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THE ROVING
EYE
Iraq's hostage
cabinet
By Pepe Escobar
"We fasted for three months; then we
broke our fast with an onion." - Iraqi proverb
After
fasting - or watching non-stop squabbling - for
almost three months since the January 30
elections, Iraqis finally got their onion: a new
cabinet no one likes (except the Kurds).
Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari
didn't get what he wanted. No wonder: the
Washington/Green Zone is wary of him. The Sunnis
are threatening to walk out of the government
altogether. Approved by 180 parliamentarians
against five, with a significant 90 absences, this
is not even a full cabinet: Jaafari was unable
t
o
appoint permanent ministers to the Oil, Defense,
Electricity, Industry and Human Rights ministries.
All posts are meant to be filled by May 7.
A fraudster
drenched in oil
The
crucial Oil Ministry post is expected to go to a
Shi'ite. But the conflicting factions within the
election-winning United Iraqi Alliance simply
could not reach an agreement. Alarm bells have
been ringing all over the Green Zone on the news
that the Sadrists of the Fadila Party badly want
the Oil Ministry.
But for the moment, even
more alarmingly, the acting minister is none other
than the unsinkable convicted fraudster, former
Pentagon darling and purported Iranian agent Ahmad
Chalabi. "For the moment" could last a lifetime:
Chalabi - who has been oiling his connections with
leading Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani for a long time - will undoubtedly
waste no time filling the Oil Ministry with his
Iraqi National Congress cronies. Not a few in
Baghdad firmly believe that the Green Zone may
have had a perverse hand on his appointment.
To say that Sunnis are angry would be an
understatement. Powerful Sunni tribal Sheikh Ghazi
al-Yawer, one of the vice presidents, is
threatening that all Sunnis may withdraw from the
government - because this cabinet lineup is not
what they had agreed to with Jaafari. No wonder:
Sunnis wanted to finish off once and for all with
de-Ba'athification, and insisted on a very firm
Arab nationalist government.
Shi'ites from
religious parties would never agree to these
demands. Some Sunnis have already pulled out, such
as the Front of Sunni Arab Blocs, which includes
the Front of National Blocs and the National
Dialogue Council. The Sunnis wanted seven
ministries, especially Defense (they will probably
get it; Jaafari is the acting minister). An alert
Sistani was wise enough to have pressed for 10
ministries for the Sunnis.
One fears for
Jaafari: he still has an uphill negotiation battle
ahead. Some powerful Sunni tribal sheikhs and
religious leaders have been fiercely denouncing
"an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites". Only a
month ago, Sheikh Abu D'ham was saying that "the
Kurds are asking for Kirkuk. Later on they will
start asking for Baghdad. It was Saddam Hussein
who gave the Kurds too much, more than they
deserved."
Kurds may have received too
much once again. They keep Hoshyar Zebari as
foreign minister, an affable, American-approved
Iraqi face to the world, and they have important
positions in ministries such as as Planning and
Development Cooperation (Barham Salih),
Communications (Jwan Maasoum, a woman), Labor and
Social Affairs (Idris Hadi) and Water Resources
(Abdul Latif Rashi). Shi'ites predictably got
several important ministries: Interior (Baqir
Jabbur), Finance (Ali Allawi), Agriculture (Ali
al-Bahadli), Justice (Abdul Hussein Shandal) and
Transport (Salam al-Malik). A welcome development
is that the Science and Technology Ministry is
attributed to Bassima Boutros, a Christian woman.
As things stand, there's not a chance of
the new government and parliament writing a draft
constitution by mid-August. The political calendar
will have to be delayed. Ominous signs abound.
Moderates are dwindling, such as respected former
diplomat Adnan Pachachi: he fled to the United
Arab Emirates, perhaps in disgust, after his
secular list received only one parliamentary seat
in the elections.
The unsettling feeling
about the cabinet is that it is hostage to a big
picture it won't be able to control. This is
because the foundations for a new Iraq - in fact,
the Year Zero imposed by the Americans after Shock
and Awe - simply do not exist.
The
country's infrastructure and administration were
totally devastated. Everything the Americans did
pointed to an incendiary division on sectarian
lines. Major players - fiercely against the
occupation - are absent from this cabinet or any
previous interim government. Scores of employees
in most Iraqi ministries simply don't go to work;
as far as the Ministry of Interior is concerned,
according to the Jordanian press, this means
hundreds of staff in the counterinsurgency
sections.
With unemployment at a
staggering 70%, many won't think twice to secure a
US$400 monthly salary as a police officer; but
when the going gets tough, as it does on a daily
basis, these forces instantly dissolve. As for the
Iraqi Armed Forces, $400 a month is unlikely to
change the minds of disgruntled youngsters,
already fierce nationalists more inclined to fight
the occupiers.
I want my militias
There are even more ominous prospects.
Outgoing interim prime minister and former US
intelligence asset Iyad Allawi - known in Baghdad
as "Saddam without a mustache" - badly wanted the
Interior Ministry, so he could control his
Ba'athist, Mukhabarat pals in charge of security
and counterinsurgency. He didn't get it - the
chosen minister is a moderate Shi'ite, Baqir
Jabbur - nor any other cabinet posts he craved. So
Allawi refashioned himself as opposition leader
(his party had 40 seats in the elections), which
would be tantamount to saying that the White
House/Pentagon/Green Zone is now the opposition,
since Allawi is the Americans' man. President
George W Bush may have never thought he would be
minority leader one day.
A least six
militias are rampaging throughout Iraq, armed,
trained and funded by the Pentagon. One of these -
the powerful Special Police Commandos, with at
least 10,000 men - as already acknowledged by US
generals - is widely involved in applying the
dreaded "Salvador option" that retired General
Wayne Downing, former head of all US special
operations forces, considers a "very valid
tactic". The Special Commandos were active in the
assault on Samarra last October, which American
generals hailed as a "model" of counterinsurgency
operations (not exactly: the resistance
continues). They are also active in Ramadi and
Mosul.
Their commander is the feared Major
General Adnan Thavit al-Samarra'i, a member of an
aborted, Allawi-conceived coup against Saddam in
1996. Thavit until now has been none other than
the "security adviser" in charge of the
face-lifted, Saddam-era General Security
Directorate - infested with Saddam-era Mukhabarat
agents. This is the organization Pentagon chief
Donald Rumsfeld considers so precious that he had
to fly to Baghdad to personally order Jaafari not
to dismantle it. Thavit also happens to be the
uncle of the former minister of interior. All this
explains Allawi's obsession in controlling a
ministry that so graciously houses his
Pentagon-cherished top militia. Two other militias
- the Muthana Brigade and the Defenders of
Khadamiya - are also subordinated to Allawi.
From the White House/Pentagon point of
view, the Special Police Commandos are the
vanguard in the fight against the Sunni Arab
resistance. But even with the commandos and with
the Iraqi prison population swelling to more than
10,000, the resistance keeps averaging at least 60
attacks a day - and counting. Economic sabotage -
the repeated bombing of electrical plants and oil
pipelines - is relentless.
The Marines
also have their own pet militias, such as the
Iraqi Freedom Guard and the Freedom Fighters:
these are usually Shi'ites from the south sent to
fight against Sunnis in explosive Anbar province -
the heart of the resistance. Pentagon financing of
these myriad militias and the active involvement
of Allawi in all these operations suggest that the
Pentagon itself is destabilizing the country it is
supposed to control. Destination: civil war.
It is not difficult to believe that Sunni
Arab public opinion has not by any measure started
to believe in the political process. It's true
that many powerful Sunni Arabs, at least for the
moment, are making a distinction between terror
and resistance. But the moment the majority of
Sunni Arab public opinion equates illegal
occupation to the Shi'ites, Kurds and the
political process, civil war is inevitable.
There's nothing this hostage cabinet can do about
it. We're not there yet, but it's getting closer
by the minute.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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