Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended

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Iraq Body Count is a unique source, because it keeps record of individual attacks in Iraq. Using its archives, one can discern the trends in violence that have taken place since 2003. In the months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the country fell into an anarchic state full of murders, revenge killings, and a few terrorist attacks. The next year, the insurgency took off, followed by the civil war in 2005. That was shown in the increasing number of people killed by gunfire. By 2006, things went into overdrive after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, Salahaddin with the highest death toll during the entire conflict. In 2007, the U.S. Surge started just as the security situation was beginning to change as the Shiite forces were overwhelming the Sunni militants. From 2009 to the present, violence is characterized by terrorism as shown by the increasing use of bombs. Last year, militants were carrying out more attacks, but were less efficient. That trend appears to be continuing into 2013. Iraq remains a violent country, but the insurgents are still largely marginalized, and are unable to change the current status quo.

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The United States project to rebuild Iraq had been beset by problems the day it started in 2003. When the civil war started in 2005 it complicated matters more as security steadily declined. Things got worse after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006. In the next four days approximately 1,300 people were killed. 25,000 were eventually displaced. The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad began as the Shiite militias went on the offensive. The Iraqi government and the United States were overwhelmed by the situation. Reconstruction of the country was thrown into disarray as a result just as American officials were trying to change directions.

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Before 2003, many members of the Bush White House held a rosy image of what the Iraq war would be like. Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board for example wrote an op ed for the Washington Post entitled “Cakewalk in Iraq.” Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC’s Meet The Press that Iraqis would see the Americans as liberators. These scenarios were based upon several factors including advice officials received from Middle East scholars and Iraqi exiles. Most importantly, President Bush and others were driven by their conviction that what they were doing was right, and therefore would have a positive affect in the end. The reality of what the invasion wrought in Iraq would quickly change Washington’s view of things.

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Many have tried to compare Iraq and Afghanistan, but the nature of their conflicts are quite different. Afghanistan has a healthy insurgency, and is a mostly rural nation. Iraq on the other hand suffers from high levels of urban terrorism. For five of the last six years casualties in Afghanistan have increased, while Iraq’s have dropped dramatically for three years, and then increased slightly over the last two. Most would think that Afghanistan would suffer from far higher levels of violence, but in fact, Iraq’s militants have been able to take a far deadlier toll. That’s because Iraq’s large cities provide far more targets of opportunity than are available in Afghanistan.

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The United States suffered from poor planning when it came to preparing for post-war Iraq. There were always a number of different groups tasked with the job, but they were not coordinated. One of the few things that was agreed upon was the creation of an interim Iraqi government shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein. President Bush signed off on this idea just before the 2003 invasion. Iraqi exiles were consulted, and several meetings held, but then suddenly Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), scrapped the plan. Bremer reversed course from the U.S. wanting to quickly leave Iraq to launching a long-term occupation of the country.

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In January 2004, President Bush gave his State of the Union speech. Part of the address was about the war on Iraq. Afterward, many pointed out that Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) was seated in the gallery right behind First Lady Laura Bush. Commentators took that as an endorsement by the White House. In fact, despite many in the administration being fans of the INC, the President felt the exact opposite. Bush did not believe that Chalabi should be the next ruler of Iraq.

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The conventional wisdom is that the U.S. made too many mistakes in Iraq to be successful. It didn’t garner enough international support before the invasion, went in with not enough troops, and then started polices like deBaathification afterward that made the situation worse. Some claim that with better decision-making, things could have turned out differently. Professor Daniel Byman of Georgetown University in an article for the journal Security Studies entitled “An Autopsy of the Iraq Debacle: Policy Failure or Bridge Too Far?” argued that Iraq would have turned out badly no matter what the Bush administration did. That was because there were too many structural barriers the United States faced, which limited the choices and outcomes available to it. What follows is an interview with Prof. Byman about his thoughts on Iraq on the ten-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

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A long article in The Guardian (UK), the full title being 'From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads' and subtitled:

In 2004, with the war in Iraq going from bad to worse, the US drafted in a veteran of Central America's dirty wars to help set up a new force to fight the insurgency. The result: secret detention centres, torture and a spiral into sectarian carnage

Link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...ton?CMP=twt_gu

The article is based on a fifty minute documentary made for The Guardian and BBC Arabic; link to five minute trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVDna80BNXA

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There were conflicting numbers for casualties in February 2013. That has been an on going trend between Iraq Body Count and the Iraqi government for the last few years. Still, the two have followed roughly the same pattern since 2011.

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In February 2013, Foreign Affairs published an article, “Back in Black The Return of Muqtada al-Sadr” by Eli Sugarman and Omar al-Nidawi. It covered Moqtada al-Sadr’s attempt to transform himself from a militia leader to a politician. Sadr’s list did well in the 2010 elections, and he has been meeting with other political leaders, and challenged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki since then. Below is an interview with Omar al-Nidawi about his thoughts on Sadr’s attempt to remake himself.

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In March 2013, the Gallup organization released its latest poll from Iraq. It covered security, foreign influence, political stability, corruption, and jobs, and found that in four of those five categories things had either improved or stayed the same since the United States withdrew its military forces in December 2011. Although Gallup tied the survey to the exit of the Americans, it actually showed that many issues were outside of their influence, and the results were roughly in line with previous polls.


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Babak Rahimi is a professor of communication, culture, and religions at the University of California, San Diego. He has written extensively upon Shia Islam, Iran, and Iraq. In April 2013, Iraq is due for the next round of provincial elections. The country’s Shiite religious parties have had contentions relations, coming together during some periods, only to turn on each other at another. This year’s balloting will again test the ties that bind and repel these lists. Below is an interview with Professor Rahimi about the fortunes of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and the Sadr Trend, as they will be major players behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law list in this year’s vote.

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Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has increasingly used arrest warrants to intimidate and get rid of his political enemies. The latest example occurred in March 2013 when a court ordered former Finance Minister Rafi Issawi to be detained on terrorism charges. Issawi is from the Iraqi National Movement, which is one of the main rivals to the prime minister’s State of Law, and he has often criticized the prime minister’s rule. In December 2012, some of his bodyguards were arrested, and allegedly confessed to carrying out attacks. That led to the current protests in western, eastern, and northern Iraq along with Issawi eventually resigning. Now the ante has been upped as Maliki is going after the former minister himself. Rather than actually trying to arrest Issawi it appears the warrant was a scare tactic.

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A short review by RAND's Brian Jenkins. It ends with:

In sum, the costly removal of a brutal tyrant who threatened his own citizens and neighboring countries won no applause, earned no gratitude, established no reliable ally, and produced no lasting strategic benefit.

Link:http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/03/the...nce-sheet.html

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In January 2007, President George Bush announced the Surge. He called for two marine battalions and five army brigades to head towards Iraq along with an increased number of reconstruction workers to conduct a unified counterinsurgency campaign. The argument was that the increased troops would help bring down violence, and allow for reconciliation. On the civilian side, more Americans were to be sent out into the provinces to work with Iraqis to find out their needs, and help empower them to run their own country. While the extra forces helped bring down violence in Iraq the civilian surge was far less successful due to a slow start, internal disputes, and bureaucratic delays.

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These photos from a militant website and reprinted by the Associated Press purport to show Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) fighters in Anbar who are involved in fighting in Syria. It has been widely reported that Islamists like AQI have been flocking to take part in the Syrian conflict. Al Nusra Front for example, is said to be a front group for Al Qaeda. There has recently been blowback in Iraq as well when a group of over 40 Syrian soldiers who had sought refuge in Iraq were ambushed and massacred in Anbar in March 2013. Shiite militias and the Kurdistan Regional Government have either sent forces to Syria or supported fighters there as well. Like the Iraq War involved regional powers and Islamist groups, the same thing is now happening in Syria as these pictures reveal.

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Ginger Cruz is currently the CEO of Mantid International, and most recently completed several evaluation reports for the United Nations in Iraq. From 2004-2012 she was the deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. That gave her great insight into the rebuilding of Iraq. The Special Inspector General’s office (SIGIR) just issued its final report, which makes it an apt time to review how the largest reconstruction effort in U.S. history went.

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For at least the last four months, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been carrying out its latest offensive. This has been marked by increased casualty figures, headline grabbing attacks, and a series of bombings in southern Iraq. The last is always a sign that the Islamist group is doing more than its normal set of operations, because it is veering outside of its normal bases, which requires extra planning, and time to develop. Overall, the militant group is trying to make a comeback after the U.S. military withdrawal.

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Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), The League of the Righteous, is an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq that has tried to change its image in recent years. After the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, the League claimed that it was going to join the political process, but would not participate in the April 2013 provincial elections, which just took place. However, a former high-level member of the group created his own party National al-Amal Party, the National Hope Party, which ran candidates as part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law in this year’s balloting. This could have been a way for AAH to test the political waters before fully committing to the fray.

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Iraqis have been demonstrating in several cities since December 2012 to protest what they see as marginalization by the central government. On April 23, 2013, security forces raided a protest site in Hawija in Tamim province looking for militants that attacked an army checkpoint a few days beforehand. The operation quickly turned violent with several people killed and wounded, and dozens arrested. Immediately, there were retaliatory attacks in surrounding areas, and some leaders of the demonstrators started talking about taking on the security forces, which they claimed were under the influence of Iran. This could quickly escalate into an armed confrontation, which the activists cannot win.

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