Iraq Still Bleeds

A fortnight after the much vaunted capture of Saddam Hussein by the US under circumstances, which are stillfar from clear, the ground situation shows no signs of improvement. The total number of violent incidents perday admitted by the coalition forces, which went down from an average of 30 plus to 20 after the end of theMuslim fasting period in November, has again increased to 26.

I am using the word "admitted" because the coalition spokesmen are admitting only those incidentswhich independently come to the notice of the media. No public announcement is made about other incidents.This became obvious when the attempt to kill Paul Bremer, the civilian head of the US operations in Iraq, inan ambush laid by the Iraqi resistance on December 6 was admitted only a fortnight later after a TV channelhad come to know of it. Thus, there is obvious management of statistics by coalition spokesmen in general andby US spokesmen in particular.

The interrogation of Saddam and hundreds of others arrested by the US troops at Samarra and other placeshas apparently not yielded any worthwhile intelligence as could be seen from the repeatedly exhibited abilityof the resistance fighters and the foreign jihadi terrorists to strike at will at targets of opportunity or oftheir choosing even in areas where the US troops in their search and arrest sweeps had rounded up hundreds ofsuspects.

Baghdad and Samarra and their neighbourhood continue to see targeted attacks on the US troops, the IraqiPolice and establishments associated with them despite the campaigns of intimidation periodically undertakenby the US forces by using heavy weapons, tanks and artillery in inhabited areas. The incidents of repeatedmortar firing by resistance fighters on buildings in Baghdad used by the US troops and civilian personnel andforeign journalists around Christmas show the continuing fragility of the security situation even in thecapital. Paul Bremer and the members of the US-controlled Iraqi governing council hardly move around in thecapital and have practically no interaction with the people except the anti-Saddam elements, who have returnedfrom exile in the US and West Europe. Bremer's tours are confined to the Kurdish areas in the North and theShia areas in the South under British control.

The US continues to avoid much interaction with large sections of the Iraqi elite, who had remained loyalto Saddam before the occupation. This is the section, which had always contributed the best of theprofessionals of the Iraqi society such as bureaucrats, law enforcers, engineers, doctors, teachers etc. Theseare the people with their ears close to the ground, who know the country and the pulse of the people. In itscontinued reluctance to make a distinction between Saddam and those who had served his regime and to seek towin over the latter while acting against the former, the US has laid the seeds of the failure of its policies,whether relating to the restoration of law and order or rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The political exiles, who have returned after a long comfortable life in the West, and dominatepolicy-making under the protection of the US gun and watchful eyes of Bremer, neither know their country northeir people. There are already allegations of some of them making money by asking for commission from foreigncontractors and traders. The allegations are particularly serious with regard to contracts for the purchase ofarms and ammunition from abroad for issue to the newly raised Police and Army.

The morale of the newly-raised police and army is low. Police officers have been increasingly the targetsof attacks by the resistance fighters and foreign jihadi terrorists. Over 250 Iraqi police officers have diedsince May at the hands of the resistance fighters and jihadi terrorists, though US spokesmen have admitted thedeath of only about 120 as on December 19 (they call them the Iraqi security service personnel).

There have been already unreported incidents of desertions from the police and the new Army. The desertionshave been partly due to the low morale and partly to unhappiness over what they view as discriminatoryconditions of service. While the US troops have the highest scales of remuneration and canteen facilities plusa handsome war hazard allowance, the pay scales fixed for the officers of the Iraqi Police and Army areperceived to be low . The mercenaries of the Iraqi members of the governing council such as Ahmed Chalabi arebetter paid. The staff of the Iraqi Police and Army were till recently not entitled to the war hazardallowance. A proposal to grant that allowance even to them was under consideration.

The counter-insurgency methods adopted by the US troops have been reminiscent of those adopted by them inVietnam and by Israel against the Palestinians -- massive acts of reprisals, indiscriminate arrests,restrictions on the movements of Iraqis inside their own country and often inside their own towns as, forexample, in Samarra.

The fact that despite such intimidatory methods, the Iraqi resistance movement continues to get volunteersfor operations directed against the occupation troops speaks much of the continuing high level of motivation.The motivation has in no way been weakened by the capture of Saddam. The local support enjoyed by theresistance fighters has facilitated their operations and thwarted the attempts of the US and other coalitiontroops to penetrate the resistance movement, identify its individual cells and their leaders and members andneutralise them.

It is remarkable that eight months after the resistance movement started, the US has even now very littleidea of its organisational structure, leadership, sanctuaries and modus operandi. Despite spectacularsuccesses such as the killing of the two sons of Saddam in July and the capture of Saddam himself on December13, which were apparently made possible by betrayals by individual Iraqis, there have been very few instancesof arrests of resistance fighters and foreign jihadi terrorists by the coalition troops on the basis ofsimilar betrayals.

Those arrested seemed to have had very little to do with the resistance movement and those in the core andforefront of the resistance movement have successfully evaded capture. The resistance movement continues to bewell organised in autonomous cells of not more than five persons per cell capable of acting on their own inpursuance of their master objective of making the occupation troops and their Iraqi collaborators bleedwithout the need for centralised command and control and modern means of communications.

The resistance fighters avoid operating in large groups and do not indulge in direct confrontationaltactics despite claims to the contrary made by US spokesmen with regard to Samarra. The claims of the USspokesmen that the resistance fighters in Samarra, who, according to them, confronted a US column, werewearing fedayeen uniform illustrate the confusion or ignorance, which continues to prevail among the coalitiontroops, about their enemy, whom they hardly know. The resistance fighters do not wear any uniform in order toavoid attracting attention to themselves.

The resistance cells avoid identifying themselves by any name, do not issue fatwas and threats like AlQaeda and other jihadi organisations do, do not make claims of success, do not indulge in propaganda andpublicity and avoid using modern means of communications, including the Internet.

The coalition troops continue to be as ignorant of the identity and strength of the foreign jihaditerrorists, who have infiltrated into Iraq and have been operating independently of the resistance fighters,as they are of the resistance fighters. The spectacular and well-orchestrated attacks in Karbala on December27, which killed four Bulgarian and two Thai troops and six Iraqi Police officers, bear the signature of theChechen elements in the foreign jihadi force.

There have been no reports of any fresh infiltration of jihadi terrorists from abroad. The tightening ofborder controls by the Saudi authorities has deterred any fresh bid to infiltrate into Iraq. The totalassessed number of foreign jihadi terrorists already operating inside Iraq remains at around 320 or even lessdue to attrition. Like the resistance fighters, the foreign jihadi terrorists too operate in small autonomouscells and avoid claiming success and using modern means of communications, including the Internet.

By adopting suitable evasive flying tactics, US helicopters have been able to avoid any loss in Decembersimilar to those of November.

The US and other coalition troops will continue to bleed till they are able to get a better measure of theresistance fighters and the external jihadi terrorists and their modus operandi. While the short-termprospects remain negative, the US should still be able to turn the tide in the medium and long term and softenand win over the resistance fighters if only it tries and succeeds in winning the co-operation of theestranged and sulking Iraqi elite of the Saddam days. Continued reliance on stooges could provecounter-productive.

As I have been repeatedly reiterating in my writings and talks, it is not in India's interest that the USfails to prevail in Iraq. Whatever its past mistakes -- there have been many and of a very serious nature --some of the adversaries which it faces in Iraq post-May are India's adversaries too. Many of them werepreviously killing hundreds of innocent civilians in India, Russia (Chechnya) and other countries. They arenow killing Americans and Iraqis. If they succeed against the US, they will receive a shot in the arm and willgravitate to other jihadi fronts, including India, with renewed confidence and heightened morale. This has tobe prevented.

India's decision not to send troops to Iraq was the right one. We cannot afford to get involved in acounter-insurgency or counter-terrorism role in a Muslim country. At the same time, we should not hesitate toconsider other ways of discreetly assisting the US such as intelligence-sharing, training of the new Iraqibureaucrats, including military, police and intelligence officers, in Indian institutions and actingdiscreetly as an interface between the US and the angry and sulking Iraqi elite in an attempt to bring the twotogether.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Advisory Committee, ObserverResearch Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.