US RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ

US RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ

ABSTRACT

Iraq is a fascinating case study for anyone looking to study the influence of the western powers in the middle east. The country has gone through a myriad of political changes, most of them orchestrated by the western powers. Since the US invasion in 2003, a major reconstruction exercise was undertaken by the Foreign governments, and Iraq. This reconstruction exercise is widely regarded as being a failure. The major focus on the reconstruction process in Iraq has been on the involvement of the United States as the Iraqi reconstruction venture stands only second to Afghanistan in terms of capital (Smith, 2015). This, however, is not the sole reason for US centrality in the issue. The primary reason that the United States’ role is so focussed upon is because of the approach it undertook. The United States’ endeavours are riddled with accusations of insensitivity to the Iraqi context, and of corruption and exploitation. 

AIM OF THE RESEARCH ESSAY

The essay aims to cover two aspects of the reconstruction exercise undertaken by the US in Iraq. First is the contextual aspect and the second is the logistical aspect. The contextual aspect entails the importance given to ethnicities during the transition period of the post-invasion Iraq and the logistical aspect refers to the reconstruction efforts conducted specifically by the US. Both these aspects are an extensive study by themselves therefore this essay does not aim to provide answers but to raise concerns leaving the stage open for further study and exploration.

INTRODUCTION

To summarize, one could say that Iraq’s modern history is riddled with western influence. It began with the British imperial rule which was overthrown in 1958. This was followed by a period of instability which was reigned in when the Ba’ath party came to power though a bloodless coup in 1968. The Ba’ath party undertook an ambitious development plan for Iraq and backed it with oil revenues. This period saw an increase in the quality of life and social indices in Iraq, in addition to that, Iraq also succeeded in creating the largest and best equipped military force in the Arab World. The regime was, however, not as stable as it looked on the surface and in 1979, Saddam Hussein forced the then president al-Bakr to resign and became the president of Iraq. Saddam’s rule saw many military adventures namely the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 and the Persian Gulf War in 1990. 

Saddam’s rule resulted in a chaotic period for Iraq in the 90s. Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in august 1990; the UN Security Council passed resolution 660 condemning this invasion and demanded Iraq’s withdrawal; On August 8th, Iraq declared Kuwait as its 19th province; a U.S. led military coalition intervened following this as the west began to feel threatened by Iraq’s aggressive posturing in the region; the coalition’s operations began on January 17, 1991 following which the Iraqi military crumbled after one week of fighting; Iraq withdrew from Kuwait and accepted the security council’s resolutions.

Post 9/11 however, the American administration became very suspicious of activities in Iraq; this combined with the Iraq’s constant refusal to entertain the UNSCOM’s (United Nation Special Commission) efforts to verify the destruction of WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and the ‘One-percent Doctrine’ (American government needs to act against a state even if there is one percent chance that it is harbouring terrorism) contributed to the invasion of 2003 (Seliktar, 2008). The environment of fear created after the 9/11 attacks, intelligence reports that Iraq was looking to further its nuclear capability, and the assured low cost of the war (which was estimated at $50-60 Billion) (Boyle, 2013) helped appropriate the invasion to the American public.

The military operations severely damaged the infrastructure in major Iraqi towns and cities and destroyed much of the Iraqi armed forces. This chaos caused a lot of social unrest and secessionist movements in the following years in Iraq. 

Iraq needed reconstruction in almost every sphere including electricity supply, infrastructure, healthcare, education, and state structures. Reconstruction funds (according to 2012 data) came mainly from Iraq ($138 billion- backed by oil proceeds), United States ($61 billion), and other foreign governments ($14 billion) (Lutz, 2013). 

THE DEMOCRACY DILEMMA

According to Andreas Wimmer, 2007 successful democratisation is important from the American foreign-policy perspective. He also states that the focus of war has shifted from elimination of dangerous weapons to regime change and handing over power to ex-generals or Ba’athist party officials wasn’t an option for the US. The major deterrents to this process was the reluctance of the local political structure to adapt ‘a secularised political system with a clear division of power’ (Wimmer, 2007) and the prevalence of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. 

The demography of Iraq is made up of 75% Mesopotamian Arabs, 17% Kurds, 3% Turkmen, 2% Assyrians and 2% Persians (McWilliams & Piotrowski, 2016). The Kurds had been following control over their autonomous region which was propagated by the 1991 and 2003 wars against Saddam Hussein. The Kurdish had a reasonably democratic government and a powerful army and was consequently looked upon favourably by the Bush administration. The administration was also committed to a unified Iraq under the Maliki government which was in contrast with the situation on ground where the Iraqi government had no control over territory claimed by the Kurds in Iraq (McWilliams & Piotrowski, 2016). 

In addition to that the Shia and Sunni parts of the population were at odds with each other vis-à-vis democracy.  The majority of the population the Shias wanted an Islamic state while the Sunnis believed that it was their right to govern Iraq. When Nouri al-Maliki became the Prime Minister of Iraq he was cooperative with the Bush administration to the extent that his party let him. His party the ‘Islamic Dawa party’ was opposed to the presence of the west in Iraq but US’s assistance in the form of money and military training kept the US presence alive in Iraq.

The US diplomat Paul Bremer while Drawing up the first transitional laws stated that “ethnicity has no place in the new Iraq, that the country’s citizens were all Iraqis” (McWilliams & Piotrowski, 2016). To add to this the limitations of the consociational arrangement in Iraq namely lacked the two most important aspects of consociationalism which are the grand coalition and veto (Ltaif, 2015). Grand coalition ensures power sharing among groups of a plural society and veto allows cultural communities to block any move that may be deemed as unfavourable to them. The absence of these aspects has decreased the acceptability of the system to the different ethnic groups in Iraq. 

One could say that there is a societal aspect to reconstruction. This aspect aims to prevent the resurgence of violence so as to protect a society from slipping back into chaos. Therefore, one can say that US’s dual stand on Kurdistan, and its inconsideration towards the ethnic aspects of the society prevented the integration of the society. In addition to that the rise of ISI and the subsequent involvement of the American troops in the war against ISI has been taxing on the Iraqi and American societies.

THE POLITICS BEHIND RECONSTRUCTION

Reconstruction of Iraq entailed a lot of contracts and in the US alone as of 2012 more than 70 American companies were awarded contracts worth almost $8 billion (Beelman, 2012). There was a disturbing trend observed in the companies that were awarded the contracts, however. Out of the companies which bagged the contracts Kellogg, Brown & Root is the most controversial as it is the subsidiary of Halliburton which the then Vice President Dick Cheney led before taking office. Apart from Kellogg, Brown & Root there were other companies which too had good connections with either members of congress, or of high levels in the military.

Most of the US money was spent on creating and training security forces, and lost to profiteering, waste, fraud or on ill-advised projects. The prevalence of such practices in the reconstruction programs have led to the failure of many reconstruction goals. In 2012, Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen noted that “the record of what the U.S. built in Iraq and what we transferred to Iraqi Control is full of holes” (Lutz, 2013).

Corruption on the Iraqi side has slumped major growth too. Local officials who were responsible for reconstruction projects regularly siphoned off money from the projects to private pockets. This resulted in the construction of inferior infrastructure and inefficient implementation of reconstruction programs. Further according to a SIGIR (Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) a lot of the funds allocated for reconstruction has been used for military and security purposes. This showcases the attention given to militarization of the state, albeit an important exercise to protect the country from the insurgencies and rebel outbursts, instead of to the construction of basic infrastructure which in contrast have received much smaller sums of capital.

Another feature of the reconstruction in Iraq was the lack of outputs in the projects. State Department whistle-blower, Peter Van Buren describes it in the following manner “We measured the impact of our projects by their effect on us, not by their effect on the Iraqis. Output was the word missing from the vocabulary of developing Iraq. Everything was measured only by what we put in dollars spent, hours committed, people engaged, press releases written.” According to Van Buren such an attitude resulted in the spending on projects which were unnecessary and as a domino effect decreased the money directed to basic health care and infrastructure projects which in turn affected the public health and welfare increasing the costs there (Buren, 2011). 

CONCLUSION

The United States was unsuccessful in their attempt at reconstruction in Iraq both at the macro and micro levels. This in turn acts as a lesson to policy makers and academicians to be conscious about the on-ground effects of the policies and suggestions made regarding reconstruction of a state which do not take into consideration the on-ground realities of the state in question, in this case Iraq. This as a consequence can lead to devastating effects such as large-scale civil war and can also create a fertile breeding ground for trans-national terrorist organizations. In order to avoid such effects, it is important to take a more wholesome approach when it comes to peace building and reconstruction of a state.

REFERENCES

Beelman, M. (2012, May 7). U.S. contractors reap th windfalls of post-war reconstruction. Retrieved from International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: https://www.icij.org/investigations/windfalls-war/us-contractors-reap-windfalls-post-war-reconstruction-0/

Boyle, M. (2013, March 11). How the US public was defrauded by the hidden cost of the Iraq war. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/us-public-defrauded-hidden-cost-iraq-war

Buren, P. V. (2011). We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Central Statistical Organization Iraq. (2019). demographical indicators. Retrieved from Central Statistical Organization Iraq: http://cosit.gov.iq/en/rtl-support

Ltaif, E. A. (2015). The Limitations of the Consociational Arrangements in Iraq. Ethnopolitics Papers.

Lutz, C. (2013, March 8). Reconstructing Iraq: the Last Year and the Last Deade. Retrieved from Watson Institute for international Studies, Brown University: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/economic

McWilliams, W. C., & Piotrowski, H. (2016). September 11, Afghnistan, and Iraq. In W. C. McWilliams, & H. Piotrowski, The World since 1945 (pp. 563-564). Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Seliktar, O. (2008). The Politics od Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Smith, R. J. (2015, Markc 15). The Failed Reconstruction of Iraq. Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/the-failed-reconstruction-of-iraq/274041/

Wimmer, A. (2007). Democracy and Ethno-religious Conflict in Iraq. Survival Global Politics and Strategy, 111-134.

36