Iraq testimony: Odom and Rosen and Bears, oh my

Senate committees have begun hearing testimony about Iraq in advance of the Petraeus and Crocker hearings next week.  I wanted to pass on excerpts from testimony delivered to the Foreign Relations Committee by General William Odom and Nir Rosen.  Their views should be familiar to those who follow the Iraq debate:  Odom has long been a vocal critic of American strategy in Iraq, while Rosen has for years been delivering sharply-edged reporting from Iraq.   They offer a rather different perspective from what I imagine we will be hearing next week from Crocker and Petraeus, and I pass along excerpts of their testimony just in the very slim possibility that they do not receive the same amount of media attention. 

Excerpts from Odom's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dated April 2:

[T]he decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves.

Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses. This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications.

At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki's military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization.

....

How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to  consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense. To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration's witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.

Excerpt from Nir Rosen's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dated April 3:

Today Iraq does not exist. It has no government. It is like Somalia, different fiefdoms controlled by warlords and their militias. I have spent most of the last five years since April 2003 in Iraq, with Iraqis, focusing on their militias, mosques and other true centers of power. 

...

Like the Mahdi Army, the Sunni militias hope to wait for the Americans to reduce their troop levels before they resume fighting Shiite militias. Joining these American backed militias has given them territory in Baghdad and elsewhere that they now control. These Sunni militias also have political goals and are attempting to unite to become a larger movement that will be able to regain Sunni territory and effectively fight the Shiite militias and the Shiite dominated government, which they call an "Iranian Occupation."

These Awakening groups are paid by the US military and operated in much of the country, employing former fighters and often empowering them, to the consternation of the Shiite dominated government as well as the Shiite militias, who thought they had defeated the Sunnis, just to see them trying to regain power through the backdoor.

So although militias and an irrelevant central government were among the main problems in Iraq, the Americans were creating new militias. They called it "Iraq solutions for Iraqi problems." By accepting money from the Americans, Sunni militiamen rid themselves of the onerous Americans as well. The Americans think they have purchased Sunni loyalty, but in fact it is the Sunnis who have bought the Americans, describing it as a temporary ceasefire with the American occupation so that they can regroup to fight the "Iranian occupation," which is how they refer to the Shiite dominated government and security forces.

In both cases, the militiamen are chafing under the restrictions placed on them. The Mahdi Army fighters are losing power on the street since they have withdrawn. They are frustrated that the Americans still target them for arrests and that security forces loyal to rival Shiite militias such as the Badr militia are also targeting them. They worry about the creation and empowerment of new Sunni militias. Some Mahdi Army groups ignore the ceasefire or reject Muqtada al Sadr's command, others merely grow impatient and hope to confront the Americans and the Sunnis once again. Sunni militiamen were promised that twenty percent of them would be integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces. This has not happened. Instead they clash regularly with Iraqi Security Forces and are rejected by the Government of Iraq. Often the Americans are late in paying them as well. They increasingly feel humiliated and threaten to resume fighting.

The American military cannot for much longer sustain the increased number of troops it has in Iraq. It will be forced to reduce its numbers. When this occurs and there is increased space for Sunni and Shiite militias to operate in, they will resume fighting for control over Baghdad and its environs. The Government of Iraq is dominated by sectarian Shiite Islamist parties. They also dominate the security forces which often targeted Sunni civilians for cleansing. The Government and Security Forces also worry about the empowered Sunni militias who they will one day have to fight again.

As we saw last week, rival Shiite militias are also bitter enemies. The clashes throughout Shiite areas of Iraq were not between the Mahdi Army bad guys and the Iraqi government good guys. They were between more nationalist and populist, and popular, Shiite militias who reject the occupation and are opposed to federalism and on the other side the Shiite militias such as Badr who collaborate with the Americans and are competing for power, territory, resources and votes with the Mahdi Army. The Iraqi security forces are divided in their loyalties and hence the Iraqi Army units that fought in the south were recruited from areas where they were more likely to be loyal to the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and its Badr militia. As we saw, were it not for the American military and airforce, they could not have stood up to the Mahdi Army anyway.

Now thanks to the Americans the Sunnis, formerly on the run, are once again confident, and control their own territory. The Mahdi Army is consolidating its forces, ridding itself of unruly elements and waiting for the inevitable reduction in American troops. Iraqi Security Forces will also be able to once again operate with impunity when there are less Americans present. Both sides are getting ready to resume fighting.

Iraq remains an extremely unstable and failed state, with many years of bloodshed left before an equilibrium is attained. There is no reconciliation occurring between the two warring communities, and Shiites will not allow the territorial gains they made to be chipped away by Sunnis returning to their homes, or Sunni militias being empowered. Violence is slightly down in Iraq in large part because the goal of the violence, removing Sunnis from Shiite areas and Shiites from Sunni areas, has largely succeeded, and there are less people to kill. Baghdad and much of Iraq resemble Somalia. Warlords and their militiamen rule neighborhoods or towns. In many cases displaced Iraqis are joining these militias. There is no serious process of reconciliation occurring between the communities. Armed groups are preparing for the next phase of the conflict. Shiites will not allow the gains they made to be chipped away by returning Sunnis and the ISVs or Sahwa are intent on fighting the "Iranians," which is how they describe the government and virtually all Shiites.

While I don't agree with everything in these testimonies, I certainly hope that they help to frame a different debate than we had last time around:  one focused on the wider strategic goals of American policy in Iraq and the core question of whether the tactics adopted by the United States over the last year advance those strategic goals.  These are the right questions to be asking. 

I highly recommend all of the testimony, not just Rosen and Odom - kudos to the Senate staff for putting together these hearings.  Taken together, the testimonies make for sobering reading.

Stephen Biddle, who I've had the pleasure of debating on these points quite recently, offers perhaps the most optimistic take:  the reduction in violence reflects a fundamental recalculation of strategic interest on the part of the major actors, and can be expected to last as long as peacekeepers are present to reassure all sides.   I think he is far too optimistic about the durability of 'local voluntary ceasefires' in the absence of a sovereign state, and about the likelihood of the American public supporting such a long-term commitment. But at least he is clear-eyed and realistic about what is possible and what is not:  his best-case scenario is an Iraq which looks like Bosnia or Kosovo, with a substantial US presence required for decades.

Michele Flournoy of CNAS presents an argument roughly along the lines of the conditional engagement brief by Colin Kahl and Shawn Brimley that I posted last week.  It reflects her own recent fact-finding mission, written up in this important piece last week.

Gregory Gause casts doubt on the ability of the US to broker a Saudi-Iranian accord, but argues that the US will not be able to stabilize Iraq without some kind of American-Iranian understanding.  He also argues that "it is hardly inevitable that American withdrawal from Iraq would lead to [the worst-case scenarios].... The prospects for violent spill-over from Iraq are much more limited than the worst-case scenarios... assert."

Even General Barry McCaffrey, no dove, after praising the current US leadership and the tactical improvement in security, testifies that "the Maliki government is dysfunctional", "the US Army is starting to unravel", and that "the war as it is now configured is not militarily or politically sustainable." 

Crocker and Petraeus's testimony, oddly enough, has not yet been posted. 

Comments

[Derfel64]

These self-proclaimed experts are nutcases. Don´t read them. Or better, read them but please also read some serious people. I´ll focus on Rosen.

I have read many articles by Nir Rosen and they are all the same: the Great Sunni-Shia Divide just about to explode in a frenzy of killing, neighbor against neighbor, family against family, blahblahblah. It´s obvious this guy has never studied any civil war. (These pundits usually take Rwanda as their favorite example of common people engaging in senseless killing. Unfortunately, the Rwanda thing was organized by the state and of course, in ended the moment that state lost the war).

The comment by the other guy that the military situation was "in fact, much worse because there are more militias" or whatever he said was pathetic. The sad thing is not that these people are ignorant, but that they think of themselves as infallible and apparently some believe them. These pundits make a living out of writing such bullshits so they must churn out something credible and convincing, there cannot be space for doubt; after all, if they admit that maybe there are things they don´t know, their reputation as pundits would erode.

Rosen is never taken aback by some unexpected development (even the Basra thing which nobody knew anything whatsoever, comes as no surprise). Everything is written in the stars, the sunni-shia hatred, the islamic fury, etc.

If the shia wanted a civil war, they had plenty of posible excuses to start one. The shia community endured endless bombings and massacres. Instead, it (and its leaders) proved restrained and tried not to stir up trouble. These bombings have almost completely disappeared now from large swaths of the country, how much time has it since a large car bomb killed dozens of people in, say, Hillah or Sadr City?

Tensions are running very high, but to say with such confidence that Iraq is gonna explode in sunni-shia (and Sadr-ISCI) civil war immediately after US forces withdraw is, well, no comments. Such articles are worthless.

The guy also says that this is going to happen because "as US forces withdraw, militias will have more space to operate". But then, Basra itself (which has no US troops and, since September, no British troops) is teeming with militias; there are thousands of Mahdi Army in the city yet even at the height of sectarian violence, the important sunni community was not expelled. Of course for most of the past years there have been some tensions but no attempt whatsoever at warfare between sunnis and shias.

By contrast Baquba has US troops but has seen lots of clashes in recent months between Iraqi Security Forces and sunni militias.

So there is no correlation whatsoever. Of course, by predicting some unavoidable total civil war between neatly defined sides, they can hide their ignorance - they don´t actually know which Awakenings are made of insurgents or of tribes, or why the Baquba sunni volunteers are called Popular Committees and actually the Diyala Awakening asked the government to disarm them (that´s too complicated eh?).

It´s good to have another point of view, but frankly these guys are worthless.

[nur al-cubicle]

L'Orient- Le Jour reports that Field Marshal Maliki has announced new military operations against Sadr's militias.

[Zathras]

Gen. Petraeus never made any secret of his primary objectives: to improve protection of the civilian population and provide Iraqis with a respite from sectarian strife. It's basic counterinsurgency doctrine, and on his own terms Petraeus has largely succeeded. It's unfortunate that critics of the war, like Gen. Odom, feel compelled to see in every development the seeds of inevitable disaster, and in every piece of news from Iraq more evidence of American blundering.

Having said that, of course, one would be remiss in neglecting how often and how consistently the Bush administration -- and the President himself -- have described the surge in American forces and the adoption of better counterinsurgency tactics in very different and highly misleading terms. Seeking to maintain the consistency of its message, the administration would have everyone believe that we are on a path to victory, and the Iraqi government on the road to democracy and freedom. Its critics address Iraq in the context of the administration's claims for its policy, and thus we find ourselves in this endless, circular argument over what obscure movements by Iraqi political factions mean for the future of that country.

Our situation now is that the American army in Iraq stands in the aftermath of tactical success, achieved in pursuit of an objective that would provide negligible benefits to the United States if it were achieved -- and that can only be achieved by Iraqis. The costs to the United States of this conflict are entirely determined by what Iraqis do: costs in money, in blood, in lost opportunities to devote resources and attention to our many more important interests elsewhere in the world and at home.

Iraqis now have good reason to want to keep several steps away from the precipice of a return to full scale sectarian warfare. They will have seen by now that without the American army there, neither Sunni Arab tribes nor Shiite militias can protect their respective civilian constituencies from one another, or from armed factions within their own sects. Maybe they have absorbed that lesson from the experience of the last several years, maybe not; this is their problem, not ours.

Whether the United States can afford to maintain the commitment in Iraq indefinitely -- Mr. Biddle's "best case scenario" -- is the relevant issue here. Whether the surge and American sponsorship of local Sunni Arab groups are consistent with some abstract notion of reconciliation among Iraqis is not. Iraq at the end of the day is one, mid-sized Arab country. It really is passing strange that the fairly obvious implications of this fact appear lost, not only on an administration seeking to justify the policy it has pursued for most of its tenure, but on so many of its most dedicated critics as well.

[anomalous]

"They will have seen by now that without the American army there..."
They want "us" gone, and the occupation ended, I want "us" gone too.
"Gen. Petraeus never made any secret of his primary objectives: to improve protection of the civilian population and provide..."
the US with a new base of operations.
You're so full of shit your eyes are brown.

A million or more Iraqis dead since the first war, and 4000 American volunteers.
Isn't that enough?

[JHM]

Senator Biden seems to have stacked the deck ingeniously, but all the same he can't compel Little Brother to do anything in particular about the former Iraq.

Happy days.

[rj]

Derferl64 -- Would you like to give us some examples of "serious people"? You don't strike me as terribly "serious" yourself -- prone to screed, maybe. Please, let us know how you evaluate "seriousness."
Thanks.

[Barry]

Derferl64: "The sad thing is not that these people are ignorant, but that they think of themselves as infallible and apparently some believe them. These pundits make a living out of writing such bullshits so they must churn out something credible and convincing, there cannot be space for doubt; after all, if they admit that maybe there are things they don´t know, their reputation as pundits would erode. "

The freudian projection is so thick that you can cut it with a knife. We've seen five years of pro-war lies repeatedly not coming true, and still they keep going................