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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject: Dr. Eric Herring on the British role in Iraq |
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dr. eric herring ( senior lecturer in international politics at bristol university ) recently submitted written testimony to parliament's select committee on defence on british operations in iraq ... makes for an interesting read
| Quote: | House of Commons
Select Committee on Defence
Inquiry into ‘UK Operations in Iraq’
Evidence submitted by Dr. Eric Herring, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, Department of Politics, University of Bristol.
28 September 2007
Executive summary
In nearly all of the provinces which have been under formal British control, there is clear overall support for the invasion. However, most of the population expect security to improve following a withdrawal of Coalition forces and most think that the US military surge begun in January 2007 has made security worse. The UK has sought to play three roles in relation to Iraq – persuading the US of its views, acting as a broker between the US and other international actors and implementing its own policies independently of the US in southern Iraq – but has failed in all three. With the US making all the key decisions on the state building project, UK armed forces have engaged in what could only be intermittent and intermittently productive operations. In specific times and places, UK forces will carry out positive security tasks for the local population. However, this is insufficient reason for them to remain when the population mostly think they are making the situation worse and want them to leave.
The UK should not support US efforts to strengthen the existing Iraqi Government by armed force and training of security force. As Iraq has no coherent government, and as the lines between the state, insurgents, militias and mafias are blurred, there can be no confidence that training of Iraqi security forces is actually a contribution to strengthening the state. It is just as likely – indeed, often more likely – to result in the strengthening groups which will pursue their own interests, stand in the way of strengthening the Iraqi state and turn on Coalition forces when it suits them. The UK should not support the ethno-sectarian partition of Iraq because it is overwhelmingly opposed by Iraqi public opinion; federalist sentiment in Iraq is divided over the specifics and mostly not ethno-sectarian; and the Iraqi constitution sets out the process of federalisation as one to be decided by Iraqis voting in referenda. Nor should UK forces be kept in Iraq because the US wants them to stay for symbolic purposes or to protect its supply lines. The US role in Iraq is neither legitimate nor prudent and hence not worthy of British support.
Instead, the UK should end its combat role in Iraq. No-one can be sure whether the humanitarian and political situation will become worse or better for Iraqis should Coalition forces leave. But the assessment of most Iraqis is that it would improve, and hence withdrawal would not be ‘cutting and running’ – it would be compliance with clearly expressed Iraqi preferences.
The UK should also promote international and regional diplomacy aimed at making economic, political and non-combat security assistance contingent on acceptance of negotiations and political reconciliation among insurgents, militias and the factions that make up the Iraqi Government.
Introduction
1. This evidence derives from my academic research on Western policy on Iraq over the last seven years or so based on open source documents and interviews in Iraq (2002), the US and UK. My most recent book Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and its Legacy published in November 2006 by Hurst and Cornell University Press was co-authored with Dr. Glen Rangwala (Cambridge): ‘first-rate … a compelling account - the clearest yet available of the “new Iraq”’ (Prof. Charles Tripp, author of A History of Iraq), ‘an admirably sober and powerful analysis … a must read‘ (Prof. Tareq Ismael, editor International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies) and ‘serious and persuasive … Splendidly researched … required reading’ (Prof. Jeffrey Record, USAF Air War College). I was specialist adviser to the Select Committee on Economic Affairs of the House of Lords for its inquiry into economic sanctions in 2006-07. My current research is on the political economy of peacebuilding in Iraq and I recently addressed the Royal United Services Institute in London on British counter-insurgency in Iraq.
Why the invasion was wrong – and why it has mattered for UK operations in Iraq
2. Perceptions of illegitimate, illegal and unilateral action matter in terms of undermining the willingness of international actors and the local population to accept the invasion and occupation. The window of opportunity for acceptance of the occupation by much of Iraqi opinion was brief. Only a massively resourced effort which transferred power rapidly to Iraqis would have had any chance of success, and that would have been a huge gamble. Instead, the US embarked on a violent but under-resourced attempt to retain power until the ‘right’ institutions and economy were imposed and until the ‘right’ Iraqis looked like they might be elected. This has been doomed from the outset and has been the essential determinant of the failure of UK operations in Iraq.
3. Did Britain and the US have the legal right to do what they did? No. The invasion was not and would not have been authorised by the UN under international law. That is why they did not go back to the Security Council for a resolution authorising war, having ensured the passage of earlier resolutions by insisting that the US and UK would not treat them as authorisations for war.
4. Did Britain and the US have the moral right to do what they did? No. First, this was a war launched with a mixture of deception and self-deception. If a society is to go to war democratically it must at least be on the basis of the facts presented and debated honestly and accurately. Second, starting a war has potentially huge and potentially uncontrollable consequences - the first of these creates an obligation to prepare for the aftermath (an obligation not taken seriously) and the second creates a presumption against gambling with lives and property through war, requiring compelling evidence of necessity (another obligation not met).
5. The US and British Governments have been propagating the myth that the invasion was based on an intelligence failure – that the expectation was that WMD would be found after the invasion. Some of those who favoured the invasion were persuaded themselves that WMD would be found, but this self-deception was despite, not because of, the intelligence. For example, Carne Ross, who was the First Secretary in charge of Iraq policy at the UK Mission to the UN between 1997 and mid-2002, has said regarding that period:
It was emphatically our view, and that was based on very careful consideration of the intelligence evidence and the evidence that was gained from inspectors in UNSCOM and later UNMOVIC, that Iraq was not in any substantial way rearming with its weapons of mass destruction …
Others such as Scott Ritter, chief UN weapons inspector between 1991 and 1998, made that point repeatedly and publicly before the invasion. It is easy to forget now that there were no finds of WMD or WMD production programmes in Iraq from 1992 onwards because the Iraqis had destroyed them in 1991 and possibly also early 1992.
6. The best and most common defence of the invasion is that getting rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime (and economic sanctions) made the current mess worthwhile on balance. However, while a majority of Iraqis polled used to be in favour of the invasion, Iraqi majority opinion is now against the invasion, and increasingly strongly so. In the BBC poll in March 2007, 47% of Iraqis said the invasion was right and 53% said it was wrong. In the BBC’s August 2007 poll, 37% said it was right (12% absolutely right) and 63% said it was wrong (35% absolutely wrong). Furthermore, it is no coincidence that those areas which were not actually invaded and occupied (the mainly Kurdish north east) have been most in favour of the occupation, while those areas which have suffered the brunt of US use of force (the mainly Sunni Arab centre) have been most opposed to it. And the around 2 million who have fled the country as refugees, the further 2 million displaced and of course the hundreds of thousands of dead will not have featured in the polls. When these factors are taken into consideration, even these negative polls must be regarded as flattering to the occupation.
7. The most damning aspect of the polls for the occupiers is that, among those in the sector of the population – the Sunni Arab one - that has experienced the occupation most directly, opposition has been consistent and almost total. For example, in the August 2007 BBC poll, 97% of Sunni Arabs thought the invasion was wrong (70% absolutely wrong), 93% thought attacks on Coalition forces were acceptable, 95% thought Coalition forces were making security worse and 72% wanted them to leave now. These figures refute the Coalition claim that it is protecting Sunni Arab Iraqis from terrorists. Instead, according to the population, the US is illegitimately imposing its presence.
8. UK forces currently remain in Basra at the airport. They have withdrawn from their bases in Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Maysan provinces but were engaged in combat as recently as June 2007 in the vicinity of Amarah, the capital of Maysan, which resulted in over 100 Iraqi deaths. In nearly all of the provinces which have been under formal British control, there is clear overall support for the invasion. In the ORB poll in February 2007, 70%, 90%, 90% and 49% respectively by province thought themselves better off now, almost no-one thought themselves better off under the previous regime, while 22%, 4%, 5% and 39% thought the two were as bad as each other. However, most of the population expect security to improve following a withdrawal of Coalition forces (60%, 74%, 70%, and 91%). In Basra, 40% expect security to get a great deal better following the withdrawal of Coalition forces and only 5% think it will get a great deal worse. While polling did not generally distinguish between British and US forces, in a Ministry of Defence poll in August 2005, support for attacks on Coalition forces was 25% in Basra and 65% in Maysan province.
9. It is not the case that support for attacks on Coalition forces is restricted to Sunni Arabs. Many Shi‘a think that such attacks are acceptable (e.g. 61% in September 2006 and 50% in August 2007) and even around 15% of Kurds supported them in September 2006.
10. Iraqis have been divided on whether Coalition forces should leave immediately, when security is restored or when Iraqi security forces are stronger. However, the preference for immediate withdrawal has climbed steadily to 47% in August 2007, and there was majority opinion poll support in 2006 among Kurds and Shi‘a as well as Sunni Arabs for withdrawal after six months to two years. As far as most Iraqis are concerned, the US military surge begun in January 2007 has made security worse. 72% (more than ever) in August 2007 thought Coalition forces were making security worse, and 61% thought security had become worse in the country as a whole in the preceding six months.
11. It is true that the Iraqi Government wishes Coalition forces to stay, but that government only survives because of those forces, and its legitimacy is overwhelmingly rejected by the mainly Sunni Arab areas in particular that are on the receiving end of the use of force by the United States. The Iraqi Government is elected, but a dictatorship of the majority is counter to the principles of liberal democracy which require that the interests and views of minorities are taken into account. The Sunni Arab population tried boycott and then voting to have its voice heard, and neither worked. Not surprisingly, 86% of Sunni Arabs polled in September 2006 said that they regarded the current Iraqi Government as illegitimate.
12. Brig. Gavin Bulloch, retd. is currently rewriting UK counter-insurgency doctrine for publication at the end of 2007. In a presentation on 21 September 2007 to a conference held in the Royal United Services Institute, Brig. Bulloch announced that the new doctrine would for the first time include the notion of popular consent as a requirement. This is a development to be welcomed. It contrasts strongly with US Army counter-guerilla doctrine adopted in 2004, which states:
Commanders must be prepared to operate in a broad range of political atmospheres. The host country’s form of government may be anything from an absolute, and not too benevolent, dictatorship to a democracy struggling to establish itself, or anything in between. … No matter what political atmosphere prevails in the host country, the brigade commander must engage the guerrilla with every asset at the commander’s disposal. He must realize that democratic principles may not be immediately applicable. However, he should act within the limits of his authority to improve the circumstances of the government he was sent to support.
British doctrine is, fortunately, moving in a direction that is incompatible with this US requirement.
UK operations in Iraq have been undermined fatally at the political-strategic level
13. Counter-insurgency doctrine and practice have two elements – legitimation and coercion. Legitimation is often termed ‘hearts and minds’, and the latter has a practical function (providing guidance on what to do), an ideological function (obscuring counter-insurgency’s coercive dark side in which a polity is being imposed violently on an unwilling population) and a self-deceiving function (reassuring those engaged in coercion that they are legitimate because what they would ‘really’ prefer to do is win hearts and minds but are being forced by their opponents to act coercively).
14. Despite the widespread approbation in Western policy circles at the end of 2006 regarding the appointment of counter-insurgency expert Gen. David Petraeus to lead Coalition forces and the adoption by the US military of its new counter-insurgency doctrine, the US strategy since the beginning of the surge has been based primarily on coercion – for example, aerial bombardment and detention have been at record levels. Subjecting around 25,000 to internment with entirely inadequate due process is wrong and will have the net effect of deepening the Coalition’s unpopularity. The same can be said of US air strikes which receive little attention outside Iraq. In the first half of 2007, the US Air Force dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq, triple what it dropped in the second half of 2006 and five times the total for the first half of 2006.
15. The US state building project has lurched repeatedly in different directions, and British political and military operations in Iraq have been deeply affected by those lurches. The original US intention was rapid elections so that Iraqis would install pro-US exiles who would inherit functioning governmental institutions. When the exiles proved incapable and unpopular and governmental institutions collapsed or were abolished by the US, the new model was direct US rule for as long as it took to install an ideal neoconservative state. When that dream evaporated, the US sought rapid formal handover to the alliance of Kurdish paramilitary leaders and Shi‘a fundamentalists who dominated the elections. And now the US is floundering in its efforts to bring about some kind of compromise that will incorporate Sunni Arabs and protect what it sees as US strategic interests.
16. The UK has sought to play three roles in relation to Iraq – persuading the US of its views, acting as a broker between the US and other international actors and implementing its own policies independently of the US in southern Iraq – but has failed in all three. With the US making all the key decisions on the state building project, UK armed forces have engaged in what could only be intermittent and intermittently productive operations. The UK military presence in Iraq has been tiny and under-resourced, and the UK political mission in Iraq to which it is meant to be subordinated has been even tinier. There has also been persistent incoherence and lack of integration, with little guidance from London or Baghdad or even neighbouring provinces. In continual fear of being over-run, the priority has been to avoid antagonising excessively existing or rising armed local political actors. UK forces have made reconstruction, anti-militia and anti-corruption efforts such as Operation Sinbad which ran from late 2006 to early 2007. However, this should not obscure the fact that they have tended to be (often uncomprehending) spectators, occasional protagonists and only rarely the centre of power and legitimacy. Their position was notably jeopardised by the ill-conceived and half-hearted US actions such as its offensive against the Mahdi Army in the Spring of 2004.
17. Counter-insurgency usually implies a coherent state that is being protected from overthrow by a clearly separate armed group. In the case of Iraq, the line between the state, insurgents, militias and mafias is blurred. Iraq is a fragmented state in the sense of there being no agreed overall political authority and no means of resolving disputes over its location. There is fragmentation between and within regions, classes, religious sects, ethnicities, government ministries, tribes and political parties. Ethno-sectarian fragmentation into Kurds, Shi‘a and Sunni Arabs is only one axis of fragmentation and often not the most important one. The Iraqi Government will not move decisively against militias in general because it is largely rooted in them. The Iraqi Government is not a coherent actor and the line between it and those it is supposedly fighting is blurred, with (for example) Sadrists in and out of government posts. This is even more the case with the state as a whole, most obviously in the case of the security forces which are permeated with embedded insurgents – people taking the pay, training, intelligence and resources of the state security forces but using them against the Coalition and the Iraqi state. It is also the case with supposedly Iraqi but actually almost purely Kurdish or Shi‘a Arab units deployed in Sunni Arab areas. This practice generates and exacerbates ethno-sectarian tensions rather than protects Iraqis from insurgents and militias. It seems that a significant proportion of Kurdish troops speak little or even no Arabic, which can only contribute to inter-communal alienation.
What’s left for the UK to do in Iraq?
18. The UK should not support US efforts to strengthen the existing Iraqi Government by armed force and training of security forces, and should not support ethno-sectarian partition. Nor should UK forces be kept in Iraq because the US wants them to stay for symbolic purposes or to protect its supply lines. Instead, the UK should promote international and regional diplomacy aimed at making economic, political and non-combat security assistance contingent on acceptance of negotiations and political reconciliation among insurgents, militias and the factions that make up the Iraqi Government.
Military backing for the existing Iraqi Government?
19. There has been far too much willingness to accept the US claim that the decline in the number of attacks between late July and mid September represent successes for the surge. First, the level of attacks was at an all time high in May and June, despite the extreme summer heat. Second, other factors were probably more important in the decline in attacks – insurgents resting and regrouping after their surge in attacks, insurgents and militias lying low as the surge passed their areas, unsustainable bans on the use of vehicles in places such as Falluja and parts of Baghdad, segregation through displacement and rumoured Saudi and Jordanian behind the scenes efforts. The US’s own figures show that the average daily casualties in Iraq remained at near-record levels for the entire period of the surge since February 2007 inclusive, with only a slight dip in June. More importantly, there can be no military victory in Iraq for the Coalition: the key measure of success has to be political progress, and that has not occurred.
20. The US military surge has not achieved its stated goal of creating the space for political reconciliation: instead it has had the opposite effect of removing the political incentive for it. The Kurdish and Shi‘a groups favoured by the US in the Iraqi Government have not had to compromise because they have been able to rely on the US military to prop them up.
21. The process of training Iraqi army and especially police forces is suffering from poor retention rates of weapons as well as personnel. But there is an even deeper problem. As the state is fragmented, there can be no confidence that training of Iraqi security forces is actually a contribution to strengthening the state. It is just as likely – indeed, often more likely – to result in the strengthening groups which will pursue their own interests, stand in the way of strengthening the Iraqi state and turn on Coalition forces when it suits them. The problem with Iraqi security forces is not lack of training but alternative loyalties, which is precisely why the US is reluctant to provide them with weapons, especially heavier ones. The Iraqi Government has complained publicly about this, and the US Government, torn between fear of what Iraqis will do with the weapons and the need to arm Iraqi forces to take over from US ones, has recently boosted its arms sales to Iraq. Even if some groups, such as tribal ones, work with Coalition forces, such alignments will be temporary and contingent, and are not evidence of endorsement of the Coalition’s goals or presence.
22. Violence in Basra escalated recently and the situation remains unstable. In specific times and places, UK forces will carry out positive security tasks for the local population. However, this is insufficient reason for them to remain when the population mostly think they are making the situation worse and want them to leave.
Support partition?
23. There is much talk, especially in Washington, of backing some form of top-down ethno-sectarian partition, either hard partition (separate states) or soft partition (a federation with a relatively weak centre). The UK should not back schemes for partition in Iraq because they are completely against the wishes of most Iraqis. Federalist sentiment in Iraq is divided over the specifics and mostly not ethno-sectarian and the Iraqi constitution sets out the process of federalisation as a bottom-up process via referenda.
24. In terms of responsibility for most of the violence in Iraq, Iraqis mainly blame the Coalition, followed by al Qaeda/foreign jihadists; and then roughly equal blame for the Iraqi government, Sunni and Shi‘a militias and leaders, sectarian disputes, common criminals and Iran. The fact that Iraqis mostly blame non-Iraqis for the violence is indicative of a continuing national sentiment.
25. Kurds are fairly consistently positive about the invasion and the performance of the Coalition politically and militarily. Shi‘i tend to be more positive than Sunni Arabs about the invasion but similarly negative about the occupation and Coalition forces. However, it is fundamentally misleading and dangerous to attribute a single view to each supposed ethno-sectarian ‘group’. The notion of ‘Iraqi’ is still of great significance and value, even as ethno-sectarian aspects of identity become more prominent due to a structure of political incentives which rewards ethno-sectarian mobilisation and seems to require it for self-protection. Furthermore, the local or regional is an important level of identity, interests and concerns which may complement or compete with the national and the ethno-sectarian. Opinion polls show that Iraqis overwhelmingly think that separation of people on sectarian lines is a bad thing (98% in August 2007) and that the separation on such lines that has occurred has been forced. Most Iraqis want a unified Iraq with a strong central government in Baghdad (and a substantial minority want regionalised government and a federal government in Baghdad, without suggesting that this is ethno-sectarian).
26. The overall picture is a fairly strong though variable continuing commitment to the idea of an Iraqi nation and to its expression in the form of a self-determining Iraqi state. The weakest commitment is among Kurds, but even there it is too easy to exaggerate the contrasts between Kurdish and Arab Iraqi views. For example, polled in late 2004, more Kurds expressed a preference for living in an ethnically mixed Iraq than for living in an independent Kurdish state. Kurdish political elites assert a Kurdish right to independence but a willingness to live in an autonomous region within a federal Iraq. At both popular and elite levels, desire for an independent state is tempered by an awareness of the risks of pursuing that goal (such as invasion and occupation by Turkey).
Keep UK forces in Iraq to provide symbolic and practical support for the US?
27. Some favour keeping UK forces in Iraq protecting supply lines or so that the US Government is not displeased at losing its main symbolic ally. The US is fully capable of protecting its own supply lines. More importantly, for the reasons given throughout this evidence, the US role in Iraq is neither legitimate nor prudent and hence not worthy of British support. The Bush administration’s bottom line in Iraq appears to be to avoid losing until the United States has a Democrat as president (a real prospect in the November 2008 election), and then blame defeat on the Democrats for their weakness and the Iraqis for their fecklessness and ingratitude. A Labour Government or indeed any British Government should not let British soldiers die for this cause. Supporting US operations in Iraq practically or symbolically would require the UK must also share some responsibility for the US actions in Iraq.
Promote international and regional diplomacy which makes non-combat assistance for factions in Iraq conditional on their commitment to negotiations and political reconciliation
28. No-one can be sure whether the humanitarian and political situation will become worse or better for Iraqis should Coalition forces leave. But the assessment of most Iraqis is that it would improve, and hence withdrawal would not be ‘cutting and running’ – it would be compliance with clearly expressed Iraqi preferences.
29. To a great extent events in Iraq are, and always have been, beyond the control of the US and British governments, and trying to gain it militarily and unilaterally with a coating of superficial multilateralism will continue the march to failure and make it even harder for the situation to be retrieved by anyone (and that will have to be mainly Iraqis). The US and UK governments need a paradigm shift in their approach from control to influence, from violence to non-violence and from unilateralism to multilateralism. This shift might be beyond them, but the imminent prospect of defeat and escalating chaos may push them in that direction. Assistance in training of security forces and economic reconstruction can and should be provided only to the extent that it assists the realisation of the overwhelming Iraqi preference for a democratic and coherent Iraqi state that is not organised around ethno-sectarianism. In effect, this approach takes benchmarks of political progress seriously. The Coalition approach has been to provide support to the existing Iraqi Government as an incentive to make progress. The reverse approach must be adopted, that is, support should be provide as a reward for actual progress. Furthermore, those rewards should be provided to any committed to negotiation and reconciliation.
30. There are many intertwined but also in some respects independent armed conflicts in Iraq in the north-east, the centre, Baghdad and the south. They will end when the key actors (a) think they can gain more from negotiating than fighting (either to continue a stalemate or to achieve victory) and (b) are be able to deliver their constituencies in support of a deal reached through negotiations. In other words, they have to be willing and able to negotiate. At present, neither condition exists and the creation of those conditions is not being prioritised at present by the US and UK. It may be that externally-provided rewards will not be able to make a major difference in bringing about those conditions, but at least the effort would be being made, and without the UK being involved in or supporting illegitimate and counter-productive uses of force and detention. |
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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Is this herring a red?
(apologies) |
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