The United States authorities in Iraq have given two conflicting responses to the 2 March attacks in Karbala and at the Kadhimiya mosque in Baghdad that killed over 180 people and injured many hundreds more who were commemorating Ashura, an important event in the Shia calendar.
The first is to say that such attacks illustrate the desperation of the insurgents as the June 2004 handover to Iraqi rule approaches. The coalition points to substantial progress in many parts of Iraq and maintains that this cannot and will not be disrupted by what are termed the last efforts of the insurgents.
The term remnants to describe these insurgents is no longer in general use by US sources as it was in 2003, but they still offer to media and other observers the strong lead that the attacks, with their terrible human consequences, actually represent a last-ditch effort to create the grounds for a civil war. The sources place this argument in the context of a supposed decline in attacks on US forces hence the desperation attributed to the Ashura perpetrators.
The second response of US authorities apparently contradicts the first. Coalition sources have also indicated that these attacks demonstrate a considerable degree of sophistication and are directly linked to the al-Qaida network. The implication here is that the problems in Iraq are more fully absorbed into the orbit of the US war on terror.
These distinct responses, combined with the Bush administrations real need to present the best possible view of Iraq to its domestic audience, reveal the difficulties and tensions faced by the authorities in Iraq in agreeing to a clear view of what is happening in the country. The prospect of an effective challenge from Senator John Kerry in the presidential election of November 2004 is likely to make the Iraqi issue even more problematic, and reinforce the need to represent the situation as being under control.
The weakness of strength
Before returning to the overall security issue, what is the real position with regard to the scale of attacks on American forces? Here, it is clear that two things are happening in parallel. First, a full-scale US troop rotation is now under way, with over 100,000 troops replacing a rather larger number currently in Iraq. Second, however, there is a thoroughgoing concentration of US forces in far fewer locations, involving a decrease in patrols as the Iraqi police force and its associated groups are recruited and deployed.
The extent of this second process is marked, symbolically and militarily, by the downgrading of Baghdad International Airport (BIA) as a centre for US operations, alongside the rapid build-up of a military base at Balad, in open country around seventy kilometres north of Baghdad. The problem for US planners is that BIA is far too close to heavily-populated urban areas in which insurgent forces can operate; they might, for example, be capable of firing surface-to-air missiles at aircraft taking off or landing, and then escaping into the local neighbourhoods.
It is worth noting, incidentally, that when the Saddam Hussein regime was terminated in April 2003, there was extensive talk of new services running from neighbouring Gulf states or even from western Europe into Baghdad. Today, there is not even remote consideration of international airlines starting to schedule services into BIA. That, alone, is an indication of how the security outlook has changed in Iraq.
The move of US forces to Balad thus reflects a situation where BIA presents a threat to routine military operations, let alone civil airlines. Balad was one of the Saddam regimes largest military air bases, occupying a huge site with a twenty-kilometre security perimeter. It has two giant runways, each around 3,400 metres long, and can operate almost any aircraft in the USAF inventory.
The Balad site has recently become the base for the US air forces 332 Air Expeditionary Wing. Close to Balad is Camp Anaconda, one of the largest US army concentrations in Iraq. This is a logistics support area that, together with Balad, houses around 15,000 troops. Extensive building work is now underway at both locations, and it seems likely that they will form a permanent presence in preference to BIA.
The reason for this is their prime location set in open country, away from major towns and more readily defended than places such as BIA. Despite this, neither base is proving to be as secure as expected, despite regular patrols of the surrounding area. Camp Anaconda, in particular, comes under regular mortar attack; an incident in early February killed one soldier and seriously injured two more.
That the worlds strongest military force should find it necessary to rethink the disposition of its military bases in this manner gives some idea of the seriousness of its predicament in Iraq.
From al-Qaida to al-Amoeba
In the light of the different messages presented for public consumption in this election year, how does the overall security situation in Iraq appear from Washingtons perspective? It is likely in the coming months that its sources will continue to emphasise possible al-Qaida links with the insurgency in Iraq. Since neither Saddam Husseins capture nor recent signs of economic progress have had the effect of greatly diminishing the violence, it becomes increasingly necessary to explain the insurgency by invoking outside factors.
The Karbala and Kadhimiya mosque attacks have thus been presented as confirming the sophisticated hand of al-Qaida. Much of the evidence is said to point to a Jordanian-born paramilitary, Abu Musab Zarqawi, apparently a close associate of the al-Qaida leadership.
There are two reasons for caution in considering this view. First, it is certainly true that these appalling attacks were closely coordinated and relentlessly executed; indeed, they would have been even worse if some attackers had not been intercepted in Basra and elsewhere. But this does not imply that they involved a rather sudden accretion of operational expertise from outside.
After all, over the past ten months there have been many carefully planned paramilitary attacks. Some, like the bombing of the UN headquarters in August 2003, have had a huge political impact; others have been more striking for the ability they reveal to organise complex operations.
One example of the latter is the Fallujah coup of 14 February 2004; another is the series of coordinated bomb, mortar and firearm attacks in Karbala on 27 December which resulted in carnage: twelve Iraqis killed and 130 injured, five Bulgarian and two Thai coalition troops killed and thirty injured (see in this series: War on terror: a balance-sheet, 29 December 2003).
Put bluntly, the insurgents have been capable of major operations for many months. Outside aid may be in the process of enhancing their capacity, but is unlikely to be responsible for it. In short, attempting to minimise the internal Iraqi problems by blaming al-Qaida is little more than a diversion whose dubious reward is a false sense of security and some short-term political gain for the Bush administration in the United States homeland.
The second reason for caution in measuring the view of the latest attacks is the status of Abu Musab Zarqawi himself. While there are indications that Zarqawi has had links with al-Qaida it is far from certain that he is a closely linked part of the network (see Walter Pincus, Terror Suspects Ambitions Worry U.S. Officials, Washington Post, 3 March 2004). It appears more probable that he is a key player in one of many groups that are loosely affiliated in terms of overall aims rather than through adherence to a closely coordinated strategy.
Al-Qaida has never been a narrow, rigid and hierarchical organisation it was always more of a network of like-minded groups with a loose sense of strategy and with Osama bin Laden as more of a figurehead than an autocratic controller. Since the US termination of the Taliban regime in late 2001 and the capture or killing of some of the al-Qaida leadership, it is likely that the al-Qaida phenomenon has evolved into an even more dispersed alliance.
As such, the phenomenon is likely to be far more difficult to counter than hitherto, especially as support for the cause is being maintained across the Middle East and beyond. In that sense, if Zarqawi is indeed involved in Iraq, then this is an indication of what may happen in the coming months and years: a combination of ex-Baathists, nationalists and Islamic radicals evolving into an amorphous coalition with a common aim of making Iraq deeply unstable and the US presence increasingly untenable.
In this scenario, al-Qaida may have some kind of presence, but the Iraqi insurgency will have a life of its own, related to the particular circumstances of 100,000 American troops in the heart of the Arab world.
Dont miss Todd Gitlins expert, acerbic weekly openDemocracy column from the United States, Our election year
If such a prospect develops, as present circumstances indicate, then the notion that the Bush administration can successfully talk down the evolving Iraq situation is far-fetched. Whatever it may wish in a presidential election year, its Iraqi predicament will not easily be relegated to the back pages.
