Caught in Iraq’s pincer

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After two months of often chaotic negotiations following the Iraqi elections on 30 January 2005, some degree of order is being established in the political system. Iraq now has a president (Jalal Talabani, a Kurd), a prime minister (Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shi’a), two vice-presidents (Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, and Adel Abd al-Mahdi, a Shi’a), and a parliamentary speaker (Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni).

The very slow rate of progress has not deterred some military leaders from making markedly positive comments about the level of the insurgency. The most recent came from Lieutenant-General Lance Smith, deputy commander of United States central command, whose military area of responsibility includes Iraq. He says there is a real possibility of substantial US troop withdrawals by the end of 2005, provided there is no major increase in insurgent activity.

We have been here before. In late 2003, United States leaders propagated the belief that the insurgency was becoming limited to a handful of extended families in the “Sunni triangle”; by the year’s end, such optimism was being severely dented by a wave of further attacks.

At the same time, recent casualty figures for US forces do lend some credibility to Smith’s current claims. In March, thirty-six US troops died, the lowest monthly figure for more than a year. This compares with 137 in November 2004, and 107 in January.

It is also the case that in some parts of Iraq, US troops are handing over to Iraqi security forces faster than expected (see Steve Fainaru, “Handoff to Local Forces Being Tested in Mosul”, Washington Post, 7 April 2005). More generally, there is a powerful “spin” around at present that Iraq is at last proving a success, and this is part of wider progress for the Bush administration’s policies in the region.

Where Iraq is concerned, the persistent level of the insurgency offers three reasons for caution.

First, US military patrols were intensified around the time of the January elections in an operation intended to ensure that the insurgency was at least temporarily contained. Since then, many of the troops involved have been rested and their patrols cut back; this limits the availability of “targets” for the insurgents.

Second, the number of US soldiers being wounded remains high. In the period from 2-29 March, 348 were injured, 145 of them seriously; from 30 March-5 April, another ninety-six were injured, sixty-one seriously.

Third, the raid on Abu Ghraib prison on 2 April is one of the most substantial insurgent operations in entire period following the supposed “end” of the Iraq war on 9 April 2003. It involved as many as fifty insurgents in a closely coordinated attack that began at dusk, using a combination of 81mm and 120mm mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, a car bomb and a ground assault (see Ellen Knickmeyer, “Zarqawi Said to be Behind Iraq Raid”, Washington Post, 5 April 2005). During the raid, US forces abandoned one of the prison watchtowers and had to call up a rapid-response force backed by artillery and attack helicopters, ultimately repelling the attack at the cost of forty-four US troops wounded.

A war against Iraqis

In addition to these incidents directly affecting US forces, numerous assaults continue on Iraqi security forces, politicians and government officials – including many assassinations. An example is the bomb attack near Tall Afar in northern Iraq on 5 April on a bus carrying Iraqi soldiers “protected” by a convoy of heavily-armed support vehicles; three soldiers were killed and forty-four injured, many of them seriously. The withdrawal of many western journalists since the election means that few such attacks are now reported outside the region.

The background to the Tall Afar incident is itself indicative of continuing problems across the country. Because the Iraqi banking system is still not functioning fully, soldiers cannot deposit their monthly pay and so are allowed one week’s leave in every four to return home to their families. The soldiers in the bus that was attacked were returning from such a home visit to Sinjar.

A further symptom of Iraq’s internal problems is the report from the UN Human Rights Commission that a quarter of all Iraqi children are not getting enough to eat, and that malnutrition rates have almost doubled from 4% before the termination of the Saddam Hussein regime to 7.7% now.

The Iraqi dimension of Iraq’s problems has little impact outside the region and virtually no impact in the United States. It is probable that the US military will attempt to accelerate its withdrawal from the cities, seeking to transfer responsibility to Iraqi forces as quickly as possible. This does not, though, signify a wholesale withdrawal from Iraq, more the adoption of what has long been considered the main back-up plan. This involves Iraqi forces enduring the brunt of the insurgency while US forces are installed in a number of large, secure bases – some of them intended to be permanent.

The US is making no pretence that Iraqi forces will be able to cope on their own, and considers one of its main US military functions to be providing emergency support whenever required, including the use of airpower. In Washington’s “ideal” world, an incoming Iraqi government of any political complexion will be fully reliant on US military power for its own survival, thus making it easy for Washington to maintain a client regime.

It looks straightforward in theory, but two factors once more suggest caution. First, some US military officials and independent analysts are starting to have serious doubts that the Iraqi security forces now being established have the capacity to control the insurgency, even with US support. Second, and in its way, more ominous, the insurgents may have already thought through this change of policy and be altering their tactics accordingly.

In this context, the Abu Ghraib assault acquires even greater significance. This was an attack on a major, ostensibly secure US facility, which – rather like the dining-hall bomb at a base near Mosul in December – takes the war directly to occupying US troops in a manner designed to affect their morale. In this, it is quite different from the numerous attacks on convoys or even the small-scale if frequent mortar and RPG attacks on many bases.

Abu Ghraib shows that the insurgents have a capacity for substantial, direct assaults against heavily-defended US positions. That alone is a reason for treating with some caution any suggestions that the position of American forces in Iraq is getting easier.