Middle East International
May 13th, 2004
From Steve Negus in Baghdad

Throughout most of the last year, the guiding principle of the Coalition in governing Iraq seemed to be never to admit weakness in dealing with the insurgency. "We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country," Paul Bremer declared memorably in July.

Although the Coalition consistently professed its eagerness to defer security responsibilities to Iraqis, in principle it tended to respond to challenges either by bringing on new firepower — starting with artillery, ending with fighter-bombers — or with a more aggressive doctrine, such as the March plan by the Marines to increase their presence on the streets of Faluja, or the April move against followers of radical Shi’ite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr.

Reasons to complain
The events of April and early May — a swiftly spreading insurgency combined with the publication of photos of abused prisoners that horrified public opinion both at home and abroad — seem to have changed that. Rumours have circulated for months among Iraqis about the mistreatment of detainees, including sexual abuse at the hands of female US soldiers. Probably tens of thousands of Iraqis have passed through the detention system (and, according to Coalition intelligence officials cited by the Red Cross, some 70-90% were there by mistake). Although most have probably not experienced the same abuse and humiliation as did the prisoners in the pictures, many had reason to complain: of being left in the sun for hours, of being denied adequate food or clothing, of indifference on the part of the authorities that they might have been there due to mistaken identity or some other error, and general disregard for their welfare.

None the less, the photos appear to have come as a shock. Some said that they were convinced at first that the shots were fabricated by unscrupulous editors. Until now, a substantial proportion of the public has remained ambivalent about Coalition forces. Many people report having been treated rudely by US troops at checkpoints, or feeling endangered as they drive behind a convoy as nervous troops point their weapons at passing traffic, or angered by the use of force in Faluja or elsewhere. But many also conceded that the Coalition military is a bulwark against the country sinking into complete anarchy or civil war.

Now, however, the Iraqi public is likely to think of Coalition troops less as protectors and more as a personal threat.

About-turn in Faluja
Even before the photos were released, indications of a change in policy had come from Faluja. Here the Coalition appears to have abandoned its initial demand (the handover of those responsible for the killing of four US contractors in the town on 31 March), then quietly shelved its follow-up demand (that the insurgents turn over heavy weapons), in favour of an arrangement that will simply keep the peace.

In the first days of May, according to the terms of a deal worked out between the Coalition and local tribal and religious leaders, a hastily assembled "Faluja Protection Army" of approximately 600-1,000 recruits from the area, commanded by a former Republican Guard officer, began to deploy in the town. Maj.-Gen. Jassem Muhammad Salah, from a respected local family, continues to wear the uniform of the pre-war Iraqi military and makes little effort to conceal his ties to the old regime. Although some of his former colleagues describe him as an opportunist, his appointment is a major turn-about from the Coalition’s policy of dissolving what officials used to describe as "Saddam Hussein’s military". It is no doubt intended to alleviate some of the humiliation caused to Sunni Arab communities by the occupation.

The Coalition may also hope that — unlike local police or Iraqi Civil Defence Corps paramilitaries, who avoided run-ins with the insurgents as best they could — Gen. Salah will show a little old-style intolerance of challenges to his authority.

So far, however, he appears to have made no move to do so. Even as the brigade moved into the city, groups of armed masked men moved around the main neighbourhoods where fighting had occurred, keeping watch for "spies" and looters. A few celebrated their victory, waving the (now officially replaced) Iraqi flag and chanting "Allahu Akbar" in front of the town’s main mosques.

Some locals claim that while the nationalist and Ba’thist insurgents might rally round Salah, the Islamists — who tend to be younger and more combative — are beginning to disperse into the surrounding countryside for fear of confrontation. The Coalition appears willing to allow Salah to pursue what so far is a "live and let live" policy, quietly shelving its demand that the insurgents turn over heavy weapons. The peace in Faluja does appear to have held, while the solidarity attacks launched by nearby Sunni communities on passing US military convoys have declined considerably. There is already talk that Faluja might be a model for other towns in the Sunni Triangle.

The Faluja experiment was preceded by a Coalition decree allowing certain Ba’th Party members fired from government jobs a year ago to return to their posts. It also follows announcements by Bremer and others in recent weeks that the Coalition was hoping to recruit former security personnel to the intelligence service, and former high-ranking officers who had been shelved by the de-Ba’thification decrees to the army. Some Iraqis speak resentfully of "re-Ba’thification", fearful that the United States, having decided that a weak state dominated by the Shi’ite majority is not in its interests, is considering devolving power to a clique of turncoat Saddamists.

On a national level, this is probably a little far-fetched. Any government that smelled even remotely of the old regime would engender serious resistance in Shi’ite or Kurdish areas. In individual Sunni-majority communities, however, the Coalition may have decided that it needs to start dealing with whoever the most respected leaders are, whatever their ties to the old regime, and irrespective of the signal it might send to other Iraqi players that challenging the Coalition’s authority might just get you a seat at the table.

The Sadrist challenge
As regards its second major challenge, that posed by Muqtada al-Sadr, the Coalition has also maintained a somewhat less aggressive posture than it has struck in the past. US forces have made no move to follow through on their declared intention of either killing Sadr or taking him alive to stand trial for last year’s murder of Abd al-Majid al-Khu’i. As of late April, Coalition officials were predicting an imminent resolution of the stand-off. Although US forces continue to throw a tight siege around the twin cities of Najaf and Kufa and clash frequently with militiamen of Sadr’s Mahdi Army, the Coalition has delayed a final showdown.

It may be hoping that other Shi’ite factions do the job for them. Sadr is not well liked in Najaf, where most inhabitants profess loyalty to an older generation of scholars of whom Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is the most prominent. Many voice anger at the way the Mahdi Army — largely composed of outsiders from Baghdad’s Shi’ite slums and elsewhere — has turned their town into a prospective battlefield and kept away the religious visitors on whom the local economy depends.

Statements from local scholars calling on the Mahdi Army to take its fight outside have been posted on the walls of Najaf’s shrines. Supporters of the rival Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose Badr Corps militia is probably at least a match for the Mahdi Army, marched on Sadrist positions near the Imam Ali shrine on 12 May to demand their withdrawal. The Sadrists reportedly fired in the air, prompting a stampede. Some SCIRI leaders have hinted that the Badr Corps might be used to expel them forcibly.

In the meantime, a local anti-Sadrist militia calling itself Dhu al-Fiqar, after the twin-bladed sword of the Imam Ali, has claimed responsibility for a number of hit-and-run attacks on Mahdi Army positions in town, although it does not yet appear ready to take on the Sadrists in force. Although pressure from other Shi’ites would probably not convince Sadr to turn himself in (he has said that he would only stand trial under a sovereign Iraqi government), it might push him towards other concessions, like the Mahdi Army standing down, that would at least defuse the situation. Najaf’s governor, Adnan al-Zurfi, has suggested that "there is room to solve the case of Sayyed Muqtada on condition that the militia be disbanded", and that any trial could wait until after the devolution of sovereignty. Some local tribal leaders have also reportedly proposed that their followers occupy Najaf and organize a trial for Sadr.

Limited options
Recent events, however, suggest that Sadr — emboldened by the political storm over the Abu Ghurayb photos — may not be in the mood for compromise. On 7 May Sadrist preachers delivered sermons that were fiery even by their standards. In Basra, the movement’s representative, Abd al-Sattar al-Bahadli, declared that it would offer cash bounties of $150 for each British soldier killed or $300 for each one captured, and that fighters could keep captured female British soldiers as slaves. Sadrists subsequently launched attacks on British troops in both the southern port city and in the eastern town of Amara.

The next few days saw clashes in several southern towns, as well as Baghdad’s northeastern slum district of Madinat al-Sadr, in which two of Sadr’s lieutenants were captured and the movement’s headquarters destroyed. The following day, the Sadrist leader in Najaf, Qais al-Khazali, said the movement’s policy was to enter a "second phase of resistance… to move it to all of Iraq because of the occupiers’ military escalation and crossing of all red lines in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf." As MEI went to press, fighting was being reported in cities throughout the south.

According to Coalition forces, the Sadrists have been getting the worst of the exchanges. For example, the Coalition claimed to have killed 18 Sadrists in Madinat al-Sadr on 9 May, and another 42 in fighting in Kut and Kufa the following day, while reporting no fatalities of its own.

While the Mahdi Army was able to inflict casualties in the first chaotic days of the uprising, now that Coalition troops in the south are on alert, the Sadrists appear to be less effective. This balance of casualties may change again, however, if the situation switches from a stand-off to a major Coalition offensive into urban areas.

From Sadr’s perspective, this probably matters little. Iraqis, even those opposed to armed resistance, widely believe that the Coalition suffers more casualties than it admits, so it is unlikely that the Mahdi Army is much discouraged by what appear to be military reverses.

Meanwhile, the general climate of outrage that has resulted from the release of the Abu Ghurayb photos makes it even more risky for the Coalition to enter Najaf or Kufa to get at the movement’s leader, even as he scales up the uprising across the country. From the Coalition’s perspective, the Mahdi Army’s seeming ineffectiveness at this particular stage probably does reduce some of the pressure to put down the uprising. This is just as well, because while the Coalition’s patience with challenges like Sadr’s has in the past been limited, its options in the present seem even more so.

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