and sets the ground rules.

Well, a few days ago the antics were ratcheted up again. As a team was entering ECP4 (old CP12) the last vehicle of the motorcade was stopped, which is not uncommon. This time though, the vehicles crew was harassed to give over smoke grenades. Lately IA's/IP's have been asking PSD teams for everything from water, to ammunition, to money. In following the guidance from the Department of State (DOS), Regional Security Officer (RSO), the vehicle commander of the vehicle attempted to find out the name of the Iraqi in charge of the ECP.

(Read on)

Here is a thoughtful note from an Army officer from the 1st Infantry Division who recently returned from Baghdad and is wondering just what he saw:

Just got back from a year in western Baghdad (by the way, we met briefly back in April at CNAS ... ). My battalion covered down on Kadamiya, Hurriya, Shulla, Karkh, and Ghazaliyah. Over the last month or so, our trouble spot became the western neighborhood of Ghazaliyah. 

Ghaz, as you may know, is mainly Shia in the northern half and Sunni in the southern half. We closed the last JSS in Ghaz on Sept. 7 (it had been allowed to stay open past the 30 June deadline) and the day after it was closed the Iraqi army battalion in south Ghaz raided the South Ghaz (Sunni) SOI headquarters, confiscating weapons and equipment a US unit had supplied them back in 2007-2008. The JSS, which straddled the Shia-Sunni fault line across the middle of Ghaz, was basically the buffer for the Sunni in the south. SOI and local council leaders were reported to have fled the neighborhood, citing Shia militia threats. Keep in mind, directly to Ghaz's north is the Shia enclave of Shulla, a mini-Sadr City that is basically controlled by JAM remnant groups (and a heavily complicit Iraqi Army battalion). This Shia influence spills into north Ghaz and has been encroaching upon south Ghaz over the past several months. 

Which brings me to today's news from Baghdad [about a spate of bombings]. ... It is unsurprising and confirms a steady and growing Shia influence throughout Baghdad. ...

When I was in Iraq, I read a bunch of books to include Robert Baer's The Devil We Know, which is about Iran's growing influence in the Mideast. Baer's first two sentences in Chapter 2, "How Iran Beat America," are: "Iraq is lost. Iran won it." Given what we've seen in classified reports and in the revolving door of Iraqi army commanders in select Baghdad neighborhoods, his thesis is spot on. Plus, Shia militiamen have melted into the army and police over the past few years making it much easier for them to create Shia havens throughout the city. It'll be interesting to see where Baghdad is in about 5 years.

In your book, The Gamble, you cite Ryan Crocker's comment that the most important events in Iraq have yet to happen. This is quite true and the troubling fact is that these events are going on right now and we don't even know what to do about them. Probably the better question is if can we do anything about them, especially given the constraints of the Security Agreement. It's especially tough to influence our ISF and council member counterparts via cell phone from Camp Liberty.

Anyway, forgive my rambling thoughts. Just thought I'd add to your Iraq "the unraveling" series. I must say, though, I am quite conflicted about our unit's efforts and sacrifices over the past year and the real reality on the ground right now. I mean how much of it is out of our control? How much can Chris Hill really influence Maliki and the Iraqi politicians? Do US interests line up with Iraqi interests? And how much of Iraq's interests are really Iran's? Much to think about ... 

Among other things, his note makes me wonder just how much is going on in Baghdad that we aren't seeing or noticing right now.

The U.S. Army