22 February 2007

Stability and rule of law remain a distant vision

By Stephen Fidler and Steve Negus
Financial Times, 21 February 2007

The UK has long prepared the way for the troop reductions from Iraq – announced on Wednesday – by emphasising how different conditions in the south of the country are from those in the centre where a surge in US forces is under way.

The Shia-dominated south has not witnessed the ­violent Sunni insurgency that has riven Baghdad and the rest of central Iraq. But it has, nonetheless, seen in-creasing levels of violence as Shia militias have competed for spoils.

This has left the region a long way from the vision of a postwar Iraq that the UK officially foresaw in January 2003 as “a stable united and law abiding state ... providing effective representative government to its own ­people”.

A report published this week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy underlines how far from that vision southern Iraq now is. “Instead of a stable, law-abiding region with a representative government and police primacy, the deep south is factionalised, lawless, ruled as a kleptocracy, and subject to militia primacy,” says the report, written by Michael Knights and Ed Williams.

Whereas soon after the invasion, UK forces carried out frequent patrols in unarmoured Land Rovers, now they can patrol only in heavily armoured Warrior vehicles and suffer increasing numbers of roadside attacks

Mr Blair’s announcement comes after Operation ­Sinbad, a joint Iraqi-UK effort launched in September and aimed at reducing militia presence and conducting some reconstruction projects to improve living standards in Basra, the main southern city of more than 1.3m people. That operation has, the UK says, been a success.

It said yesterday that the recorded murder rate in Basra dropped from 139 in June to 29 in December, while the number of kidnappings had halved.

The UK admits these figures must be treated with caution and questions ­remain about whether the improvement can be sustained. In fact, the troop reduction announced by Tony Blair, UK prime minister, is more gradual than British officials had planned for even several weeks ago, a change attributed to the violence in Basra city.

Mr Blair said yesterday that, with the exception of troops to remain at Basra Palace, all British forces would be pulled back to Basra airport. But this move is hardly happening from a position of strength, say analysts, and reflects in part the intense mortar and small arms attacks on sites including the Shatt al Arab hotel and the Shaibah logistics base, from which the UK will now pull back.

The main challenge in Basra is not insurgents fighting the government but militias, which frequently are part of the government. The militias often function as the armed wing of one of the half dozen Shia Islamist political factions competing for power in the city, as well as running their own smuggling or abduction rackets.

Britain handed over two other provinces, Dhi Qar and Muthanna, to Iraqi control last year. Both are substantially more peaceful than Basra. British or allied troops would intervene in these two provinces only in extraordinary circumstances.

The UK military is also responsible for Maysan, an anarchic province on the border with Iran whose extensive marshlands have historically served as a ­refuge for tribes resisting the central government. However, here it has only a small battle group on the border with Iran.

Apart from suffering from the failings of the US-led coalition policy, the UK added a few of its own, says the Washington Institute report. It is accused of showing “indecent haste” in cutting troop numbers immediately after the invasion in May 2003. While patting itself on the back for its “soft approach” to policing Basra and its “hearts and minds” focus, UK forces ceded power to the Shia ­militias.

The report said successful British counterinsurgencies in the past had been built on the back of strong partnerships with local security forces. However, in Iraq, these forces did not exist. There was a constant churn of military personnel too. By last November, 10 sets of British forces had rotated through Iraq, with each ­winter and spring seeing a big change of personnel.

British forces undertook superhuman efforts to ­res-tore Iraqi infrastructure, says the report. But it ­suggests the mission was undermined by important elements in the British ­government, including its military leadership, which “initially did not welcome the mission of regime change in Iraq and hoped for disengagement at the earliest practicable moment”.

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Citation: Stephen Fidler and Steve Negus. "Stability and rule of law remain a distant vision," Financial Times, 21 February 2007.
Original URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/be8e2316-c1e9-11db-ae23-000b5df10621.html
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