Washington’s Iraq panic attack

A number of recent reports from Iraq have emphasised the possibility that a decline in the insurgency may lead to early United States troop withdrawals, a notable contrast to 2004 Pentagon estimates that over 100,000 US soldiers would be required in Iraq for up to two years.

Such optimism is reflected in George W Bush’s address to 25,000 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, which compared the termination of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 – carrying, in the Bush administration’s view, a reverberating regional message of democracy – to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

It is true that US casualties in Iraq have been markedly lower in March-April 2005 than for about a year. But insurgent activities against Iraqi forces have remained high, and there have been some substantial attacks on US units, not least the 2 April attack on Abu Ghraib prison. Moreover, the sudden appearance in Baghdad of secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick on successive days is another reason for being cautious over the positive messages from US sources.

The war drags on

Donald Rumsfeld’s message to the Iraqi leadership was especially interesting in its “hands-on” approach to Iraq’s new political leadership. Rumsfeld expressed concern that the Kurdish/Shi’a leadership that dominates the interim administration must maintain effective security forces, and stressed the need to avoid purging the security forces of Ba’athist elements, even if this means retaining in office figures from the Saddam Hussein era.

As the Washington Post (13 April 2005) reports:

“A U.S. official in Baghdad expressed concern this week that a purge could rid the armed forces, which are being assembled, trained and armed by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars, of their most seasoned combatants against the insurgency.” The issues this raises for the Iraqi administration include the fact that some of these “seasoned combatants” may have played a major role in the bitter suppression of the Shi’a revolt after the 1991 war.

In any case, Rumsfeld’s concern suggests much greater apprehension in US military circles over the state of Iraqi security than is apparent in the current “official” line emanating from Washington. There are five aspects of this apprehension, only a few of which are being reported in the western media – and even then in a piecemeal manner.

First, attacks on Iraqi security forces and on US bases are continuing with unabated ferocity. On 9 April, fifteen Iraqi soldiers were killed near Latifiya, south of Baghdad. Three days later, during Robert Zoellick’s visit, nine Iraqi security personnel were killed in a bomb attack near Kirkuk; among them was the officer in charge of protecting the northern oil fields from insurgents. In March alone, insurgents killed 250 Iraqi police and soldiers, probably the highest total since the war began.

Soon after Zoellick left, a series of attacks hit Baghdad and other cities. In Baghdad itself, a double car-bombing hit the interior ministry, killing at least eleven people, including police officers; three officers and a civilian were killed in an attack on a police station in Kirkuk; another police officer died in an attack near Baquba; and a car bomb exploded outside a US base in Tikrit, injuring nine people.

The intensity of the attacks may have been designed to coincide with the Rumsfeld and Zoellick visits, but they also suggest that the insurgency is intensifying after a lull, rather than being in retreat.

Second, more members of the occupying coalition are now withdrawing from Iraq. The Polish government has announced a withdrawal of its 1,700 troops when the current UN mandate expires at the end of 2005, and the Netherlands and Ukraine have begun phased withdrawals. Italy’s substantial contingent of 3,000 troops is likely to be withdrawn, and Bulgaria also hopes to pull out its 500 troops, both within a similar timescale.

Third, the Pentagon is privately worried by the huge costs of the damage to equipment used in Iraq. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that a wide range of military supplies is wearing out at up to ten times the rate of peacetime training, involving a bill of up to $18 billion in replacement costs. Combat losses or more rudimentary “wear and tear” account for 12% of the army’s entire fleet of vehicles in the space of just two years.

Fourth, the re-emergence of Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia (often termed the Mahdi army) is a concern to American strategists. Its units have reasserted their power in many urban areas across southern Iraq, suggesting that it has in part recovered from damage it suffered during fighting in Najaf in August 2004(see Anthony Shadid, “An Old U.S. Foe Rises Again in Iraq, Washington Post , 8 April 2005).

The evidence of renewed support for al-Sadr includes the huge demonstration in Baghdad by his supporters on 9 April. 300,000 people took to the streets in a mobilisation opposed to the old Saddam regime and to current US military occupation alike. The participants came mainly from Shi’a districts of Baghdad but reportedly included Sunnis also.

The Baghdad demonstration, alongside smaller gatherings in other towns and cities, indicates a deep-seated and continuing opposition to foreign occupation.

Fifth, Iranian “interference” in Iraqi politics is returning to the forefront of US minds. American sources have at different times since 2003 blamed the Iranians and Syrians for much of the insurgency, despite the fact that these countries’ nationals compose only a tiny minority of the insurgents detained by US and Iraqi security forces. Yet it has always been clear that Iran could, if it wished, cause major problems for the United States in Iraq.

Iran in the frame

More recently, the United States perceives a problem in Iran’s purchase of a wide range of military equipment, much of it suited to guerrilla warfare. The US’s difficulty is that Iran can claim an internal security use for such equipment because Iran has long been engaged in a bitter war with drug smugglers on its border with Afghanistan. Many western experts accept that the Iranian government’s hard line against drug trafficking has served western interests as well as its own. The Iranians themselves claim to have lost 3,000 security personnel over the past decade, and feel it is legitimate to obtain a range of light weapons – some of which have been financed through United Nations drug-control schemes.

Some of the drug traffickers moving through Iranian territory have been armed with machine-guns and rocket-launchers. In response, Iran has taken delivery of a legal shipment of hundreds of armour-piercing sniper rifles from the Austrian arms firm of Steyr Mannlicher GmbH, part of a total consignment of 2,000 weapons (“Iran Arms Stockpile Worries U.S.”, CBSNEWS.com, 5 April 2005).

Iran has also bought 250 sets of night-vision equipment from Britain, and global positioning systems and body armour from various European sources. In addition to its many legal arrangements with European arms companies, there are indications of grey or black market deals – including an attempt to smuggle thousands of American night-vision systems through Austria.

The US predicament in face of such resourcing by Iran is straightforward. Most European countries view the bulk of Iran’s arms stockpiling as legal, and some of them also informally support Iran’s drug war on its eastern border. The United States, however, sees Iran’s efforts as raising the nightmare possibility of an Iraqi insurgency acquiring (for example) a combination of sniper rifles and night-vision equipment under Iranian tutelage – even in the absence of evidence of such an intention at present.

The overall effect of such American fears and worries is to make US leaders feel that containing the violence in Iraq is even more urgent. One way of assisting this is to “talk up” current operations, thereby raising morale among US forces while making absolutely sure that the Iraqi government does nothing to make matters worse.

In this light, visits to Baghdad by senior officials from Washington like Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Zoellick start to make sense. There is much to play for in Iraq, and the Bush administration is currently far more anxious about the uncertainties in Iraq than it is prepared ever to concede in public.