'Heading for a far worse
situation' By Sanjay Suri
LONDON - "Iraq could be heading for a far worse
situation in weeks ahead," the International Institute
for Strategic Studies (IISS) warned in its annual report
published on Tuesday.
The IISS, one of the
world's leading institutions for strategic relations,
paints a bleak picture for Iraq and for the United
States as a result of its involvement there. Leading
decision-makers are expected to take close note of IISS
projections. The institute was correct last year in its
assessment of the consequences of the invasion of Iraq.
"Our conclusions turned out to be accurate
because we did not have access to intelligence," Gary
Samore, director of studies at the IISS, said, implying
that others might have been misled by faulty
intelligence.
The US occupation forces are under
threat from Iraqis themselves, not primarily from
al-Qaeda, the report says. Al-Qaeda could have up to
18,000 militants under its wing, the IISS says. It does
not source the estimate, or indicate where they might be
or in what state of readiness. But al-Qaeda is not the
issue in Iraq, as US officials have been suggesting, the
report adds.
"The efficiency of the attacks,
their regularity and the speed with which they were
organized in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's fall
point to predominantly Iraqi involvement," the report
says.
"The shadowy organization behind these
sectarian attacks is likely to be a hybrid, with
elements of the old regime acting in alliance with
'industrial scale' criminal gangs operating in the urban
centers of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul; indigenous Islamic
radicals, and a relatively small number of foreign
fighters," it says.
"It is unlikely that there
has been a 'hidden hand' centrally coordinating and
funding the insurgency," the report adds. "While foreign
jihadists appear to be a comparatively minor source of
anti-coalition violence in Iraq, Iraqi Islamists - both
Sunni and Shi'ite - are major sources."
By
November last year, US forces had detained 250
foreigners, of whom only 19 were thought "probable"
al-Qaeda fighters.
The report suggests that the
Americans are a largely clueless lot in Iraq. "The lack
of solid intelligence on the US side means that American
forces have only a partial understanding of who is
attacking them," the report says. And operations such as
Operation Peninsula Strike, Operation Sidewinder and
Operation Soda Mountain have only "perversely inspired
insurgent violence", according to the report.
The Americans have brought trouble on themselves
in a variety of other ways, the report says. Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L Paul
Bremer's decision to dissolve the Iraqi army a year ago
"provided impetus to the coalescence of the insurgency".
The occupation tactics of heavily armed motorized
patrols and large fortified bases "framed a target by
making the foreign military presence detached and
largely remote from the Iraqi population".
And
as the daily toll of US casualties mounted, "American
forces were increasingly perceived as weak and their
presence in and commitment to the country as temporary."
Subsequently, loyalists from Saddam's Ba'ath Party and
remnants from his security forces "began launching
hit-and-run tactics with increasing frequency and
skill".
The summer of last year witnessed 10-15
attacks a day. By autumn that number rose to 20-35
daily, and the attacks became "better organized and more
sophisticated". What did not change was the CPA's
"relatively little knowledge about the country they are
trying to control" in part because of a dearth of Arabic
speakers on the CPA staff.
But the most
important task has yet to begin in which Iraqis could
"see state institutions making a direct and positive
impact on their everyday lives". The decision to hand
over power to Iraqis on June 30 is "risky at the very
least," the report says. The exile-dominated Iraqi
Governing Council is "detached from the very people it
is meant to represent".
The report warns that
"the gap between the political structures left by the
departing CPA and the population itself does not bode
well for the vanquishing of the insurgency or the growth
of democracy".
Colonel Christopher Langton,
editor of Military Balance published by the IISS, said
that even in military terms the coalition forces are not
up to the job. The coalition forces needed about 500,000
troops to handle the post-conflict situation in Iraq "to
bring short to medium-term stability to the country".
There are presently only around 150,000.
He said
also that US forces are not used to policing duties,
though British troops are "as a result of bitter
post-colonial experiences".
Beyond Iraq, the
situation in the country is a problem for the future of
the US itself, the IISS report says. "If the US is seen
to fail in Iraq, America's foreign policy will have to
be rethought," it says. "The long-term instability of
Iraq would act as a potent symbol, highlighting the
limited power of the US to intervene successfully
against rogue states."
The present US doctrine
and regime change in Iraq is in any case "set to have
major political and legal repercussions with respect to
standards of international intervention and, more
broadly, sovereignty in the developing world," the
report says.
And if the domestic situation in
Iraq does not stabilize, "violence and unrest could
spread over Iraq's long and porous borders".
IISS director John Chipman told media
representatives that "problems with both security and
politics are set to continue and even increase in the
six weeks to 'hand over' and then the six months to the
proposed date for national elections".
There
seems to be little chance in the immediate future that
"the security vacuum that has dominated Iraq since
liberation can be filled by either coalition troops or
by the nascent military and police forces hastily stood
up since liberation". These forces have so far either
refused to act against insurgents, or joined them,
Chipman said.
Chipman quoted British diplomat
Harold Nicolson as saying once that though you cannot
acquire prestige without power, you cannot retain
prestige without reputation. "The US today is finding it
difficult to balance the exercise of its power with the
retention of its prestige," Chipman said.
"The
present US administration is becoming acutely aware of
the fact that reputation, prestige and power can easily
be squandered through mismanaged interventions and
peacekeeping operations," he said. "The next six weeks
and six months will test US and coalition power - and
reputation - substantially."
