Iraqi Security Takes Priority Over Iraqi Politics

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This boiling atmosphere underlies the need for change as the sovereign nation of Iraq attemps to develop it's new government. As President Bush himself said,

Moving key legislation depends on deal-making among major players in a society deeply divided along sectarian, ethnic, and other lines. Meaningful and lasting progress on national reconciliation may also require a sustained period of reduced violence in order to build trust. For this reason, most of the major political benchmarks identified in the legislation -- i.e., final passage of monumental pieces of legislation through Iraq’s Council of Representatives by consensus -- are lagging indicators of whether or not the strategy is succeeding or is going to be successful.

This recognizes the problems faced by the fledgling government, as well as identifying the need for patience before U.S. forces may begin the arduous journey home.

These lines were created long ago, and indeed Saddam's rise to power, which involved U.S. support, initially sought to rectify this with the creation of the Baath party. The baath party was a secular, rather than theological party, which in theory would have solved these problems. However under Saddam's regime, Sunni's were the only one's who profited, while the Shi'ite majority and Kurdish minority suffered. This, in turn, led to the lines being drawn, and the modern form of a democratic theocracy.

These conflicts have led to an upswing in violence, as each faction seeks not only assurances of their own power, but independance and oil control as well. This violence was indeed the cause of the recent "troop surge."

While our overarching strategy continues to emphasize a transition of responsibility to the Iraqi Government and its security forces, the New Way Forward recognized that, in response to the upsurge in sectarian violence in 2006, it was necessary for Coalition Forces to temporarily play a greater role, in conjunction with the Iraqi Security Forces, in securing the Iraqi population.

As differentiated from a "timeline"which could alert hostile forces to significant intel, these banchmarks steer the way to an autonomous Iraq, free of a U.S. military presence.

As the President explained in January, all of these efforts, together with a new diplomatic offensive in the region, are designed to set the conditions for U.S. troops to begin coming home, without risking a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, sanctuaries for international terrorist networks, or a broader regional conflict that would threaten U.S. national security interests for generations. (The strategy is explained in greater detail at
[url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf]http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf )

Those "benchmarks" outlined are,
1) Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.
-Satisfactory

2) Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Ba’athification reform.
-Unsatisfactory

3) Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources to the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shi’a Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.
-Unsatisfactory

4) Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions.
-Satisfactory

5) Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections.
• Establishing the IHEC Commission: satisfactory
• Elections Law: unsatisfactory
• Provincial Council Authorities: unsatisfactory
• Provincial Elections Date: unsatisfactory

6) Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.
-

The prerequisites for a successful general amnesty are not present; however, in the current security environment, it is not clear that such action should be a near-term Iraqi goal.

7) Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the constitution of Iraq.
-The prerequisites for a successful militia disarmament program are not present.

8) Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.
-unsatisfactory

9) Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.
-satisfactory

10) Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions in consultation with U.S. Commanders without political intervention to include the authority to pursue all extremists including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
-unsatisfactory

11) Ensuring that Iraqi Security Forces are providing even-handed enforcement of the law.
-unsatisfactory

12) Ensuring that, as Prime Minister Maliki was quoted by President Bush as saying, “the Baghdad Security Plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.”
-satisfactory

13) Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.
-Sectarian violence reduction satisfactory, militia control of security unsatisfactory

14) Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad.
-satisfactory

15) Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently.
-unsatisfactory

16) Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.
-satisfactory

17) Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.
-satisfactory

18) Ensuring that Iraq’s political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the ISF.
-unsatisfactory

Despite an unsatisfactory onseveral benchmarks, they are indeed showing positive growth. For instance, Benchmark 15 has an unsatisfactory rating despite the Iraqi forces currentlyoutnumbering theU.S.presence. This unsatisfactory growth simply denotes that the speed at which it is accomplished is not as fast as we would like. Many of these unsatisfactory ratings are due to internal corruption, in which insurgents and militias have infiltrated the Iraqi government and militiary. Dealing with this sort of corruption will make this a long occupation indeed.

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