The recent discovery of a supposedly
secret prison allegedly run by elements in the
Iraqi Interior Ministry loyal to the Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),
has raised fears of an escalating sectarian
conflict in Iraq. Leaving aside the sensational
reporting on this incident, there is nothing
particularly new or even secret about this
development.
Certainly the American
authorities in Iraq are not only well aware of
aggressive counter-insurgency tactics, but in some
cases even
oversee them. The timing of
the so-called secret prison's "discovery" is also
interesting, coming at a time when the US is
trying to diminish the influence of the Shi'ite
Islamist bloc in the government.
The
elections scheduled for December 15 are seen as a
perfect opportunity by the Americans and their
main ally in Iraq, former premier Iyad Allawi, to
curtail the electoral clout of SCIRI and other
Shi'ite organizations and personalities, including
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi. The
"discovery" of the secret detention center and the
sensational reporting that followed is part of
this American-led electoral strategy.
In
the security field, though, there are unlikely to
be any changes to the way the Shi'ite-dominated
security forces conduct the war against the Arab
Sunni guerrilla movement and the Salafi-jihadi
extremists. However, the events of the past month
have highlighted a potentially fatal long-term
flaw in the development of new Iraqi security
forces, and that is the emergence of two separate
security/intelligence structures: one which is
entirely overseen by the Americans, and the other
entirely led by Shi'ite Islamists with strong ties
to Iran.
The Badr Organization As the Interior Ministry detention center,
where about 170 prisoners were being held, was
allegedly controlled by elements either belonging
to or strongly connected to the Badr Organization,
it is worthwhile examining the emergence and
evolution of this paramilitary and security
organization.
The Badr Organization is the
armed wing of the SCIRI, which was formed in
November 1982 in Tehran. [1] Under the tutelage of
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
SCIRI established a military wing in 1983, called
the Badr Brigade. This force quickly grew into a
full-fledged corps and joined regular IRGC forces
on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war in the
1980s.
Like the SCIRI's political wing,
the Badr Corps never posed a serious threat to the
former Iraqi regime. The main problem was that it
strove to be a conventional military organization,
equipped with heavy weaponry, rather than a
guerrilla force capable of easily infiltrating
Iraq and operating clandestinely. While its
conventional forces looked impressive on parade,
their ineffectiveness was highlighted during the
1991 Shi'ite uprising in Iraq - Badr forces
managed to cross the border, but were easily
crushed by the Iraqi Army.
The
relationship between the Badr and the IRGC has
been the subject of much disinformation,
exaggeration and misreporting. While there is no
doubt that the Badr was partly created by the IRGC
and sustained by it in the early years, the
relationship was downgraded after the formal
ending of the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988. One
myth that has been sustained throughout these
years, mainly by the former Ba'ath regime and its
loyalists, is that the Badr was completely
subordinate to the IRGC command structure.
It is alleged that the organization's real
name was the "9th Badr Corps", indicating that it
belonged to a chain of specialized IRGC units.
These include the "2nd Qods [Jerusalem] Corps",
the IRGC'S ultra-clandestine and highly effective
special operations and foreign intelligence unit.
For their part, the SCIRI and the Badr
vehemently deny strong association with the IRGC.
This is, at best, a half-truth. While the Badr was
never subordinate to the IRGC in a formal
organizational sense, it was heavily reliant on
the latter for funding, arms, training and even
infiltration into Iraq.
Moreover,
virtually every facility used by the SCIRI and the
Badr in Iran from 1982-2003 was either wholly
owned by the IRGC or in some ways connected to it.
In terms of funding there is reliable evidence
that the salaries of some full-time Badr personnel
were paid by the IRGC's central accounting
department.
According to a reliable
military journalist in Tehran, the pay slips would
be issued in nine-digit formats, complying with
the IRGC's accounting and encryption system for
those employees and agents whose identities needed
to remain concealed, even to the IRGC's internal
auditors. The funds would either be deposited in
Iranian banks, or in some cases Badr personnel
would be paid in US dollars. Fake charities were
set up to launder the funds. These would be
deposited in the Swiss subsidiary of Mebco, a
small bank owned by Chalabi. Mebco had its banking
license withdrawn by the Swiss federal banking
commission in April 1989. Funds would also be
deposited in Chalabi-owned banks and other
financial institutions in Beirut.
The
relationship between the IRGC and the Badr
underwent further changes in 1992. Several front
organizations were created to put further
administrative and operational distance between
the two and ultimately enable Badr's fighting
forces to gain full independence.
This
worked, as by early 2003 the operational links
between Badr fighting forces and the Pasdaran
(Revolutionary Guards) had become tenuous. But a
parallel development ensured that Badr maintained
its links with the IRGC. The changes in 1992 were,
in part, prompted by Badr's dismal performance in
the March-April 1991 Safar intifada against Saddam
Hussein's regime.
There was a realization
that Badr could never hope to pose a serious
military challenge to the (former) Iraqi regime
and instead needed to develop strong security and
intelligence capabilities, which would enable it
to operate clandestinely inside Iraq. It was at
this juncture that the Badr developed a distinct
security/intelligence unit that was trained by and
operated under the guidelines of the IRGC's Qods
Corps.
Virtually nothing is known about
these activities, mainly because there is no
reliable information on the ultra-secretive Qods
Corps, save for sloppy disinformation and
propaganda put out by Western intelligence
services and exiled Iranian dissidents. These
security units proved useful during the period
1999-2001 when Iran and Iraq used each other's
dissident organizations to conduct a low-level
urban terrorist campaign, marked mainly by the use
of mortar bombs in Tehran and Baghdad.
Badr in Iraq It is widely
believed that on the eve of the invasion of Iraq
the Badr Corps controlled around 10,000-15,000
fighters, 3,000 of whom were professionally
trained (many of these being Iraqi Army defectors
and former prisoners of war). However, the core of
the Badr fighting forces was composed of about
1,500 ideologically-committed combatants who had
spent nearly two decades working alongside the
IRGC.
Immediately after the fall of
Baghdad, the Badr Corps moved into Iraq from the
central sector, independent of SCIRI personnel who
entered Iraq mostly from the south. The Badr
established an initial presence in Diyala
province, arguably Iraq's most strategic region,
given its proximity to Iran and its mixed Shi'ite
and Sunni population.
The US authorities
applied great pressure on the Badr Corps to disarm
in the early months of the occupation.
Consequently the Badr Corps was renamed the Badr
Organization, but it did not fully disarm. In any
case, the disarmament process was reversed after
the assassination of the SCIRI's founding leader,
Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, in August 2003, after
which the Americans readily accepted that the
SCIRI needed an armed component to protect its
assets in the deteriorating security situation.
From early 2004 onwards, when coalition
efforts to develop new Iraqi military and security
structures started in earnest, the Badr
Organization (which now claimed to be operating
independently from the SCIRI) tried to place its
most competent officers and fighters inside the
new security organs. But these efforts were
thwarted both by American officers and former
Ba'athist security personnel, who saw the Badr as
an extension of the IRGC in Iraq.
The Badr
was sidelined during the tenure of Allawi's
government (July 2004-April 2005), as the
neo-Ba'athists in that administration,
particularly the defense minister, Hazem Shaalan,
the interior minister, Faleh al-Naquib, and the
intelligence chief, Mohammad Shahwani, applied
maximum pressure on the Americans to deny Badr
access to government resources. The Allawi
government proved to be the most serious mistake
in post-war Iraq, as evidenced by the biggest
fraud scandal in Iraqi history, which was
allegedly masterminded by Shaalan and other senior
figures in the Defense Ministry.
To their
credit, the Americans, mindful of the incompetence
of Allawi and his crooked ministers and advisors,
refused to disarm and dissolve the Badr, as was
repeatedly requested by Shaalan's office. In fact
as the insurgency situation deteriorated sharply
in late 2004, the Americans decided to involve the
Badr in official security planning and
counter-insurgency operations. This set the stage
for the entry of Badr personnel and agents into
the defense and interior ministries.
The
situation changed dramatically after this
January's elections, which resulted in a massive
victory by the SCIRI and its allies, and which led
to the creation of the Ibrahim Jaafari government
in April. From the very early days of the Jaafari
government, the Badr was given virtual control
over the Interior Ministry, with Bayan Jabr (a
former Badr Corps commander and SCIRI leader)
being appointed the interior minister.
This enabled the Badr to capture the top
positions at the ministry and exert significant
influence on counter-insurgency planning and
operations. The Badr set up new counter-insurgency
units, which are widely regarded as the most
motivated and effective components of the new
Iraqi security forces.
The Badr
Organization was instrumental in the creation of
the elite anti-insurgency unit known as al-Liwa
al-Dheeb (Wolf Brigade). The Wolf Brigade
initially operated in the north of Iraq,
particularly in Tal Afar and Mosul, but in recent
months it has assumed a security role in Baghdad
as well. The Badr also set up the Scorpion
Brigade, which specializes in intelligence-led
security sweeps against insurgent hideouts, bases
and safe-houses in urban areas, particularly
western Baghdad.
Aside from its heavy
involvement in security and paramilitary
operations against the insurgents, the Badr is
also using its intelligence apparatus to collect
information on a range of targets in Iraq. The
Badr initially set up its intelligence apparatus
in the city of Kut in April 2003. The intelligence
network was under the control of Sayyid Abbas
Fadhil, a senior SCIRI leader, who declared
himself mayor of Kut after entering the town on
April 10.
It was not mere coincidence that
Abdel Aziz al-Hakim (the current leader of the
SCIRI), who was then the de-facto commander of the
Badr, decided to make Kut his first port of call
after long years in exile in Iran. Hakim arrived
in Kut on April 16 and was greeted by Fadhil and
20,000 cheering residents.
Currently
Badr's intelligence apparatus is headquartered in
Najaf, but it maintains regional and local
headquarters in Basra, Amara, Khanegheyn, Khalis,
Balad, Kirkuk and eastern Baghdad. Badr and the
SCIRI's intelligence apparatus operates completely
independently from the new Iraqi intelligence
service that is nominally headed by Shahwani but
is in fact completely controlled by the US Central
Intelligence Agency. The Americans have refused to
relinquish control of the new Iraqi intelligence
service (which is very small and is almost
entirely made up of former Iraqi intelligence
officers) for fear that it would fall under the
influence of Badr - and by extension Iran.
Badr's intelligence apparatus is currently
focused on gathering information on six primary
objectives, in the following order of importance:
1) former regime elements (particularly committed
members of the Ba'ath Party, former intelligence
officers, Ba'athist academics and anybody who
still actively supports Saddam); 2) insurgents
(both indigenous and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi-led
Salafi-jihadis); 3) the Sunni clerical
establishment (the Association of Muslim Scholars
being the primary target); 4) Arab Sunni-based
political parties and personalities (the Iraqi
Islamic Party is a major target for penetration);
5) the new Iraqi intelligence service; 6) American
forces and facilities in Iraq (detailed
information on American military bases, troop
movements and tactics are collected on a daily
basis).
The Badr intelligence apparatus
has a national network of informants and is also
active in Damascus (Syria), Amman (Jordan),
Nicosia and Larnaka (Cyprus), cities that have
large Iraqi communities and where Iraqi insurgents
conduct much of their planning, networking and
fundraising. It is entirely possible that the Badr
intelligence apparatus is both larger and more
effective than the new Iraqi intelligence service,
but it is impossible to verify this.
New Iraq and security
challenges The biggest challenge in
post-war Iraq is developing new security forces
and structures. This would not only enable the
Americans to depart Iraq but would ensure that the
country had the resources to cope with the
long-term destabilizing dynamics that were
unleashed by the toppling of Saddam.
However, the experience of the past 33
months has not been altogether encouraging. There
have been three fundamental trends, in regard to
developing new security forces. The first was the
creation and development of the new Iraqi Army.
This has been under the tutelage of the Americans,
who are slowly developing a new armed force,
albeit a very small one.
There is a tacit
agreement between the Americans and Iraq's
neighbors that the new Iraqi Army remains limited
in size and is not equipped with ultra-modern and
lethal American weaponry. In other words, the new
Iraqi Army will be strong enough to maintain
internal order, but it will never acquire the size
and weaponry to threaten even the country's
weakest neighbors.
The second is the
development of a new Iraqi police force, which has
been largely undertaken by the British. This has
been a failure through and through. While the
British have tried hard to train a core of top
tier police officers, the treacherous nature of
policing in Iraq, coupled with the heavy
penetration of the rank and file by militias
(especially the Sadrists and their offshoots) have
blunted any success they may have had.
The
third has been the creation of a new Iraqi
intelligence service, which mainly due to the
political landscape of post-Saddam Iraq, has led
to the emergence of two Iraqi secret states; one
controlled by the Americans and the other by
Iranian-backed Shi'ite Islamists.
The
abuses discovered in the Interior Ministry
facility are partly rooted in the fragmented
nature of the new Iraqi security forces. But it is
also important to remember the ferocity of the
insurgency in Iraq and the fact that the country
simply does not have the security and judicial
resources to respond appropriately. Those who are
tasked with fighting the insurgents on the ground
protest that not even the most sophisticated
judicial apparatus in the world would be able to
prevent abuses by security forces faced with
catastrophic threats and enemies who regularly
resort to extreme methods.
More broadly,
the complex and fragmented nature of the new Iraqi
security forces is informed by the evolving
political superstructure. As Iraq is steadily
transformed into a weak federal state with deep
sectarian and ethnic cleavages that are
exacerbated by daily bombings and communal
massacres, the security forces will continue to
develop along fragmented, militia-based and
ethnocentric lines.
Mahan Abedin
is the editor of Terrorism Monitor, which is
published by the Jamestown Foundation, a
non-profit organization specializing in research
and analysis on conflict and instability in
Eurasia. The views expressed here are his own.
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