INDCJournal: "Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry [of the Interior]"

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October 23, 2007

"Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry [of the Interior]"

Posted by Bill

Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.
...
Washington began dispatching reinforcements to Iraq in February to try to buy Iraq's feuding political leaders time to reach a political accommodation to end violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs that has killed tens of thousands and forced millions from their homes.
While the leaders have failed to agree on key laws aimed at reconciling the country's warring sects, the troop buildup has succeeded in quelling violence.

I'm inherently skeptical of numbers from Iraqi ministries, but that's usually because they overstate casualties rather than paint a rosy portrait. Read the rest. One item I'll add a layer to is the contention of little to no political progress. While the major federal issues remain unresolved, and this is a major concern, Iraq shows hopeful signs of ground-up reconciliation. Last week:

Influential Shiite cleric Ammar Hakim held talks in Ramadi on Sunday with a powerful Sunni tribal sheikh, which observers said were highly symbolic for reconciliation in war-torn Iraq.
The meeting between Hakim, a leading figure of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha, leader of a Sunni coalition in western Anbar province formed to fight Al-Qaeda, was tightly guarded by Iraqi troops and police and the US military.

In addition, this little-heralded item might be the most important news to come of Iraqi in the last couple of months:

Because of security threats and a seemingly immovable bureaucracy, the federal ministries in Baghdad largely failed to spend billions of dollars of Iraqi oil revenues set aside last year to rebuild things like roads, schools, hospitals and power plants.
Although some ministries have improved slightly, what has really caught the eye of Iraqi politicians is the way some local governments have begun bypassing the morass in Baghdad by using hundreds of millions of dollars of the reconstruction money they receive from the government to finance regional projects.

The approach has found such favor among some political leaders that Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, arrived here with an all-star cast of senior government officials on Sunday to announce that Babil Province, whose capital is Hilla, would be rewarded with $70 million in new money and financing for a major loan program for small businesses and individuals.

A pivotal factor in cementing security progress is the distribution of resources to the provinces and localities. The willingness of the federal government to bypass corrupt and inefficient logistical chains to get money into local hands is a very good sign. In addition, the keys to onboarding the population in counterinsurgency operations are positive exposure to American and Iraqi personnel in the form of joint security ops plus aid, and a common enemy. While al Qaeda's barbarism in Anbar was the catalyst for the first Awakenings, fear of Iranian and militia influence may spur further unity, as Iraqis I've spoken to from Baghdad to Fallujah loathe the idea of being an Iranian puppet state ruled by fundamentalists. The turmoil caused by extremists in the south may be turning local sheiks towards open solicitation of Coalition and federal Iraqi help:

Shi'ite Islamist political parties are imposing strict Islamic rules in the oil-producing southern provinces of Iraq and using their armed wings to create a state of fear, a group of tribal Shi'ite leaders said.
The four tribal leaders approached Reuters on condition of anonymity, fearing assassination if their names or even their home provinces were made public.

"Fear rules the streets now," said one of the sheikhs. "We cannot speak our minds, people are not allowed to oppose them. They would immediately disappear or get killed. The evidence of that is I am talking about it but cannot use my name."
...
"We are suffering from two occupations -- America and Iran. We have told American officials this and we have met some of them, but they are not listening to us," one sheikh complained.

The situation echoes that of neighboring provinces, and may be ripe for engagement with the tribes. My instinct is that securing Baghdad, finishing Anbar and interdicting supplies and insurgents trying to cross the borders are priorities with diminished British manpower in southern Iraq, but a dissatisfied power structure may be ready to expel extremists in the south when Iraqi Army manpower and American support comes available. There is already Shia Tribal Awakening precedent south of Baghdad:

In Wasit province, Shia tribes are beginning to organize along the same lines as the Anbar Awakening and local Concerned Citizens groups south of Baghdad. "The leader of the Migasees tribe here in Wasit province, acknowledged tribal leaders have discussed creating a brigade of young men trained by the Americans to bolster local security as well as help patrol the border with Iran," the Associated Press reported. "The death of Sheik Abu Risha will not thwart us," said Sheik Majid Tahir al-Magsousi. "What matters to us is Iraq and its safety."
The Shia tribes began to organize after the murder of two provincial governors and last month's clash between the Mahdi Army and security forces in Karbala during a religious festival. Security forces, which are officially sanctioned by the Iraqi government, are being organized much like the Provincial Security Forces were in Anbar.

With Awakenings as far south as Wasit and Najaf, the three southernmost provinces might soon follow. It was interesting to observe the viral nature of the awakening in Anbar in January, as individuals in Fallujah heard and spoke of the news from Ramadi and consciously worked to duplicate the model.

The situation in Iraq is fluid; the last few years have taught us that security can take rapid negative turns, especially with persistent foreign influence. Gaining ground on security, political and reconstruction fronts remains similar to "playing high speed chess in the dark" or building a house in a storm that always threatens to become a hurricane, but momentum is unmistakably positive. I can't call assessments of impending victory anything but recklessly premature, but there's a better than even shot at stability in Iraq. If current progress buys enough domestic political capital to maintain America's reconstruction of infrastructure and administrative systems, in addition to brokerage between Iraqi political parties, this is indeed "a war we might just win."

"Cautiously optimistic" are the words of the day.

UPDATE: See this assessment from Yon:

Violence is plummeting. But much of Iraq is a complete mess, a horrible mess. Now is the time to put the foot on the gas. The battalion commanders are not "fishing" for the Iraqi leaders, nor are they "teaching the fisherman to fish." Iraqis can run their own country again. We only must facilitate the fishermen by helping them with the reconciliation, the infrastructure and economy. But it is imperative that we not stop now; it's clearly starting to work.

Posted by Bill at October 23, 2007 09:51 AM | TrackBack (0)

Comments

You should note that there is a significant Iraqi counter-insurgency presence around Basra. We get reports from MNF-I but I wouldn't be suprised if we don't hear about ISF progress in southern Iraq because of the political implications for the Shite government. But the effort is underway.

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