Thursday, July 10, 2003

Iraq resistance is growing

Iraqi resistance is growing

PV Vivekanand

THREE months have passed since Baghdad fell to the American and British military and the Saddam Hussein regime was ousted from power. The coalition forces seem set for a long haul in occupying the country and Iraqi resistance against them seems to be mounting. The success or failure of the occupation will be determined by the pace with which the US-led authority restores normalcy to the cities and towns of the beleaguered country.
IT IS uncertain at this point in time where the US occupation of Iraq would end up and whether it would produce a regime that would be accepted as legitimate by a majority of the people of Iraq and the rest of the Arab World, but one thing is clear: Attacks against the US military are unlikely to pressure Washington into withdrawing its forces from the war-shattered country.
For an overwhelming majority of Iraqis in southern and central Iraq, the immediate priority is restoration of law and order that would afford them the security conducive to making a living, and availability of basic services like water and power. In the north, which had been away from the control of the toppled regime even before the war, things are relatively better, with Kurdish groups maintaining law and order.
The risk that the Americans run elsewhere in Iraq is growing resentment over their failure to provide these basic essentials and the slow pace of reconstruction of the country.
Running contrary to Iraqis' hopes for a speedy return to normalcy is the steady incidents of resistance attacks and American preoccupation with eliminating the sources of resistance.
At least 29 American soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1. Dozens have been wounded.
Also targeted are Iraqis co-operating with the occupation; seven recruits to an Iraqi police force were killed by a remote controlled bomb in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, last week.
Some experts believe that the US military, equipped with the most advanced surveillance equipment and aggressive weapons, would eventually root out Iraqi resistance through an iron-fist, scorched-earth approach. The US forces would narrow down the sources of resistance and hit them hard, and corner those who are staging almost daily attacks.
The experts also note that the US has announced a reward of $2,500 for information leading to the arrest of assailants who kill a US soldier or Iraqi policeman.
The US has already offered a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Saddam or proof that he is dead and a $15 million price for similar information on his sons, Uday and Qusai.
The prediction of these experts that the US would eventually overpower Iraqi challengers is based on the apparent absence of a centralised resistance movement, notwithstanding the audio-tapes containing purported calls by Saddam for stepped-up attacks against the US forces in the country.
Those who forsee in this course of events argue that the 10 or so average daily "encounters" between Iraqi guerrillas and American soldiers do not account for a massive resistance movement and discount the theory that Iraq could prove to be "another Vietnam" for the Americans.
However, others argue that growing signs of organised resistance are emerging and the ranks of the resistance could swell if tens of thousands of desparate soldiers who became unemployed with the disbanding of the army opt to join in.
Plans announced this week call for a 25,000-strong army in about one year. That has little room for the 350,000 to 400,000 former soldiers.
Desparation over the lack of security and stability, basic services and jobs could also prompt others to seek to get rid of the Americans, according to observers who follow this school of thinking.
Iraqis who are prompted by personal, ideological and nationalistic reasons are also seen prone to be waging resistance. However, there is little sign of any co-ordination among the groups and there does not seem to be a central command which organises resistance attacks.
However, over the last two weeks, assailants have been using rocket-propelled grenades and mortars -- and remote controlled bombs as the case was in Ramadai -- in a sign of stepped up resistance.
As such, it remains open to conjecture whether the US would be able to cope with the increasing intensity of resistance while it seems to be continuing to alienate Iraqis by not moving fast enough to restore normal life in the country.

Southerners biding for time

The majority Shiites in the south are refraining themselves from ared resistance. Obviously, their leaders, despite internal differences, are hoping that they would get a larger share of power as and when the US fulfills its promise to rebuild and democratise the country.
The Shiites -- who make up to 60 per cent of the 24-million Iraqi population, would challenge the US in the short term only when their interests are questioned, and American strategists are careful not to antagonise them.
In the meantime, the Shiites are resorting to peaceful protest marches and demonstrations against what they see as decisions that undermine their drive to maintain domination of the area. They have made no secret of their desire to the see the back of the Americans at the earliest.
Americans are mindful that Iraqi Shiites could be used by Iran to counter Washington's moves in southern Iraq and broader political moves involving political power in Iraq. Bush administration officials have accused Tehran of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs through Shiite groups in southern Iraq, a charge Iran has denied.
The US has retained its option of using the Iranian dissident group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq, which has a sizeable presence in Iraq, to destablise Iran through cross-border action and propaganda beamed through radio and television.
It would probably be a re-enactment of the Saddam era scenario where Baghdad backed the Mujahedeen to counter Iran's backing for the Iraqi Shiite opposition group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Today, the Americans have the Mujahedeen as a card against Iran and Tehran has pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite groups in southern Iraq that it could use against the US if it suits Iranian interests.
However, it is highly unlikely that Iran would encourage its sympathisers in Iraq to resort to military resistance against the Americans. Washington has already piled pressure on Iran citing Tehran's nuclear programmes, and the theocratic regime there would do without having an open confrontation with the Americans.
The US civil administrator, Paul Bremer, might have sent a wrong signal to the religious leaders of the south when he avoided contact with them during a visit he made to Najaf on Wednesday.
Bremer staying away from tAyatollah Ali Sistani, leader of the Hawza theological institution and one of the most powerful and respected Shiite leaders, would have been seen as an affront to the community.
Sistani has accused the Americans of ignoring the Hawza and issued a religious order that only Iraqis should appoint those who would write a new constitution. That meant a direct challenge to American plans.

The northern equation

The Kurds in the north -- about 18 to 20 per cent of the populaton -- are busy laying the groundwork for the independent state that they dream of.
They are aligned with the US and the alliance is being cemented as an apparent American-Turkish rift is growing over Washington's rejection of Ankara's moves in northern Iraq to counter the emergence of an independent Kurdish state there. That rift was all the more visible last week when US forces detained 11 soldiers from Turkish special forcesin a raid on charges that they were trying to destablise the region by killing the US-installed mayor of Kirkuk. The soldiers were released after three days following top-level Ankara-Washington contacts, but the incident sent messages both ways: Turkey would not be dissuaded from pursuing action to pre-empt the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq and Washington would not allow Turkey to sow instability in the region.
At the same time, the US also reserves the option to back the Kurdish cause and thus keep the Islamist government in Ankara under pressure.
Whatever the course of events in the north, the Kurds would be the last to take up arms against the US military, and that effectively takes them out of the current military equation facing the US forces in the country.
Ankara could encourage the estimated two million Turkomen -- people of Turkish origin who remained in northern Iraq following the collapse of the Ottoman empire in the early 1900s -- to make trouble for the Americans and Kurds.
Reports indicate that Ankara is active among the Turkomen with a drive to resettle them in areas from where they were ousted during the Saddam regime's "ethnic cleansing drive" but is maintaining a low profile.
The US-Turkish proxy tug-of-war would have to emerge into the open since the stakes are too high for all sides involved. But that would not be an immediate factor in US considerations unless Ankara forces the American hand.

The main resistance threatre

Most of the anti-US attacks have occurred in the predominantly Sunni belt in the northeast of Baghdad and this have given rise to the theory that Saddam Hussein, who is allegedly flush with cash of more than $1.2 billion that he took from the central bank in the final days of the war that toppled him from power, is financing resistance and offering bounties to those who succeed in killing American soldiers.
In the hypothesis that this is true, then the question that comes up is: How long could Saddam continue to finance attacks as the US steps up the intensity of its actions against suspected resistance activists?
Indeed, $1.2 billion (provided that the Saddam-central bank story is true) would go a long way but not enough to wear out the Americans.
Cocnerns were raised last week that those who wage armed resistance could expand their effort to include Western civilians when a British television cameraman was shot dead at point-blank range.
Similar attacks have not been repeated, but that has done little to scale down apprehension that Western officials and businessmen visiting Iraq could be targeted.

Bid for legitimacy

Several countries, most of them from Europe and the former Soviet bloc, have joined the American forces in Iraq as peace-keeping troops or have agreed to send tropps there amid arguments in Washington for and against a dramatic increase in the number of American soldiers deployed there.
Some of those countries were seen as friends of Iraq during the Saddam era, but this perception could change if the Iraqis start seeing them as part of the US-led occupation force.
Obviously, the American objective in inviting other countries to join the Iraq operation is double-fold: It could reduce the pressure against American soldiers put up by the resistance and would also add an element of legitimacy to the occupation, given that the United Nations has refused to endorse a force that would serve under American command.
Pakistan's government has said that it might send troops to Iraq but that no decision would be taken without taking parliament into confidence.
The Indianb government, according to informed sources, has taken a decision in principle to accept an American request for troops and has notifed Washington of the decision. But the government faces strong opposition to the move. Observers believe that the government might simply assign a military unit before July 21, before parliament starts a regular session, hoping that it would be able with withstand opposition criticism in the legislature with a fait accompli.
Seven Iraqi exile groups which hope to make up a governing council in co-ordination with the US occupation authority have proposed that an Iraqi security force be deployed in cities to tackle crime.
Deployment of Iraqis familar with the territory and local norms could take care of internal security in the cities and also counter attacks against the foreign forces.
There was no reported American response to the proposal, which was formulated at a meeting this week in northern Iraq of the seven groups.

Political moves

Respected Iraqi politician Adnan Pachachi has said the seven groups would also take part in the governing council but that they would have executive authority and would not serve in an advisory capacity to the US authority in Iraq,
US administrator Paul Bremer has apparently accepted the demand and the council is expected to be announced in the next two weeks.
Shiites would be given more than 50 per cent of the 25 seats in the council and the rest would be divided among Sunnis and Kurds, according to sources quoted by news agencies.
The seven groups include the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the Shi'ite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Al Da'wa Party and two Kurdish political parties.
The council, the first step towards setting up an American-promised Iraqi administration of Iraq, should ideally be in control of most internal affairs, but it is clear that it faces several hurdles:
Iraqis have openly said they resent being ruled by exiles who remained out of the country for decades. However, not many Iraqis could be identified with leadership qualities at this point in time other than those who served under Saddam and they are not acceptable to both the US and most Iraqis.
For the moment, the exile groups are holding together despite their differing ideologies (or the lack of ideology) and agendas in the country.
The best and largest organised group among them is SCIRI, but the US treats the group at arms length in view of its close links with Iran.
The Kurdish groups are more focused in the north, and their priorities are different from those of other Iraqi groups - they want to advance their cause for independence.
Thrown into the equation are efforts to revive the Hashemite monarchy. Sharif Ali Bin Al Hussein, a London-based banker, has returned to Iraq and his supporters are calling for a constitutional monarchy. A rival group supports another Hashemite figure who lives in Jordan - Raad Bin Zeid.
The two groups have not come to grips with each other except through the media.
Do the Iraqis want a revived monarchy?
Some say that a monarchy could serve as a rallying point and unifying factor for the diverse Iraqi communities and tribes. Other say that democracy is the best option.
But the people of the war-shattered country is too far from any serious contemplation of such ideas. They want security, water, food, power and steady employment, and their resistance against anyone seen blocking the way would grow as every day passes without these demands being met -- and their first logical target is the coalition forces.