IRAQ ON THE EDGE EACE P UND FOR UND F THE IRAQ REPORT #10 2009-2010 PAULINE H. BAKER Copyright ©2010 The Fund for Peace All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent from The Fund for Peace. The Fund for Peace 1720 I Street, NW, 7th Floor Washington, DC 20006 Tel: 202-223-7940 Fax: 202-223-7947 www.fundforpeace.org Table of Contents PREFACE........................................................................................................2 SUMMARY ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 3 INDICATOR RATINGS ................................................................................ 8 FIG. 1: CONFLICT TREND, MARCH 2003 TO MARCH 2010 ................................8 GRAPH 1: INDICATOR SCORES, MARCH 2003 TO DECEMBER 2008 ................9 GRAPH 1 (CONT.): INDICATOR SCORES, JANUARY 2009 TO MARCH 2010 .......10 METHODOLOGICAL NOTE...................................................................... 11 APPENDIX I: August 2009 ................................................................. 13 APPENDIX II: September 2009.......................................................... 31 APPENDIX III: October 2009............................................................. 50 APPENDIX IV: November 2009......................................................... 66 APPENDIX V: December 2009........................................................... 84 APPENDIX VI: January 2010............................................................. 97 APPENDIX VII: February 2010......................................................... 113 APPENDIX VIII: March 2010 ............................................................ 130 MAPS ..................................................................................................... 149 1 Preface Although there have been many reports on Iraq, The Fund for Peace (FfP) is contributing to the debate by providing a systematic evaluation of Iraqi progress, or lack thereof, using specific metrics for measuring social, economic, and political stabilization since the invasion in April 2003. Applying CAST (the Conflict Analysis System Tool), the analytical framework developed by the FfP to assess societies at risk of internal conflict and state collapse, this series of reports evaluates Iraq’s progress toward sustainable security – the state at which the country is largely peaceful and capable of governing itself without external military or administrative oversight.1 The methodology employed is detailed in the Methodological Note at the end of this report. Briefly, it is based on independent ratings of twelve top conflict indicators enumerated in the attached charts and assessment of five core political institutions (military, police, civil service, system of justice and leadership) and “stings” (unanticipated events and factors). The purpose of the ratings is to trace patterns and trends over time. Ratings are reviewed carefully, based on information gleaned from open-source English and Arabic language sources, government reports, diverse organizations and groups that have conducted site visits in Iraq, and various scholars and journalists. While research assistants and staff at the FfP have contributed to the report, the conclusions are entirely the responsibility of the author. She has been ably assisted in these reports by outstanding students who have brought creative skills, thoughtful insights, and critical minds to a topic that is highly complex and controversial. She would like to take this opportunity to thank the 32 research assistants and staff who contributed to the drafting and publication of all the reports released in the FfP Iraq Report series since 2003: Muwafaq Al-Serhan, Afa Alizada, Jenesil Benito, Nick Carney, Suzie Clarke, Lauren Crain, Sumani Dash, Gamze Demirtola, Samantha DeFilippo, Jennifer Doumato, Kathleen Gillen, Ashley Heacock, Arpine Hovasapyan, Kavitha Joseph, Mohamed Jourieh, Alex Kapitanskaya, Gina King, Margarita Konaev, Andrew Levin, Matthew Manes, Amy Matt, Tim Newcomb, Lauren O’Brien, Jennifer Oie, Cynthia Parmley, Bradley W. Pope, Jessica Rice, Anianna Sarar, Will Seuffert, Günther Von Billerbeck, James Waterhouse and Liana Wyler. For this report, special thanks go to Afa Alizada, Ashley Heacock, Margarita Konaev, Jessica Rice and James Waterhouse for their excellent research assistance. 1 For another application of the CAST methodology, see the “Failed States Index” in Foreign Policy, July/August 2008. Additional details on the methodology, as well as prior reports on Iraq, can be obtained on The Fund for Peace Web site at www.fundforpeace.org. 2 Summary Analysis This is the tenth and final report in a series that monitored conflict risk in Iraq from the time of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 until parliamentary elections were held in March 2010. Each report examined twelve social, economic and political/military indicators, tracking developments in incremental periods over a total of 84 months.2 The objective was to assess progress, or lack thereof, following the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. At that time, Iraq was a strongman state with weak state institutions. Grave human rights abuses, lingering group grievances, inequality, sectarian tensions, massive corruption, and economic problems from mismanagement, international sanctions and war costs made it a weak state. But Saddam, a classic strongman, retained formidable security resources and imposed tight authoritarian control.3 The U.S.-led invasion pushed the country over the brink, making it a failed state. Saddam fled, state institutions collapsed, a power vacuum emerged, the professional classes left, millions were displaced, and sectarian rivalries plunged the country into a well-organized insurgency and a vicious civil war. That was not the way it was supposed to happen. Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the second Gulf War was known, was depicted by the U.S. administration at the time as a war that would eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which were said to have presented an “imminent” and “grave” threat to American national security. Proponents argued that the occupying troops would be welcomed by the oppressed local population and that the war would be short and cheap, paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues. The result was to be a democracy that would become a beacon to the Middle East. Saddam was driven from power and eventually executed. However, there were no weapons of mass destruction found in the country. Seven years later, U.S. costs had soared to an estimated $704 billion, none of which was paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues.4 Instead of a democracy, terrorism soared, a sectarian civil war broke out, oil production plummeted, and public services declined. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed.5 2 See www.fundforpeace.org/trackingIraq. The twelve indicators were drawn from the framework of the Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST) produced by the FfP. Details are contained in the methodological note in this report. 3 We make a distinction between a “strong state,” which has functioning governance institutions that fulfill their functions and serve the people, and a “strongman state,” which is led by authoritarian leaders who often abuse the law, commit human rights abuses, mismanage the economy, commit widespread corruption, and undermine state institutions. Strongman states may be benevolent dictatorships, but they are inherently unstable nonetheless; once the top leaders are removed from the scene, the institutions are usually too weak to sustain peaceful leadership succession, fulfill their functions, or manage crises. 4 This is the estimate as of February, 2010 by the Congressional Budget Office. No definitive study of war costs has been made, but all estimates agree that the costs have far exceeded projections. Nor do they include, as yet, the costs of bringing the troops back home (roughly $5-7 billion) or of the post-combat troop deployment estimated at $1-4 billion. Indeed, of all U.S. wars, only World War II cost more than the Iraq war. 5 There is no authoritative assessment, as yet, on how many people died from the war. However, the general consensus tends to be from 50,000 to 100,000. The other human costs of the war, as of March 2010, were 4.397 U.S. troops killed, 31,778 U.S. troops wounded, 316 non-U.S. troop casualties, and 140 journalists killed. 3 Historians will debate how and why the U.S. got it so wrong. What this study investigated is whether it could be put right. That is, putting aside the question of the justification of the war, we wanted to assess whether the shattered state could achieve sustainable security—the capacity to solve its internal problems peacefully without an outside administrative or military presence. In essence, this was a test case of state-building, albeit one for which the U.S. was totally unprepared. The Seven-Year Trend Line Over the course of seven years, Iraq went through five phases, roughly following the pattern of a jagged bell curve, as shown in Fig. 1: Stage 1 - Foreign Entry: (March 2003-September 2003) Stage 2 - Loss of Control: (September 2003-March 2006) Stage 3 - Full-Scale Civil War: (March 2006-March 2008) Stage 4 - Turning Point: (March 2008-March 2009) Stage 5 - Stasis: (March 2009-March 2010) At the outset, there was a window of opportunity when the situation improved. The security apparatus that kept Saddam in power dissolved, and massive human rights violations