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Ayatollah
Ali Al-Sistani has called for direct elections.
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Iraqi
intellectuals living both inside Iraq and as members of the
expatriate community in Europe and North America are warning
that Iraq is perilously close to a civil war in light of recent
events and decrees issued by both the US Civilian Provisional
Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).
In
chronological order,
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Leading
members of the Shiite majority in Iraq believe that they are
about to be shortchanged once again in July 2004, when the
CPA hands over control to a provisional Iraqi government
which it claims will be more representative of the Iraqi
people. Shiite clerics led by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani have
called for direct elections starting from a grassroots level
to ensure that the provisional government avoid suspicion of
acting as a US proxy and franchise the support and active
participation of the Iraqi people. Al-Sistani has charged
the CPA with failing to enjoin the democratic needs of the
Iraqi people. Other Shiite clerics have also charged that
they fear that a new Iraqi constitution will be far more
secular than the Baathist legal framework and not cater to
the Islamic flavor of the country. Al-Sistani’s position
received strong endorsement from the current rotating IGC
president Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz Hakim who used his
inaugural speech to state that “A provisional national
assembly should be elected by the Iraqi people, and this
assembly should choose the government.”
Several IGC members have defended the CPA plan citing the
lack of a census upon which all elections must be based. A
census determines the demographics of the population, does a
count of eligible voters, carries out voter registration,
and enhances the democratic process which the country
requires. With no census, says the IGC, there can be no
elections. However, in early November, the Iraqi Census
Bureau submitted a plan to conduct a full national census in
Iraq by Fall 2004. According to a recent Al
Jazeera article, quoting Agence-France Press and the
New York Times, Iraqi officials submitted their plan
on November 1 and were asking for a decision by November 15.
IGC officials admitted never seeing the plan which
eventually fell to the wayside. Iraqis are beginning to
suspect that there are elements both within the IGC and the
CPA that are working to undermine Iraqi democracy.
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The
New York Times reported on November 25th that the IGC is
trying to wedge its way out of its commitment to
relinquishing control to an elected body: “But Jalal
Talabani, the Kurdish leader who is serving as president of
the council this month, said in an interview Monday that a
majority of the council members ‘want to keep the
Governing Council as it is now.’ Some council members who
oppose this idea say they believe that the proposal is being
promoted by members who are afraid that they may not fare
well in the coming elections. Opponents of the idea also say
they fear that staying on will be a public relations
disaster for the nascent rebuilt Iraqi state.” Iraqis are
astounded that the CPA may indeed give in to urges from
certain IGC members and keep them on in some kind of future
arrangement. The fact that unelected elements may remain in
power is incensing Iraqis who claim there is no difference
between Saddam’s former henchmen and the IGC members who
are considered self-serving and out for a power grab. The
news that IGC members are bargaining to stay in power has,
ironically, become an effective recruiting tool for the
Iraqi resistance. Many Iraqis privately say they are waiting
till July 2004 before deciding whether to work with the CPA
or support an increasing Iraqi rebellion in key parts of the
country. However, there may be ominous signs that members of
the IGC may turn to violent means to enforce their political
aspirations. Certain members of the IGC are protected by
their local security guards and a heavy US security detail.
Some of the council members have their own private little
armies. Galal Talabani and Masoud Barazani, both rival
Kurdish leaders, maintain highly-equipped armies of
peshmerga who at one point fought Saddam’s armies, and at
several junctions, one another. Ahmad Chalabi, who is wanted
on charges of fraud and embezzlement in neighboring Jordan
(he was sentenced to 20 years in absentia), has his own army
of Iraqi opposition who were trained by the CIA and wear
American-made uniforms and wield American-made weaponry.
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In
efforts to minimize the toll on US forces in Iraq (448
fatalities, 11,000 wounded or incapacitated) there has been
a maddening rush to create an Iraqi militia force that would
overtake many of the duties performed by Coalition forces -
patrol, searching for insurgents, protecting key
installations, etc. However, while the average rotation time
for training new Iraqi police and/or militia is six months,
many of the Iraqi forces on active duty have only seen three
weeks of training, a discrepancy that is worrying some Iraq
experts. Ali Jawad, a former Iraqi police recruit who left
for Amman, Jordan when his comrades were killed in recent
Baghdad attacks, claims that Iraqi police are poorly
equipped, poorly trained, have communication barriers with
coalition forces, and are constantly looking over their
shoulders not only from Iraqi insurgents, but US forces
which may be trigger-happy or uninformed of Iraqi patrol
presence. He says that Iraqi police are stressed and many
have domestic problems because of their torn loyalties.
Jawad believes it wouldn’t take much for the Iraqi police
to join the insurgency if conditions in Iraq further
deteriorated.
US forces are aware that they are in a dilemma and have
consequently drawn a plan they hope will alleviate the
problem of putting Iraqi forces in charge of security.
According to Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News, the CPA is using
its influence with Kurdish factions to start using
well-armed Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who formerly fought
against the Iraqi Army, to patrol hotspots like the Sunni
Triangle and Arab-dominated Mosul. Sunni religious leaders
have expressed outrage over the proposed deal and have
warned, in no ambiguous terms, that the Sunni areas will not
tolerate being patrolled or policed by Kurdish (or Shiite)
militia. They warn that a civil war would be inevitable.
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Oil.
Reports have emerged from Iraq indicating that Israeli
technocrats and oil industry personnel have been seen
mulling about in the Kurdish-held areas of Iraq. Independent
Iraqi observers point to discussions between Israeli
businessmen and government officials with the CPA and
certain members of the Iraqi opposition that would later
form the IGC. An article in The Guardian (April 20)
said “Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly
conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between
Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures
in Baghdad. The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old
pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in
Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq’s northern
oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.” In late
August, Israel’s daily Haaretz reported that “The
new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some
40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via
Mosul, and then across Jordan
to Israel.
The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for
repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to
1948.” Iraqis are now concerned that a likely Iraqi civil
war would be a shadow war to cover up the fact that Iraqi
oil is being siphoned to Israel. “Now we see that it
wasn’t about oil, this war, but about oil for Israel,”
said Shahim Al-Obeidi, an Iraqi chemist in Quebec City,
Canada. “The Kurds might sell their pride to Israel, but
the Arabs will not tolerate this. And they ask why people
are joining the resistance,” he said defiantly.
Almost
all Iraqis interviewed for this article expressed a mixture of
dismay, disgust and anger at the US mishandling of Iraqi
affairs. They claim that they are glad that the Baathist regime
has been dislodged but wonder why Iraqi civil society is
marginalized in the reconstruction and re-politicization of
Iraq. Talk of civil war is now common among Iraqis sipping tea
in Baghdad teahouses or those who are professors in Europe and
North America.
“I
have Very bad vibes indeed. Things look ominous, as if a civil
war is imminent,” said Fadi Wazan, an Iraqi businessman in
Boston, Massachusetts.
Firas
Al-Atraqchi is a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage.
Holding an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has
eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and
gas markets, and the telecom industry. You can reach him at firascape@hotmail.com.
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