Wikileaks exposure deepens political crisis in Iraq

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Wikileaks exposure deepens political crisis in Iraq
By James Cogan
1 November 2010

The publication of thousands of US military reports by Wikileaks on October 22
has added to the tensions that underlie the ongoing failure of the main Iraqi
political factions to form a new government nearly eight months since the March
7 election.

The largely Sunni-based Iraqiya coalition, which holds 91 of the 325 seats in
the new parliament, has called for an investigation of acting Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki. The Wikileaks documents confirm what millions of Iraqis already
knew: that Maliki’s Shiite fundamentalist and Kurdish nationalist-dominated
government collaborated in a campaign of mass killing to suppress opposition to
the US occupation.

Iraqiya legislators issued a written demand on October 28 for the convening of
an emergency session of parliament to remove Maliki as acting prime minister and
form a commission of inquiry in conjunction with the judiciary and the UN to
bring charges against him. Just three days earlier, the Iraqi Supreme Court had
ruled that it was unconstitutional that the parliament had met only once, for 20
minutes, since the election.

Maliki has denounced the publication of the Wikileaks documents as a conspiracy
to prevent him retaining his post of prime minister. In reality, the reports are
powerful evidence of war crimes by the US-led occupation and the puppet regime
in Baghdad.

Maliki was installed as prime minister in April 2006, two months after the
destruction of the Shiite Al Askiriya mosque by alleged Sunni extremists. The Al
Askiriya attack was seized upon by the US occupation forces and the governing
Shiite parties to whip up a sectarian frenzy. US forces stood by while Shiite
militias, including the Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the
Iranian-linked Badr Brigade, rampaged through the suburbs of Baghdad and other
cities, looting and burning Sunni mosques, businesses and homes.

Over the following months, thousands of men were dragged from their homes or
seized on the streets by the predominantly Shiite Iraqi army and police, taken
to secret locations and brutalised or murdered. Hundreds of others who had been
detained by American troops were handed over to the Iraqi forces with the full
knowledge of what would happen to them. The Wikileaks documents contain numerous
references to the activities of Shiite death squads and over 1,000 reports by
American soldiers of allegations of torture and abuse.

Sunni extremist groups responded by escalating their own indiscriminate killings
and bombings against Shiite civilians. In the final months of 2006, as many as
100 bodies were being dumped in the streets of Iraq’s cities every night,
murdered by one or other rival faction. In many cases, the victims had been
decapitated or mutilated with electric drills and other devices.

It is estimated that 600,000 people fled their homes during 2006 to escape the
carnage. Many have never returned. Overall, it is estimated that up to two
million people were displaced by the sectarian violence.

The reign of terror presided over by Maliki achieved its intended purpose. It
broke the back of the Sunni-based insurgency by mid-2007—just as the thousands
of additional US troops sent as part of the Bush administration’s “surge” were
deploying into the country. By the end of 2007, the majority of Sunni guerrilla
fighters had accepted US offers of amnesty on the condition that they ceased
insurgent activity and joined the “Sons of Iraq”. While the formation of these
US-backed Sunni militias was portrayed as an uprising against “Al Qaeda” and
extremism, the Sons of Iraq primarily saw their role as protecting Sunni
communities from the Iraqi security forces.

The response to the Wikileaks documents underscores how politically fragile Iraq
actually is. The legacy of the horrors under US occupation has bred intense
sectarian hatred and divisions, which are exploited by rival elites in their
struggle for power and privilege. The March election resulted in a starkly
divided 325-seat parliament, with no grouping close to holding a 163-seat
majority. While Iraqiya won 91 seats, Maliki’s Shiite coalition, State of Law,
won 89.

Washington, which continues to occupy Iraq with 50,000 troops, has pushed for
State of Law and Iraqiya to combine and form a type of “national unity”
government with the Kurdish parties. But the bitter sectarian divisions have
continued. The Shiite establishment accuses the Sunni-based parties of being
fronts for Saddam Hussein’s old Baath Party. The Sunni elites, in turn,
regularly accuse the Shiite parties of being killers and pawns for the Iranian
regime.

Iraqiya is led by longstanding US collaborator Iyad Allawi and supported by most
of the Sunni Arab establishment that dominated the country under Saddam Hussein.
The bloc has insisted that as it won the most seats it must be part of any
government, with Allawi as prime minister.

Maliki has desperately tried to cling onto power without making major
concessions to the Sunni elites. He has instead sought a coalition with the
rival Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) that won 70 seats. The UIA is made up
of Moqtada al-Sadr loyalists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and
several smaller Shiite parties.

Washington is concerned that such an arrangement would see the Iranian
government, which has close relations with the Sadrists and ISCI, exert
significant influence over Iraqi policy. Iran, facing its own threats from the
US, could seek to derail US plans to maintain permanent military bases in Iraq
and to open up the country’s vast energy reserves to foreign domination.

Even if the entire UIA supported Maliki, however, he would still need the
support of the Kurdish nationalist parties, which hold 57 seats, to form government.

The 19 demands issued by the Kurdish alliance on October 22 make it virtually
impossible for an agreement to be struck. Included is the longstanding Kurdish
demand for a referendum in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk [Tamim] and other
areas of northern Iraq on whether to join the autonomous Kurdish Regional
Government (KRG).

The KRG exercises considerable powers in the northern areas of the country under
its control. It has independently entered into contracts for the exploration of
oil and gas deposits, and maintains its own substantial armed forces, the
Kurdish peshmerga.

Among the other terms demanded by the Kurdish parties is an agreement that the
Iraqi central government accepts legislation giving the KRG control over natural
resources and provides funds for more advanced equipment for the peshmerga. The
Kurdish leaders are also demanding the post of Iraqi president and a guaranteed
number of federal ministries.

All the Arab-based parties—whether Shiite or Sunni—oppose the push by the
Kurdish nationalists to expand their territory and increase their independence
from the Iraqi government. If Maliki accepted the Kurdish terms, he would lose
support elsewhere.

Amid the seemingly intractable stand-off, there is growing anger among broad
sections of the population, who face atrocious living standards and have no
confidence in the various factions of the political establishment. There have
been reports also that some members of the Sons of Iraq militia are deserting to
re-join insurgent organisations, including the Sunni extremist organisation Al
Qaeda in Iraq. There has been no major spike in violence, but bombings, attacks
on Iraqi police and assassinations are a daily occurrence, particularly in Baghdad.

The political impasse and early signs of a descent back to sectarian civil war
have been accompanied by rumours last month that the Obama administration might
ultimately encourage the US-created Iraqi security forces—a bloated apparatus of
over 660,000 personnel—to step in and carry out a coup.

As the WSWS noted last month, there would be an objective logic to such a step.
The Iraqi parliament has never been anything more than a façade behind which
every decision of importance was made by Washington and the US military. If the
parliament is so discredited and dysfunctional that it becomes an obstacle to US
imperialist interests, it will be swept aside.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/iraq-n01.shtml

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