DISCLAIMER:  

This  document  does  not  meet  the current  format  guidelines  of

the Graduate  School  at    The  University  of  Texas  at  Austin.  

It  has  been  published  for  informational  use  only.  

Copyright

by

Anna Mae Gibson

2015

The Thesis Committee for Anna Mae Gibson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis:

Should Old Acquaintance (Not) Be Forgot: United States’ Policies and Actions in Iraq and their Effects on the Lasting Presence of Iraqi Shi’i

Militias (2003-2011)

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Kamran Scot Aghaie

Faegheh Shirazi

Supervisor:

Should Old Acquaintance (Not) Be Forgot: United States’ Policies and Actions in Iraq and their Effects on the Lasting Presence of Iraqi Shi’i

Militias (2003-2011)

by

Anna Mae Gibson, B.A.

Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin May 2015

iv

Abstract

Should Old Acquaintance (Not) Be Forgot: United States’ Policies and Actions in Iraq and their Effects on the Lasting Presence of Iraqi Shi’i

Militias (2003-2011)

Anna Mae Gibson, M.A.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2015

Supervisor: Kamran Scot Aghaie

It is the goal of this project to survey the period (2001-2003) leading up to the

U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the period of U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority

(CPA) rule over Iraq from 2003-2004, and the subsequent period of U.S. military

presence from 2004-2011, in order to assess the effects U.S. policies and actions had on

the evolution of Iraq’s Shi’i militias. This assessment will seek to answer the fundamental

question: what role did the U.S. play in contributing to the enduring existence of Shi’i

militias in Iraq?

In brief, at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom Shi’i militias benefited from the

rapid outbreak of the violent Sunni insurgency, which diverted the attention of U.S. and

Coalition Forces away from the Shi’i militias. In the first years of the U.S. presence,

existing Shi’i political movements returned to Iraq from exile and fractured, while new

indigenous movements, like Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, sprang up and became

dominant. Even after the Shi’i militias were deemed to be a credible threat to Coalition

v

forces around 2004-2005, the established, narrow Coalition target set limited combat

actions against these militias. With the initiation of the Surge in 2007, U.S. forces were

afforded greater freedom to target the militias and made significant gains in degrading the

most violent groups. However, soon after the successes of the Surge were becoming

evident, the U.S. signed a status of forces agreement with Iraq in 2008, which again

reduced the latitude with which U.S. forces could act against the Shi’i militias. Shortly

thereafter, the U.S. fully withdrew combat forces from Iraq and the militias were able to

regroup at will. Since the U.S. withdrawal, the most violent Shi’i militias have turned to

the conflict in Syria, and later, to the fight against IS in Iraq.

vi

Table of Contents

List of Figures ....................................................................................................... vii  

Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................4  

Chapter 2: Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Policies and Iraqi Shi’i Political Movements—a Return to Iraq, a Policy of Disregard (2003-2004) ...............7  A Brief History of Iraqi Shi’i Political Movements Pre-U.S. Invasion ..........8  Planning for the Invasion of Iraq, 2001-2003 ...............................................13  Overview of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) .............................20  The Birth of an Indigenous Iraqi Shi’i Movement ........................................22  

Chapter 3: U.S. Achieves Limited Military Success Against Iraqi Shi’i Militias (2005-2011), Enduring Impact Elusive ...................................................................30  Legal Approach: Transition of Power, 2005-2006 .......................................32  militaristic approach: the Surge, 2007 ..........................................................37  Backseat Approach: U.S. on the Sidelines, 2008-2011 ................................46  Concluding Analysis .....................................................................................52  

Chapter 4: Conclusion ............................................................................................54  

Appendices .............................................................................................................57  Appendix A: Acronyms ................................................................................57  Appendix B: Iraqi Shi’i Political Parties and Corresponding Militias .........59  

Bibliography ..........................................................................................................60  Figure Sources ..............................................................................................71  

 

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of Iraq, 2009 .....................................................................................1  

Figure 2: Distribution of Ethnoreligious Groups in Iraq, 2003 ...............................2  

Figure 3: Map of Baghdad, Sadr City highlighted ...................................................3  

Figure 4: Some Militias Present in Iraq, 2004 .......................................................24  

 

1

Figure 1: Map of Iraq, 2009

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2

Figure 2: Distribution of Ethnoreligious Groups in Iraq, 2003

3

Figure 3: Map of Baghdad, Sadr City highlighted

4

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Iraqi political landscape has continued to evolve dramatically since the U.S.-

led invasion of 2003, and of late, has been defined by immense, enduring security

challenges. Presently, Iraq is struggling to expel the Islamic State (IS) from its territory

and to rebuild its armed forces, which was widely seen as crumbling in the face of the

initial IS incursion during the summer of 2014.1 Complicating the situation, in the same

summer Iraq also witnessed the first transition of its chief executive since 2006, when

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government succeeded the Iraqi Transitional

Government. With the current political context in mind, this project will take a historical

approach in examining Iraq’s Shi’i militias—which are playing a critical role in the fight

against IS—and their evolution since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. In light of renewed

U.S. military involvement in Iraq as of late-summer 2014, it is important to take pause

and reflect on the historical trends that are informing the current security environment.

This transitional, and perhaps transformational, time in Iraqi politics provides a ripe

opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the factors that led to the current state of affairs

with regards to the enduring prominence of Iraqi Shi’i militias.

Currently, Iraq’s Shi’i militias are engaged, with Iranian support, in fighting IS

alongside the Iraqi Army; they are also active in Syria fighting on behalf of the Bashar al-

Asad regime. An Iraqi government minister remarked on one group’s remarkable

evolution, "Little more than seven years ago, [Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH)] [was] just

another Iranian proxy used to attack the Americans. Now they have political legitimacy

and their tentacles in all the [Iraqi] security apparatus[es]. Some of us didn't notice until it

1 Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon, “The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long Before Its Collapse,” The New York Times, 12 June 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/american-intelligence-officials-said-iraqi-military-had-been-in-decline.html?_r=0.

5

was too late."2 Another Iraqi familiar with the prominent group noted, “No sooner had

the Americans gone than Syria exploded,” referring to the significant role Iraq’s Shi’i

militias played in escalating the Syrian conflict.3 Some commentators on the conflict

have even ventured to say that the Iraqi Shi’i militias, in coordination with Lebanese

Hezbollah and Iran, have turned the tide of the conflict in Syria—at the very least staving

off what once appeared to be the imminent defeat of the Bashar al-Asad regime.4

General David Petraeus, the American general who commanded U.S. and

Coalition forces in Iraq during the surge of 2007-2008, contemplated the current threats

facing Iraq and arrived at a telling conclusion: “I would argue that the foremost threat to

Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State;

rather, it is Shiite militias, many backed by—and some guided by—Iran.”5 Therefore, it

is the goal of this project to survey the period (2001-2003) leading up to the U.S. invasion

of Iraq in March 2003, the period of U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) rule

over Iraq from 2003-2004, and the subsequent period of U.S. military presence from

2004-2011, in order to assess the effects U.S. policies and actions had on the evolution of

Iraq’s Shi’i militias. This assessment will seek to answer the fundamental question: what

role did the U.S. play in contributing to the enduring existence of Shi’i militias in Iraq?

In brief, at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom Shi’i militias benefited from the

rapid outbreak of the violent Sunni insurgency, which diverted the attention of U.S. and

Coalition Forces away from the Shi’i militias. In the first years of the U.S. presence,

2 Martin Chulov, “Controlled by Iran, the Deadly Militia Recruiting Iraq’s Men to Die in Syria,” The Guardian, 12 March 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/iraq-battle-dead-valley-peace-syria. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Liz Sly, “Petraeus: The Islamic State Isn’t Our Biggest Problem in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 20 March 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/20/petraeus-the-islamic-state-isnt-our-biggest-problem-in-iraq/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.

6

existing Shi’i political movements returned to Iraq from exile and fractured, while new

indigenous movements, like Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, sprang up and became

dominant. Even after the Shi’i militias were deemed to be a credible threat to Coalition

forces around 2004-2005, the established, narrow Coalition target set limited combat

actions against these militias. With the initiation of the Surge in 2007, U.S. forces were

afforded greater freedom to target the militias and made significant gains in degrading the

most violent groups. However, soon after the successes of the Surge were becoming

evident, the U.S. signed a status of forces agreement with Iraq in 2008, which again

reduced the latitude with which U.S. forces could act against the Shi’i militias. Shortly

thereafter, the U.S. fully withdrew combat forces from Iraq and the militias were able to

regroup at will. As the earlier discussion demonstrated, the most violent Shi’i militias

turned to the conflict in Syria, and later, to the fight against IS in Iraq.

7

Chapter 2: Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Policies and Iraqi Shi’i Political Movements—a Return to Iraq, a Policy of Disregard (2003-2004)

This chapter seeks to answer the overarching question, “How did U.S. pre-

invasion planning from 2001 to 2003 and Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) rule

from 2003 to 2004 contribute to the factionalization of Shi’i political parties and

organizations active in Iraq today?” An emphasis on Iraq’s Shi’i political parties, versus

their corresponding militias, is most suitable for the period at hand, and will inform the

subsequent, central discussion on the militias themselves. Specifically, this chapter will

focus on the period leading up to and immediately following the United States’ invasion

of Iraq, with emphasis given to the period of CPA rule from 2003 to 2004. This chapter

endeavors to answer several interrelated questions: When and how were the various Shi’i

militias created—did they exist before the invasion or did they emerge in response to

post-invasion conditions? What was the relationship between the Shi’i political

movements and their corresponding militias, and how did these relationships evolve?

Additionally, what did the United States understand about Iraqi Shi’is on the eve of the

2003 U.S. invasion, and what did it learn or fail to learn within the first year of the

invasion? Generally, what was the initial U.S. experience with Iraqi Shi’is after the

invasion? And by extension, what happened to Shi’i political movements and political

parties immediately after the removal of Saddam Hussein that same year? How were

these groups incorporated into the transitional government structures—were they dealt

with in the aggregate as political parties, or as disparate, individual leaders without regard

for party identification? Finally, what caused the Shi’is to revolt against the occupying

force in 2004, and how did this event shape the future of Shi’i political movements,

specifically the rise of Shi’i militias? Ultimately, this chapter will serve as the foundation

for the central focus of this project—the effects of U.S. policy on Iraqi Shi’i militias, and

8

how U.S. actions, or inaction, played a role in the continued existence of some groups

into the present.

In the ensuing analysis, a range of primary sources will be utilized. A trove of

State Department documents on the Future of Iraq Project reveals the pre-war planning

undertaken by that agency between 2001 and 2003. These documents also reveal telling

information about which Iraqis the State Department considered potentially influential in

the post-invasion governance of Iraq. Furthermore, committee reports from both the

British Parliament and the U.S. Congress provide expert testimony on the status of post-

invasion operations and the government transition process. CPA documents and speeches

by CPA Administrator L. Paul Bremer III provide information on the creation of the Iraqi

Governing Council, the transition process, and issues related to Shi’i militias from the

perspective of the CPA. The Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) drafted by the Iraqi

Governing Council and an accompanying U.S. Government Accountability Office report

to Congress illustrate the governing structures created and how these did or did not

account for the participation of the major Shi’i political movements.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRAQI SHI’I POLITICAL MOVEMENTS PRE-U.S. INVASION

The Shi’i political movement in Iraq was initially manifested in the Da’wa

Party—formed in opposition to the secular, nationalistic Iraqi government that came to

power in 1958. The Da’wa Party was the first organized, political representation of Iraqi

Shi’is in the formative post-colonial years between 1958-1964. By the 1970s, the Ba’ath

regime and its vice-president, Saddam Hussein, perceived the country’s Shi’i majority as

a legitimate threat to its rule, and in particular, saw the Da’wa Party as the face of that

threat.

9

Consequently, throughout the 1970s, the movement came into conflict with the

Ba’athist regime, culminating in a violent revolt in 1977. The Iranian Revolution of 1979

inspired and further ignited the movement, and by 1980 the Da’wa Party was banned in

Iraq. Membership in the party became punishable by death, and some of the party

leadership relocated its headquarters to Iran. Other members and leaders of the party

stayed in Iraq, located mostly in the south; still others relocated to London.6

However, the banning of the Da’wa Party in Iraq had regional consequences. In

1982, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) was founded in

Iran. The formation of the party was a result of the Iranian government’s desire to

centralize its efforts to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime during the Iran-Iraq War

(1980-1988).7 From 1982-1984, the exiled Iraqi Da’wa Party was a member of this new

umbrella organization.8

SCIRI and Da’wa ultimately became competitors and were divided over a basic

tenet of governance: SCIRI believed, like Ayatollah Khomeini, that the ulama (Islamic

scholars) should control an Islamic government; Da’wa, however, believed that the

ummah (the Muslim community) should govern. Thus, SCIRI’s conception of

governance was more closely aligned with that of its host, and this helped to ingratiate

the group with Iran. Regardless of the ideological tensions, however, the Iraqi Shi’i

political movement—then represented by the Da’wa Party and SCIRI—was largely based

out of Iran from the Iran-Iraq War until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which

opened the floodgates for the return of Shi’i political groups.

6 Juan Cole, “The Iraqi Shiites,” 1 October 2003, http://bostonreview.net/world/juan-cole-iraqi-shiites-0. 7 Faleh A. Jabar, The Shi’ite Movement in Iraq, London: Saqi, 2003, 18. 8 Juan Cole, “The Iraqi Shiites,” 1 October 2003, http://bostonreview.net/world/juan-cole-iraqi-shiites-0.

10

Separately, following the First Gulf War (1991), the United States aided in the

formation of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella group for the broad Iraqi

opposition, which was based internally in Salahuddin, Iraq, and externally in London.

Led by exiled Shi’i businessman, Ahmad Chalabi, the INC sought to overthrow the

government of Saddam Hussein. From 1992 onwards, the major Shi’i political parties—

Da’wa (London branch) and SCIRI—participated in the congress, along with a spectrum

of other opposition groups including Kurdish groups, Sunni groups, and Arab nationalist

groups.9 However, only a few years after its founding the INC began to collapse, as the

representative parties withdrew one by one.10 The collapse was precipitated by infighting

between the two main Kurdish groups, and ultimately caused the U.S. to withdraw its

funding in 1996. The U.S. experience with the INC in the 1990s should have

demonstrated the futility of trying to reconcile all Iraqi political voices within a single

organization. More importantly, although the INC began to receive U.S. funding again in

2002, the expatriate congress struggled to maintain its relevance to Iraqis once it returned

from exile in 2003.11

Other notable but lesser Shi’i or Shi’i-led organizations that participated in the

opposition prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion include the Iraqi National Accord (INA)

and the Islamic Action Organization (IAO). The first of these organizations, Iraqi

National Accord (INA), is a secular political party led by Shi’is. Founded in 1991 by Iyad

Allawi and Salah Omar al-Ali, membership in the party has historically been comprised

of former Ba’athists and bureaucrats drawn largely from military and security personnel

9 “Iraqi National Congress (INC),” Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/incongress.htm. 10 Jabar, 18. 11 Kristian P. Alexander, "Iraqi National Congress," Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Ed. Philip Mattar, 2nd ed. Vol. 2, New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004, 1136-1137, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Web.

11

who defected from the Iraqi Army.12 INA is often mischaracterized in the Western press

as a Sunni organization because of its secular orientation, but many of its senior leaders

are Shi’is, including the party’s leader, Iyad Allawi, who served as the first Prime

Minister of Iraq after CPA rule ended in 2004.13

Conversely, The IAO was founded in Iraq in 1961 by ulama in Karbala.14 After

Saddam Hussein purged the upper ranks of the Ba’ath Party and exiled several thousand

Shi’is in the summer of 1979, the IAO, among other active Shi’i Islamic groups, became

militant, launching a number of guerilla attacks in Baghdad.15 Notably, the IAO and its

associated groups exhibited for the first time among Iraqi Shi’i political organizations the

practice of maintaining separate civilian and militant wings.

Not long after the aforementioned Shi’i guerilla attacks in 1979, SCIRI gained its

own militia, the Badr Brigade, which continues to play an influential role in Iraq. The

Badr Army, as it was first known, was stood up as an overt unit of the Iranian

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by the Iranian government in or around 1979-1980,

and was composed largely of Iraqi deportees and Shi’i prisoners of war.16 Badr Army

soldiers fell under the IRGC chain of command, which provided them with training and

arms.17 The founding mission of the unit was to fight against Iraqi forces in the Iran-Iraq

War, and against another foe of Tehran, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran.18

Eventually, however, after the creation of SCIRI in 1982, nominal command and

12 Rend Rahim Francke and Graham E. Fuller, The Arab Shi’a: The Forgotten Muslims, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999, 108. 13 Ibid. 14 Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi’as, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992, 37. 15 Ibid., 53-54; Ibid., 55. 16 Jabar, 253. 17 Ibid. 18 “A Brief on the 9th Badr Corps,” Near East Policy Research, September 2001, http://neareastpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BRIEF-BADR.pdf.

12

ownership of the unit was transferred from the IRGC to SCIRI. The unit was renamed

twice over a short period: from Badr Army to the al-Sadr Regiment, and finally to

Regiment Badr Nine—although Badr Brigade continues to be the most popular name for

referencing the group.19 Despite the nominal transfer of ownership to SCIRI, Iran

discreetly maintained command over the unit. Thus, the early life of the Badr Brigade

highlights a key trend that returns to prominence during the U.S. presence in Iraq: Iranian

involvement, and likely command and control, over Shi’i militias. Since the U.S.

presence in Iraq, the Badr Brigade has grown into a corps, and further into an

organization independent of SCIRI.

Returning to the history of the major Shi’i groups, in 1996 SCIRI reestablished

contact with the U.S. government, and became an integral part of the broad-based Iraqi

opposition forces, which were regularly consulted by Washington for the purpose of

attempting to revive the INC.20 In 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Iraq

Liberation Act, which called for the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime from power,

and, more importantly for the purposes of this project, authorized financial and material

support to democratic Iraqi opposition groups to be designated by the President.21 In the

first round of designations, the INC, INA, and SCIRI, among others, were approved to

receive support.22 Unlike SCIRI, Da’wa was excluded from U.S. patronage during this

period because it was branded a terrorist organization, due to its alleged perpetration of a

bombing campaign in Kuwait in the 1980s; the Islamic Action Organization similarly

was barred from receiving U.S. funding due to allegations of terrorist activity.23 The

19 Jabar, 253. 20 Ibid., 18. 21 105th U.S. Congress, Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, Public Law 105-338. 22 Kenneth Katzman, “Report for Congress: Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and the Iraqi Opposition,” Congressional Research Service, updated 10 February 2003. 23 Jabar, 18-19.

13

inclusion of SCIRI by the U.S., and its exclusion of Da’wa, led to increased tension

between the groups and marginalized Da’wa from the other opposition parties.

Ultimately, however, it was SCIRI that assisted other Shi’i factions, including

Da’wa, in achieving representation at political gatherings with the West leading up to the

2003 invasion.24 At the London Congress in December 2002, which sought to unite the

Iraqi opposition in the run-up to the war, SCIRI emerged “as a power-broker in the

process of shaping the post-conflict political system.”25 Officially, Da’wa boycotted the

conference, but some of the party’s leading figures attended upon SCIRI’s invitation. The

conference was significant because it showed the predominance of Shi’is in the broad-

based opposition, and moreover illustrated the leading role played by SCIRI among the

Shi’i political groups.

In closing, it is important to note that the aforementioned Shi’i groups, both

Islamic and secular, represented only part of the broad, diverse opposition courted by the

U.S., and furthermore, did not form a united Shi’i bloc. The London Conference makes

obvious that the U.S. idealistically envisioned a future Iraqi government composed of a

harmonious blend of all constituent interests, but did not seem to account for the

likelihood of a Shi’i-led or dominated government. Therefore, prior to the invasion,

SCIRI had emerged as a powerbroker of sorts for the Shi’is, but this position of influence

would not necessarily transfer to the political landscape within Iraq in the post-invasion

period.

PLANNING FOR THE INVASION OF IRAQ, 2001-2003

Ill-defined and aspirational plans to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime date

back to the period immediately after the First Gulf War when the U.S. supported the 24 Ibid., 19. 25 Ibid., 20.

14

creation of the expatriate Iraqi National Congress (INC), which ultimately became

defunct in the mid-1990s. Leading up to the 2003 invasion, war planning was extremely

disjointed, characterized by a particular lack of communication between the U.S.

Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State.26 Earnest planning for the

invasion and occupation did not begin until 2002. According to the available primary

source evidence, the State Department took the lead on the planning during this stage, but

the Department of Defense had the final authority for all aspects of the U.S. presence.

Beginning in October 2001, the State Department’s central planning effort was

known as the Future of Iraq Project, which aimed to create a plan for an Iraqi state post-

Saddam Hussein. The project carried on an established U.S. government tradition of

planning for post-conflict scenarios long before the conflict itself had become a reality;

predecessor projects include studying the World War I U.S. military occupation of

Germany even before the U.S. had decided to enter World War II, and planning for the

occupation of Japan within a few months after Pearl Harbor.27 The Future of Iraq Project

was heralded as a comprehensive planning effort, but seems to have been largely ignored

by the Department of Defense during the invasion and presence in the country.28

First mentioned publicly by the State Department in March 2002, the project

convened seventeen working groups from July 2002 to April 2003. The working groups

each covered one of a wide range of pertinent topics, to include:

26 James Dobbins, Seth Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas, Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority, RAND Corporation, 2009. 27 James Fallows, “Blind into Baghdad,” The Atlantic, 1 January 2004, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/01/blind-into-baghdad/302860/. 28 New State Department Releases on the "Future of Iraq" Project.” The National Security Archive at The George Washington University, 1 September 2006. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/.

15

Public health and humanitarian needs, transparency and anti-corruption, oil and energy, defense policy and institutions, transitional justice, democratic principles and procedures, local government, civil society capacity building, education, free media, water, agriculture and environment and economy and infrastructure.29

More than 200 Iraqis of various educational and professional backgrounds formed the

working groups. Ultimately, with $5 million dollars authorized by Congress, the project

produced thirteen volumes of recommendations.

Unfortunately, the released materials only vaguely refer to the Iraqi participants,

without specifying their sect or ethnicity—“What remains unavailable are records of all

the names and backgrounds of the more than 200 participants, along with State's criteria

for selecting those Iraqis.”30 This information would undoubtedly provide a micro-level

view of the State Department’s priorities regarding the rebuilding of Iraq via-a-vis the

backgrounds of the selected participants.

At the time, the U.S. believed that the prominent Iraqi Shi’i political parties would

be extremely grateful to, and in turn, cooperative with the U.S. “liberating” force in

exchange for deposing the Sunni-led Hussein regime. In a Congressional Research

Service report to Congress in February 2003, the author refers to the Shi’i opposition as

“the major Shiite groups”—which is in contrast to his more nuanced reference to the

Kurdish opposition as being composed of distinct groups with named leaders.31 Later in

the report the author dedicates a section to SCIRI, but focuses largely on its Iranian ties

29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Kenneth Katzman, “Report for Congress: Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and the Iraqi Opposition” Congressional Research Service, Updated 10 February 2003, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/17873.pdf, 2.

16

and cross-border attacks into Iraq; moreover, the Da’wa Party is mentioned only as a

footnote to the SCIRI discussion.32

One explanation for this level of understanding was due to the limited number of

sources the U.S. government consulted on the matter of a post-invasion strategy for Iraq.

Hindsight illustrates that the U.S., much to its detriment, over-relied on one voice in

particular—Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi, as previously mentioned, was the leader of the Iraqi

National Congress dating back to its founding. He was a wealthy, secular Shi’i who had

spent all but the first thirteen years of his life living in exile outside of Iraq.33 Prior to its

exile, his family had a long tradition of service in the Iraqi government. A man with a

lengthy and titillating life story, the most essential element of his narrative for this

project’s purpose was his central involvement in aiding the Bush Administration to make

its case for going to war in Iraq.

Since his first contacts with the U.S. government in the 1980s, his goal was

consistently to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime, and ultimately he decided that the

U.S. would be the ideal patron for such an effort.34 Chalabi provided the U.S. with a

range of “intelligence,” which the Bush Administration employed as the linchpin of its

case for war. He “exaggerat[ed] the security threat that Iraq posed to the U.S., suppl[ied]

defectors who offered misleading or bogus testimony about Saddam’s efforts to acquire

nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, promot[ed] questionable stories connecting

Saddam to Al Qaeda,” and, most importantly for this project, “overestimat[ed] the ease

with which Saddam could be replaced with a Western-style democracy.”35 Therefore, a

32 Ibid., 4. 33 Jane Mayer, “The Manipulator: Ahmad Chalabi Pushed a Tainted Case for War. Can He Survive the Occupation?” The New Yorker, 7 June 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/06/07/the-manipulator. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.

17

major component of Chalabi’s deception was to gloss over the deep fractures within Iraqi

society, and to promise the Bush Administration that broad-based democracy was

feasible. Ahmad Chalabi is undoubtedly a central cause of the U.S.’s misunderstanding of

the Iraqi Shi’is going into the invasion.36

Leading up to the war, the Bush Administration loosely acknowledged the

sectarian and ethnic diversity of the opposition it was courting, but seemed to

overemphasize the Kurdish groups as the most viable means for toppling the Hussein

regime. In a document titled, “The Future of Iraq: The Iraqi Component,” the State

Department floated names of Iraqis who would be suitable for an envisioned Sovereignty

Council, which would primarily be tasked with “oversee[ing] the transition to

democracy.”37 A caveat beneath the proposed names read, “Someone agreeable to both

Barzani and Talabani [leaders of the two main Kurdish opposition groups].”38

In addition to the emphasis on the Kurdish groups, the administration sought to

broaden its support to groups with former ties to the Iraqi military, perhaps “a signal that

the Bush Administration might be considering returning to the “coup strategy” pursued

on several occasions in previous administrations.”39 Thus, it appears that the strategy

being formed by the administration was shortsighted in that it looked to groups that

seemed to have the strength to help topple the regime, but not necessarily those groups

that would possess the ability to govern Iraq for the long-term with a mandate from the

Iraqi population.

36 Ibid. 37 Department of State, “The Future of Iraq: The Iraqi Component,” http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/20020005.pdf. 38 Katzman., 2. 39 Ibid., 11.

18

In addition to the Future of Iraq Project, the Iraqi opposition met several times in

2002 and 2003 prior to the invasion. The two most significant conferences were the U.S.-

supported London conference in December 2002 and the Salahudin Conference in

February 2003, which took place in Iraqi Kurdistan. SCIRI was the most prominent Shi’i

group present at each, but worked to include the full spectrum of Shi’i political groups

and non-political groups; this broad welcome was not an altruistic invitation, but a

recognition that SCIRI alone could not pretend to represent the Shi’i community at

large.40

However, participants at the London conference were only able to agree on two

basic tenets for Iraq’s future: Islam would be the state religion; and, Islam would be the

source of legislation.41 These provisions were agreed upon at the urging of the Islamist

delegates in attendance, and likely were made in return for a promise to the Kurdish

delegates of full recognition under a federalist system.42 In reality, the concept of

federalism was a non-starter for the Shi’is, and the fact that not all Shi’is advocated for

the Islamic provisions for the future government displayed the untenable nature of a

broad-based Shi’i government, let alone a multi-ethnic/sectarian government.

Furthermore, at the Salahudin conference a six-man leadership council was

formed, but the delegates stopped short of forming a government-in-exile at the urging of

the U.S.43 The U.S. feared that such a government-in-exile would be viewed as a puppet

of the U.S., and not widely received by Iraqis after the invasion. The council included

three Shi’i members, one Sunni member, and two Kurdish members, which more or less

40 Jabar, 19. 41 Ibid., 20. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., 21.

19

proportionately represented the ethno-sectarian population distribution.44 Interestingly,

SCIRI deployed units of its militia, the Badr Brigade, in nearby areas throughout the

conference, likely as an accompanying show of force and a prescient sign of the Shi’i

militias’ future prominence in Iraqi politics and security.45

In planning for the invasion, and later for the transition of government, the U.S.

dealt with Iraqi Shi’is as individual leaders and members of the various parties, rather

than with parties in the aggregate; the Shi’i politicians prominent in the transitional

government represented an amalgamation of personalities from disparate lists compiled

by various U.S. government agencies during the pre-war planning stage, not a coherent

attempt at broad representation of Shi’i political factions. According to State Department

Future of Iraq Project documents, the exiles convened in the working groups “[were] not

an attempt to select an Iraqi government in exile, but rather to establish a process to allow

Iraqis who live[d] outside Iraq or in northern Iraq—“free Iraqis”—to do practical

preliminary planning.”46 Moreover, the project explicitly sought to “engage [the] non-

political Iraqi opposition, as most Iraqi professionals [were] not involved in Iraqi

opposition politics.”47 Thus, at the time of the invasion, the closest Iraqi political entity

resembling a ready-made government was the leadership council created at the Salahudin

conference.

Furthermore, planners could not agree on whether the democratic transition would

take place via an extended military presence, through “an Afghan-style big-tent meeting

of Iraqi notables” who would agree on the new government, or by handing over power to

44 Hala Mundhir Fattah and Frank Caso, A Brief History of Iraq, New York: Facts on File, 2008, 243. 45 Jabar, 21. 46 Thomas Warrick, “Cable: Future of Iraq Expert Working Groups,” Department of State, 8 July 2002, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB163/iraq-state-01.pdf. 47 Department of State, “Briefing: Future of Iraq Project,” 1 November 2002, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB163/iraq-state-02.pdf.

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a group of Iraqi exiles.48 Instead, the interagency planning process of 2002-2003 avoided

answering such fundamental questions and worked to produce a list of Iraqi expatriates

that would become known as the Iraqi Interim Authority (IIA).49 Planners envisioned that

this nebulous body would act as a bridge to a new Iraqi government. As will become

evident, this vision would not ultimately play out as the planners imagined.

OVERVIEW OF THE COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY (CPA)

From 12 May 2003 until 28 June 2004 the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)

ruled Iraq. The CPA was preceded by the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance (ORHA), which was established in January 2003—just a few months before

the U.S. invasion kicked off—and disbanded at the time of the creation of the CPA. Both

organizations were thinly staffed and poorly suited to the task of governing Iraq; ORHA

had been established and organized on the assumption that the Iraqi government would

continue to function after the removal of Saddam Hussein.50 This assumption proved to

be false, as the government disintegrated upon his removal from power, which forced

ORHA and the CPA, successively, to attempt to govern the country—a task for which

they were critically underprepared.

The CPA was funded by the Department of Defense and the Iraqi government,

and its administrator—L. Paul Bremer III—reported directly to the U.S. Secretary of

Defense. Bremer served as the CPA administrator from its inception until the body

handed over power to the Iraqi Interim Government in 2004. As administrator, Bremer

possessed full executive, legislative and judicial authority, and presided over the

implementation of several significant policies. For example, the first act of the CPA was 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Andrew Rathmell, “Planning post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq: what can we learn?” International Affairs 81 (5), 2009.

21

to order the de-Ba’athification of Iraqi society, and shortly thereafter, to disband the Iraqi

army—significant, sweeping administrative actions.

As previously mentioned, the idea of an Iraqi Interim Authority (IIA), which had

been intended to be a bridge to a new Iraqi government, was floated throughout the U.S.

interagency in late 2002 and 2003. However, the entity became defunct even before it

could be stood up when Administrator Bremer arrived in Iraq and began separate

consultations, leading to the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council in the summer of

2003. Membership in the IIA was still undecided at the time of Bremer’s decision, but he

seemed to assume that such a body would likely be populated solely by the members of

the leadership council of Iraqi exiles that had emerged from the opposition conferences—

a setup he found to be unworkable due to a lack of internal Iraqi representation.

Therefore, Bremer chose to extend an invitation to the leadership council to submit

names of suitable Iraqis to compose a broader governing authority, but refrained from

inviting its members to join the new governing council. The leadership council responded

unenthusiastically, so Bremer used CPA personnel and contacts to assemble a list of

Iraqis himself.

Ultimately, a twenty-five person governing council was selected, with thirteen

seats given to Shi’i leaders.51 The council did not possess any autonomous authority, but

it did have several responsibilities: appoint United Nations representatives, appoint

interim ministers in the Iraqi cabinet, and draft the temporary constitution, the

Transitional Administrative Law (TAL).52 Unlike previous councils, which were elected

by exiled delegates to opposition conferences, this new council instead consisted of Iraqi

51 “Iraqi Governing Council Members,” BBC News, 14 July 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3062897.stm. 52 James Dobbins, Seth Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas, Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority, RAND Corporation, 2009.

22

exiles and internal leaders selected by Bremer and a team of United Nations, British and

American regional experts.53 While Bremer did succeed in assembling the most diverse

and representative Iraqi governing body the country had seen, the council members were

still disproportionately drawn from the Iraqi exile community, and thus lacked legitimacy

in the eyes of many Iraqis.54 As demonstrated, the U.S. lack of understanding of the Iraqi

Shi’i political landscape, and in particular the lack of understanding of the internal

landscape, led many Iraqi Shi’is to seek representation outside of the interim governing

structure created by the CPA. The following section will illustrate how this misstep by

the U.S. led to the formation of a radical Shi’i movement, which signaled the beginning

of the prominence of the violent Shi’i militias in Iraq.

THE BIRTH OF AN INDIGENOUS IRAQI SHI’I MOVEMENT

After the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi Shi’is initially welcomed the opportunity for

their exiled political leaders and party members to return to Iraq, and celebrated the

removal of Saddam Hussein from power. On 9 April 2003, the day U.S. forces entered

Baghdad, Saddam Town in the east of the city—later renamed Sadr City—was the site of

ecstatic celebration and a display of ceremonial Shi’i symbols such as date-palm leaves,

green banners, and clay tablets.55 Political slogans, or underlying political motivations for

the gathering, were conspicuously absent from the celebrations.

However, the sense of jubilation evaporated the next day when a prominent Shi’i

cleric, Majid al-Khoi, was attacked and killed in Najaf by a Shi’i mob allegedly loyal to

rival cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.56 Al-Khoi had traveled to Najaf immediately after Ba’ath

53 “Iraqi Governing Council Members,” BBC News. 54 Sharon Otterman, “IRAQ: Iraq’s Governing Council,” Council on Foreign Relations, 17 May 2004, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-iraqs-governing-council/p7665#p2. 55 Jabar, 22. 56 Ibid., 23-24.

23

forces were removed from the area, and was escorted by a group of Shi’i exiles. He was

attacked in the Shrine of Imam Ali and targeted for his past cooperation with the Ba’ath

regime.57 This event represents one of the earliest inter-Shi’i clashes and was an omen of

the major schism developing between Shi’is returned from exile and those who had

remained and suffered under the Hussein regime.

Similar to the U.S. government’s coarse understanding of Iraqi Shi’is, exiled Shi’i

political groups miscalculated the sentiments of the native Iraqi Shi’is still living in Iraq.

Despite SCIRI’s success in rallying the other Shi’i political factions and emerging as a

leader in shaping the post-conflict political outcomes during the planning stage of the

U.S. war, the political reality on the ground in Iraq was much different. Immediately after

the invasion,

The dream al-Hakim [the leader of SCIRI] and his aides had of receiving a welcome by millions, like Khomeini’s return from France in 1979, may have been wishful thinking…the renowned civility and secularism of Iraq’s society seemed, for the moment, a bygone myth.58

The Shi’i population that had just been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein was

deeply fractured and possessed wide ranging conceptions of the future of Iraq, not all of

which aligned with the existing Shi’i parties’ central tenets. Thus, the exiled Shi’i

political parties that had just returned from exile stumbled in their early attempts to

establish relevancy, and faced competition from a nascent indigenous Shi’i political

movement.

In the post-invasion environment, a large contingent of Shi’is who remained in

Iraq under Saddam Hussein found representation in domestic figures like Muqtada al-

57 Ibid., 24. 58 Jabar, 22.

24

Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Some domestic Iraqi Shi’i militias existed before the

invasion—largely associated with the most dominant Shi’i political party, SCIRI—but

after the invasion there was a proliferation of private militias, mostly formed out of the

exigencies of self-defense and a lack of the rule of law. A report to the Defence

Committee of the British House of Commons noted, “Shia militias were largely formed

or returned from exile following the invasion in 2003.”59 Similarly, a U.S. Government

Accountability Office table highlights four of the most prominent militias active around

2004, two of which are Shi’i militias, the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army (see Figure

4).60

Figure 4: Some Militias Present in Iraq, 2004

As previously discussed, the Badr Brigade was an Iranian import—a unit formed

in the bureaucracy of the IRGC—but the other prominent Iraqi Shi’i militia, the Mahdi

Army, was a much more organic movement, ultimately originating with one man. While

many forceful personalities populate Iraq’s Shi’i political movements, Muqtada al-Sadr

59 UK House of Commons Defence Committee, “Iraq: An Initial Assessment of Post-Conflict Operations,” Sixth Report of Session 2004-05, Volume I, HC 65-I. 24 March 2005. London: The Stationery Office Limited. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmdfence/65/65i.pdf. 60 “Iraq’s Transition Law,” U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C., 25 May 2004, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04746r.pdf.

25

represents a departure from the decades-long status quo among the groups. One historian

of Iraq notes,

Muqtada al-Sadr [created] a new cleavage: Iraqi anti-government-domestic versus alien pro-government exile Shi’ite leadership…[his] attitude, then, threatens [SCIRI], the Da’wa and [the Islamic Action Front]…he is waging a war…against all but himself.61

Sadr successfully combined a clerical base loyal to his late father, his father’s charity

networks, and armed mobs that sprung up after the Ba’ath overthrow, to create an

indigenous and formidable new Shi’i movement, different from and opposed to the

traditional Shi’i political groups.62

Muqtada al-Sadr hails from a prominent Iraqi Shi’i clerical family based in al-

Najaf. After his father and two brothers were assassinated by the Hussein regime in 1999,

Sadr was placed under house arrest, and his father’s followers anointed him heir to the

Sadr family religious establishment.63 However, judged against the clerical norms of

Shi’ism, Sadr has been criticized for his young age, lack of seniority, lack of knowledge-

based clerical rank, and lack of scholarly achievement.64

Therefore, in many respects, he was an unlikely heir to his family’s respected

tradition of Shi’i religious leadership. Consequently, Sadr solidified his power by other

means—through the use of raw street politics and the mobilization of the visceral

insecurity of the Shi’i masses in the critical early days of the U.S. presence.65 Central to

the growth and popularity of Sadr’s movement was the CPA’s decision not to include

61 Jabar, 25-26. 62 Ibid., 26. 63 Ibid., 24. 64 Ibid., 25. 65 Ibid.

26

him in the interim government. This decision perfectly positioned Sadr to galvanize his

supporters into opposition against both the occupying forces and their apparent

conspirators, the formerly exiled Shi’i movements.

Meanwhile, the U.S. presence in Iraq was quickly greeted with suspicion, and at

times hostility, from some factions. Shi’i disillusionment with the occupying force grew,

and reached a boiling point in the spring of 2004 when the CPA ordered the closing of

Muqtada al-Sadr’s newspaper al-Hawza al-Natiqah.66 The resulting Shi’i revolt

illustrated the political splits within Shi’i politics, and it garnered al-Sadr more

prominence as a leader of the Shi’is against the Sunni insurgency and the U.S. occupying

forces. This revolt, in part, spooked the U.S. into tolerating the existence of private

militias instead of trying to disband and reintegrate them. The simultaneously mounting

Sunni insurgency eclipsed the spring Shi’i revolt, and power was soon handed over to an

interim Iraqi government led by a Shi’i politician, while the U.S. desperately searched for

a counterinsurgency strategy.

At the time of the transition of power to the Iraqi interim government, the CPA

had reached an agreement to disband and reintegrate nine militias into the state security

forces. Of the nine, five were Shi’i militias: the Supreme Council of the Islamic

Revolution in Iraq/Badr Organization, Iraqi National Accord, Iraqi National Congress,

Iraqi Hizballah, and Da’wa.67 Conspicuously absent from the CPA agreement was

Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army. In general, the effort to disband the militias was not

entirely successful.

66 Amatzia Baram, “The Iraqi Shi’i Community: Between Sistani, Muqtada, the IGC, and the CPA,” United States Institute of Peace, http://www.usip.org/publications/the-iraqi-shii-community-between-sistani-muqtada-the-igc-and-the-cpa. 67 “Rebuilding Iraq: Resource, Security, Governance, Essential Services, and Oversight Issues,” Report to Congressional Committees, United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-04-902R, June 2004. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04902r.pdf.

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On 7 June 2004, CPA Order 91 was issued and called for the disbanding of all

active militias, and it reinforced Article 27 of the TAL which stated, “Armed forces and

militias not under the command structure of the Iraqi Transitional Government are

prohibited, except as provided by federal law.”68 Order 91 provided the following

definition of a militia:

Military or paramilitary force that is not part of the Iraqi Armed Forces or other Iraqi security forces established pursuant to CPA Orders, Regulations and Memoranda, or pursuant to Iraqi federal law and the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period.69

In a released spreadsheet listing all CPA documents, the militias were the subject of

forty-four separate documents with the first being written in May 2003. Moreover, the

first mention of disbandment and reintegration of the militias was published in a January

2004 document.70 Thus, the CPA was clearly aware of the issue and attempted to address

it, but other events seemed to eclipse the militia issue and the CPA was forced to invest

its political capital elsewhere.

Moreover, the Shi’is quickly became a subordinate concern for the U.S. because

of the mounting Sunni insurgency. For example, U.S. and British coalition forces noticed

an inverse relationship between the level of violence perpetrated by Muqtada al-Sadr’s

militia and his level of involvement in the political process; thus, the CPA attempted to

bring the Shi’i militias into the fold using political incentives, versus the

68 L. Paul Bremer, “Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 91: Regulation of Armed Forces and Militias within Iraq,” Coalition Provisional Authority, U.S. Department of Defense, 7 June 2004, http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040607_CPAORD91_Regulation_of_Armed_Forces_and_Militias_within_Iraq.pdf; Coalition Provisional Authority, “Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period,” U.S. Department of Defense, 8 March 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20090423064920/http://www.cpa-iraq.org/government/TAL.html. 69 Ibid. 70 Department of Defense, “Spreadsheet: Archives of the CPA.”

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counterinsurgency threats directed against the Sunni insurgents.71 A report to the Defence

Committee of the British House of Commons cynically observes,

[The] CPA issued an order in June 2004—Order 91—outlawing non-governmental militias. Since the Transfer of Authority, however, little has happened and the militias remain. [Multi-National Force-Iraq] still seems aware of the need to deal with the militias, but is confronted with the greater threat of the insurgency.72

Ultimately, because the Shi’i militia-related violence paled in comparison to the Sunni

insurgency, the CPA went ahead with the hasty transition of power to the Shi’i-led Iraqi

Interim Government in the summer of 2004, and focused its military efforts on

countering the Sunni insurgency.

To conclude, the period immediately following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003

until the CPA’s transition of government to the Iraqi interim government in 2004 was a

critically important and formative time for Iraqi Shi’i political movements. The two

dominant Islamic parties, Da’wa and SCIRI, returned their headquarters to Iraq for the

first time since the 1980s, but didn’t face the hero’s welcome they were anticipating.

Moreover, Iraqi Shi’is gained new representation from internal Iraqi figures, like

Muqtada al-Sadr, who created an indigenous Shi’i political organization that was opposed

to the formerly exiled Shi’i groups and provided the Shi’i population with a critical new

choice for representation. Thus, immediately after the invasion, the Shi’i movement grew

more dynamic, yet much more fractured. Simultaneously, the Sunni insurgency, which

began in early 2004, caused the U.S. and coalition forces to focus their resources on

counterinsurgency, and thus to largely ignore the growth of Shi’i militias and factions at 71 UK House of Commons Defence Committee, “Iraq: An Initial Assessment of Post-Conflict Operations,” Sixth Report of Session 2004-05, Volume I, HC 65-I. 24 March 2005. London: The Stationery Office Limited. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmdfence/65/65i.pdf. 72 Ibid.

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the time. Therefore, the Shi’is were afforded a measure of independence at a formative

moment, which allowed Shi’i political groups to proliferate and many to hold on to

power into the present.

30

Chapter 3: U.S. Achieves Limited Military Success Against Iraqi Shi’i Militias (2005-2011), Enduring Impact Elusive

The U.S formally transferred sovereignty back to the Iraqi people on 28 June

2004. Notwithstanding, between June 2004 and November 2008 the U.S. military

continued to maintain its role as the lead military force in the country. It was only after

the Iraqi parliament ratified the November 2008 status of forces agreement between the

two countries that U.S. forces became obligated to pull out of Iraqi cities by the summer

of 2009 and took a secondary role in all operations until U.S. combat operations fully

ended in December 2011.73

However, in 2007, before the status of forces agreement was put in place, the U.S.

radically modified the nature of its operations in Iraq with an increased troop presence

and a focus on counterinsurgency strategy—a bid commonly referred to as “the Surge.”

The Surge has been widely documented, particularly with respect to U.S. efforts against

the Sunni insurgency—most notably al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). During this period,

however, the U.S. was also forced to acknowledge and reckon with the growing strength

of Iraqi Shi’i militias. These groups underwent a significant metamorphosis over the

course of the U.S. presence, and today only faintly resemble their predecessor

organizations of the 1980s. While Iraqi government policies and other external actors

have certainly influenced this metamorphosis, U.S. policies and actions also played a

role. Thus, it is the intent of this chapter to analyze the U.S. effect on Iraq’s Shi’i militias

during its military engagement in the country between 2005-2011.

To accomplish this task, a U.S. Department of Defense archive of quarterly

reports on Iraq will be analyzed, along with a handful of other primary source documents. 73 “Timeline of Major Events in the Iraq War,” The New York Times, 21 October 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/08/31/world/middleeast/20100831-Iraq-Timeline.html?_r=0#/#time111_3263.

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The reports will be analyzed chronologically, and the analysis will be supplemented with

other primary and secondary sources pertinent to the discussion. The “Measuring

Stability and Security in Iraq” reports were published quarterly between July 2005 and

July 2010, and are available in full with no classification redactions. These reports were

mandated by Congress, and each report covers “…goals and progress regarding Iraq’s

political stability, security environment, and economic progress…[and] provides

indicators of the training and development of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).”74 The

value of this collection of documents is its completeness as it allows one to track U.S.

policies, actions and perceptions over time.

From these documents, it is readily evident that the U.S. perception of the Shi’i

militias and its approach towards them changed and evolved over time. In the period

immediately after the CPA transfer of sovereignty, the U.S. adopted a legalistic view of

the militias, which then transitioned to a more militaristic approach leading up to and

during the Surge, and finally essentially evolved into a passive observer status in the last

years of the military presence. As the documents reveal, the terminology used to describe

the militias shifted, as well as the way they were framed in the context of overall stability

and security in Iraq. For example, initially the Shi’i militias are discussed in a section

dedicated specifically to militias, but later that section disappears from the reports and the

militias begin to be discussed in a section on Iranian influence.75 During the Surge, U.S.

forces adopted a more forward military posture, and had a significant degrading effect on

the militias, but ultimately the U.S. became constrained by the 2008 status of forces

agreement and could no longer target the groups unilaterally. It was at that time that the

74 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” July 2005, http://www.defense.gov/news/Jul2005/d20050721secstab.pdf, 1. 75 Ibid., 23; Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” June 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010-Final-20070608.pdf, 7.

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militias had a chance to regroup, and have sustained their influential presence in Iraq to

the present. Thus, it appears the U.S. lacked the capabilities beyond the use of military

force to influence the presence of Shi’i militias in Iraq, and in particular, lacked the

political or diplomatic means to persuade the Iraqi central government to disband them in

earnest.

LEGAL APPROACH: TRANSITION OF POWER, 2005-2006

In the first “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” report, dated July 2005, all

active militias were discussed in the “Militia Integration” section. This section reflects on

the progress of disbandment and reintegration efforts, which were mandated by the

aforementioned CPA Order 91 and Article 27 of the TAL. Of the “more than a dozen

militias” documented in Iraq, nine were to be integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces

(ISF), and at the time of the report six had been disbanded.76 The small section mentions

by name the other three militias that “remain as significant entities”: the two Kurdish

Peshmergas, and SCIRI’s Badr Organization militia.77 The section also notes that

Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is not part of the integration plan, but does not provide

any attitudinal descriptions of the group. The first report surprisingly does not detail for

Congress all militias active in Iraq as of the writing of the report. Overall, the tone of the

reporting on the militias is passive and does not offer any role for the U.S. to play in their

disbandment or integration.

The second and final report of 2005 proceeds in the same vein as the July report.

It maintains a passive tone towards the Shi’i militias, but ventures to say, “militias can

76 Ibid., 23. 77 Ibid.

33

pose a long-term challenge to the authority and sovereignty of the central government.”78

The report implicitly supports a legal approach to the issue by again emphasizing CPA

Order 91 and Article 27 of the TAL, in addition to Article 9 of the draft constitution.79

The report departs from the July 2005 edition by describing the Mahdi Army “as a

potentially insurgent organization,” and mentioning Iranian ties to both the Mahdi Army

and the Badr Organization. Despite mentioning Mahdi Army attacks against Coalition

and Iraqi forces, the report does not suggest U.S. or Iraqi military actions against the

organization. The passive, non-military approach towards the Mahdi Army can be

contrasted with the militaristic discussion of Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I)

operations against Sunni insurgents during this reporting period.80 Thus, the U.S. appears

at least partially responsible for creating an environment conducive for the Mahdi Army

to flourish due to its near singular focus on combating AQI and other Sunni insurgents

during this period.

In the February 2006 report, the Kurdish Peshmergas and the Badr Organization

are now referred to as “authorized” militias, but the Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) is considered

illegal.81 The report also introduces for the first time the “JAM” acronym to refer to the

Mahdi Army, which is used uniformly throughout the rest of the reports. Additionally,

JAM is newly classified as a Shi’i rejectionist group along with al-Qaeda in Iraq as a

Sunni rejectionist group, and the two are loosely grouped with former Ba’athist elements

as “the enemy”.82 The report defines rejectionist as, “both Sunni and Shi’a groups, which 78 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” October 2005, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/20051013_publication_OSSRF.pdf, 24. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 19. 81 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” February 2006, http://www.defense.gov/home/features/Iraq_Reports/docs/2006-02-Report.pdf, 25. 82 Ibid., 23.

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use violence or coercion in an attempt to force the retreat of Coalition forces” and reject

democratic government.83 At this time, however, as the U.S. appears to be grappling with

terminology and how best to define JAM, it does not discuss or propose concomitant

military action against the group. The report hints that the reintegration effort is not

working as expected because the militias continue to operate openly with no sign of

disbanding in the short-term due to the lack of readiness and capability in Iraqi governing

and security institutions.84 In particular, the report highlights significant problems in the

Ministry of the Interior (MOI), which had been infiltrated to a large degree by Shi’i

militia members whose primary loyalties remain with their militia despite the nominal

disbandment and reintegration of these groups.85 The militia infiltration of the MOI was a

natural result of the CPA and Iraqi government disbandment policies, which called for

the militia members to join the Iraqi state security services. Thus, it seems that the

militias strategically sent their members to the MOI to simultaneously comply with and

subvert the disbandment efforts. Despite this phenomenon, the U.S. continued to

maintain a passive stance towards the identified challenges posed by the militias.

Between the February 2006 and May 2006 reports two significant events

occurred: on 22 February the Shi’i Golden Mosque of Samarra was bombed; and, Nouri

al-Maliki of the Da’wa Party was selected as prime minister. The Golden Mosque is

considered one of the holiest sites in Shi’i Islam, and houses the tombs of two Shi’i

imams from the ninth century. One of the entombed imams was the father of the “hidden

83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid., 47.

35

imam,” whom Shi’is believe will return as a signal of the beginning of the end of the

world.86

The mosque bombing led to an upsurge in sectarian and militia related violence,

and helped justify the continued existence of the militias in the eyes of some Iraqis.87

These Shi’i militias enhanced the security of religious sites and of the Shi’i population at

large. The May report notes that the Badr Organization has become its own party, and

that Badr Organization, JAM, and other Shi’i militias have been receiving support from

Iran.88 The report goes as far as to say that JAM and other smaller Shi’i militias have

attacked Sunnis and Coalition forces, and “because of Iranian-sponsored training and

technological support these operations are among the most lethal and effective conducted

against Coalition forces.”89 To date, this report represents the most explicit and candid

accounting of Iranian support to Shi’i militias.

The August 2006 report ominously explains, “the violence in Iraq cannot be

categorized as the result of a single organized or unified opposition or insurgency; the

security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation

Iraqi Freedom.”90 Moreover, the report describes the militias’ continued existence as a

“conduit for foreign interference.”91 For the first time, a section on “Foreign

Interference” appears in the report. This report is slightly more specific about the nature

86 Ellen Knickmeyer and K.I. Ibrahim, “Bombing Shatters Mosque in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 23 February 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022200454.html. 87 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” May 2006, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/May%2006%20Security%20and%20Stabilty%20Report%20Final%20with%20errata.pdf, 3. 88 Ibid., 31. 89 Ibid. 90 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” August 2006, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf, 28. 91 Ibid., 29.

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of Iranian support to the Shi’i militias, particularly to JAM and the Badr Organization,

calling it “logistical support.”92 It also observes that intra-Shi’i violence has abated, while

violence between AQI and JAM has increased significantly. In fact, the November 2006

report to Congress classifies Jaysh al-Mahdi as “replac[ing] al-Qaeda in Iraq as the most

dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence in Iraq.”93

Specifically, the August report presages the increasing splintering within JAM, noting

that “rogue elements” of the group are most responsible for the heightened sectarian

violence.94 As later reports will show, these rogue elements evolve into the Iranian-

supported “Special Groups (SG),” the most radical and lethal of the Shi’i militias.

The report also goes into more depth about the Shi’i militias’ infiltration of the

Ministry of the Interior, and mentions the U.S. role in helping the Iraqi government

combat these infiltrations. However, the Iraqi government’s efforts are weakened by a

lack of internal security and vetting infrastructure; “because of the decentralized nature of

the militias, a database on militia members is not maintained, and there is currently no

screening process specifically designed to ascertain militia allegiance.”95 The U.S.

appears to approach its role in combating the militias with less passivity, but still only

discusses secondary- or tertiary-level actions, such as helping the Iraqi government with

institutional development and reforms, not military action.

92 Ibid., 30. 93 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” November 2006, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010Quarterly-Report-20061216.pdf, 19. 94 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” August 2006, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf, 3. 95 Ibid., 34.

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MILITARISTIC APPROACH: THE SURGE, 2007

In January 2007 the Bush Administration announced “The New Way Forward in

Iraq,” more commonly known as “the Surge” or the “Baghdad Plan.”96 In a televised

address, President Bush put forth the new plan to the American people:

America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I have committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them…will be deployed to Baghdad…Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.97

In the president’s speech and in materials released by the White House press secretary,

Shi’i militias are referred to as “death squads” or “death squad networks.”98 This is in

reference to the extra-judicial killings of Sunnis undertaken by some Shi’i militias.

Clearly by this period, the highest levels of the USG understood, if not overzealously so,

the threat posed by Shi’i militias to Iraqi stability.

As narrow target selection criteria hampered American efforts to combat the

militias in the past, an important pillar of the Surge strategy was greater freedom for U.S.

and Coalition forces to target Shi’i militias. However, Fred Kagan—a military historian,

unofficial adviser to President Bush, and a principal architect of the Surge—strongly

discouraged incursions into Sadr City for fear of weakening Prime Minister Maliki’s

support base there and of provoking fighting between the Mahdi Army and Coalition 96 “Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq,” The White House, 10 January 2007, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html. 97 George W. Bush, “President Bush Addresses Nation on Iraq War,” 10 January 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011002208.html. 98 Ibid; “Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq,” The White House, 10 January 2007, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html.

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Forces; Sadr City was the Mahdi Army’s primary area of operation. Kagan’s critics on

this point argued that Sadr City was the source of a great deal of the sectarian violence

and must be dealt with.99 Furthermore, critics of the overall plan deemed the Surge to be

a military solution to the political problem of sectarianism; such an extensive and

resource-intensive effort could not feasibly be sustained indefinitely, thus the militias

simply would have to wait out the Surge and regroup in its aftermath.100

However, the central tenet of the plan was to defend the Iraqi population, which if

done successfully would negate the militia’s justification for their continued existence.

U.S. forces were to begin what essentially amounted to aggressive community policing to

restore the rule of law and physical security while gaining the trust and support of

communities. Moreover, the Surge entailed embedding U.S. forces with Iraqi forces, and

keeping units in areas that had been cleared in order to maintain the peace—as opposed

to withdrawing to forward operating bases after clearing operations, which was the

common practice before the Surge. The final stage of the Surge would be to focus on

economic and physical reconstruction. This brief background on the Surge provides

necessary context for analyzing the “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” reports

from 2007 onwards.

The most striking feature of the March 2007 report is its novel mention of “lethal

Iranian support to Shi’a militias [emphasis added].”101 The Iranians are now documented

as providing “lethal weapons, training, financing, and technical support. This includes

supplying some Shi’i extremist groups with explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), “the

99 Lionel Beehner, “Backgrounder: Bush’s Baghdad Plan,” Council on Foreign Relations, 18 January 2007, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/bushs-baghdad-plan/p12446. 100 Ibid. 101 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” March 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf, 4.

39

most effective of the roadside bombs.”102 According to conventional accounting on IED-

related casualties, EFPs are responsible for only about two percent of all deaths, but are

wholly regarded as the most lethal due to their ability to easily penetrate the thick armor

on most up-armored U.S. military vehicles.103 Between December 2006 and July 2007,

EFP attacks increased by sixty percent, and in July 2007 they were responsible for thirty-

three percent of all casualties.104 EFPs came to be known as a signature of Iranian

involvement in Iraq, and were used almost exclusively by Shi’i militias. Without

specifying further, the March report discusses direct attacks against Coalition forces by

these extremist groups, including the use of EFPs.105

The report notes that Badr Organization, which at this point is considered an

authorized militia, is among the recipients of lethal Iranian support, and it labels all

groups receiving such support as “Shi’a extremists.”106 The Badr Organization thus

represents the ambiguity surrounding the affiliations and activities of some of the Shi’i

militias, and U.S. attempts to properly classify them based on conflicting

characterizations. Separately, violence appears to be at an all-time high between Sunni

insurgent groups and Shi’i militias, and the report describes sectarian cleansing taking

place in Baghdad.107 Ultimately at this time, the Sunni insurgency remains the primary

concern of the Iraqi government, and by extension the U.S. and Coalition forces.108 102 Ibid., 17. 103 “Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq,” The Brookings Institution, 1 October 2007, http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf; Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. Says Iran-Supplied Bomb Kills more Troops,” The New York Times, 8 August 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/world/middleeast/08military.html?_r=0. 104 David Hambling, “EFP in Iraq: Deadly Numbers,” WIRED, 22 August 2007, http://www.wired.com/2007/08/superbombs-the/. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid., 16. 108 Ibid., 32

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Moreover, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate titled, “Prospects for Iraq’s

Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead,” which was published in January 2007,

underscores sectarianism as the central contributor to the extreme levels of violence being

reported.109 The estimate ventures,

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence.110

The above quotation represents a key judgment of the estimate, but does not explicitly

name Shi’i militias as a player in its violent matrix; however, in a bullet point, JAM is

mentioned as an extremist element accelerating the violence. Most notably for the

purpose of this discussion, the estimate concedes Iran’s lethal support to Shi’i groups, but

notes, “the involvement of [this] outside [actor] is not likely to be a major driver of

violence…because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian

dynamics.”111 Thus, the estimate seems to relegate Iranian support to Shi’i militias to a

position of secondary effect and concern at this time. However, the prevailing evidence

suggests otherwise. It is true that the sectarian violence would exist with or without

Iranian involvement, but the lethality of the Shi’i militias without Iranian support would

pale in comparison to the efforts made by these groups with Iranian provisions of

technology and guidance.

109 National Intelligence Council, “National Intelligence Estimate: Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 2007, http://fas.org/irp/dni/iraq020207.pdf, 7. 110 Ibid., 7. 111 Ibid., 8.

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The June 2007 report implicitly mentions U.S. military action against the Shi’i

militias in its discussion of the training of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). In light of the

sustained violence from several fronts, the ISF require continued training to be able to

eventually take over from Coalition forces.112 The sustained violence mentioned in the

report is in accordance with the expectations of the Surge, in which violence is expected

to rise before it decreases significantly. Additionally, the report highlights Iraqi

“governmental leniency toward attacks by Shi’a militia.”113 This government leniency is

also to be expected because Prime Minister Maliki derives a significant amount of

support from Shi’is living in militia strongholds, like Sadr City. It would be political

suicide for him to take a truly hardline stance against the militias at this time. However,

in an attempt to tow the line, Maliki pledged his support for a demobilization,

disarmament, and reintegration program for Shi’i militias funded by 150 million USD.

In this report, the dedicated section on militias disappears, and they are instead

discussed within the Iranian influence section, and in dispersed places throughout the

report. The reports have become increasingly specific on Iranian support to Shi’i militias,

noting that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Qods Force (QF) provides

“arms, intelligence, funds, training, and propaganda support to Iraqi Shi’a militants

targeting and killing Coalition and Iraqi forces.”114 More importantly, the report

explicitly mentions U.S. military actions against these lethal Iranian efforts: “U.S. forces

in Iraq are acting to disrupt any network—regardless of nationality—that provides

weapons to Iraqi militants and insurgents…The USG has urged Iran to play a more

112 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” June 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010-Final-20070608.pdf, iv. 113 Ibid., 2. 114 Ibid., 7.

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constructive role in Iraq.”115 Lastly, the report highlights a new division in Muqtada al-

Sadr’s militia: the Office of Martyr Sadr (OMS) is now the political arm of JAM.116

The September 2007 report notes that there has been no decrease in Iranian

funding and training of Shi’i militias.117 Moreover, the report specifies that Iranian lethal

support to the militias has been occurring since at least 2006.118 In the interim between

quarterly reports, EFP events rose by an estimated 39 percent.119 This report focuses on

U.S. and Iraqi attempts to change Iran’s behavior via the diplomatic track. U.S.

Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, held trilateral security talks with his Iranian

counterpart to discuss the issue; however, no tangible results are mentioned. In the same

vein, Prime Minister Maliki made his second official visit to Iran.120 Lastly, the report

mentions a previously unmentioned Shi’i militia, the Fadilah Organization, but does not

venture any further details.121

Notably, the December 2007 report discusses the creation of the Concerned Local

Citizen (CLC) program, in which “members of communities work with Coalition and

Iraqi forces to protect their neighborhoods and critical infrastructure, with greater than 75

percent under U.S.-funded contracts.”122 The report notes the recent successes of the

program in identifying and combating insurgent forces and illegal Shi’i militias, but also

highlights Prime Minister Maliki’s fears that CLC groups could form new militias. These

115 Ibid. 116 Ibid., 22. 117 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” September 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Signed-Version-070912.pdf, 7. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid., 25. 122 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” December 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/FINAL-SecDef%20Signed-20071214.pdf, iii.

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fears do not appear to be realized, but they underline the ambiguous nature of at least

some of the more benign Shi’i militias; despite the potential for undermining the

sovereignty of the Iraqi government, the militias do possess a wealth of knowledge about

their communities, and provide security when it is otherwise inadequate. In general, the

report indicates that Shi’i extremist activity is on the rise, while the insurgency led by al-

Qaeda in Iraq wanes.123 In the same period, Muqtada al-Sadr called for a ceasefire from

his JAM militia, but the most radical elements rejected the call. These elements become

referred to as the Iranian-supported JAM special groups, which ultimately evolve into the

Special Groups (SG).124

According to the March 2008 report, Muqtada al-Sadr’s ceasefire is to remain in

effect through August 2008.125 However, the Iranian-supported Special Groups have

continued to attack Coalition and Iraqi forces.126 The report cites Iranian denials of lethal

aid provision, but contrasts that with evidence of the IRGC-QF’s continued use of

“facilitators and proxy networks to train and fund Shi’a extremists.”127 Moreover, the

report now includes a dedicated section on explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), the

signature weapon of Iranian-supported groups.128 Separately, the Iraqi government

continues to attempt to combat militia infiltration of government ministries. The report

describes efforts by the National Information and Investigation Agency to develop an

“organic polygraph capability” to ascertain militia ties as part of a larger Personnel

123 Ibid., 17. 124 Ibid., 5, 18. 125 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” March 2008, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Master%20%20Mar08%20-%20final%20signed.pdf, 6. 126 Ibid., 17. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid., 22.

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Assurance Program.129 However, as discussed earlier in regards to militia infiltration of

the Ministry of Interior, discerning militia affiliations among employees is only the first

step in combating the problem. Beyond identifying former militia members, the Iraqi

government would need to develop the capabilities to monitor and control these persons’

activities.

By June 2008, the Surge seemed to be experiencing success against the Sunni

insurgency and the violent Shi’i militia groups as evidenced by “greater public rejection

of militias,” particularly in Sadr City, Baghdad and Basrah.130 The successes against the

militias are deemed by the June report to be potentially as significant as the Sunni

rejection of al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the report did not uniformly present good news

with regards to the militias. In March 2008, the Iraqi Security Forces conducted

operations in Basrah that uncovered significant Iranian activity. Namely,

The discovery of weapons caches and information obtained through interrogation of detainees prove that the [IRGC-QF] has provided many of the weapons and explosives used by extremists, including rockets, mortars, bulk explosives and [EFP] components.131

The report hopefully notes that the Iraqi government’s operations in Basrah indicate a

willingness by Prime Minister Maliki to act against the militias.132 Leaders of JAM and

its Special Group offshoots are noted as fleeing to Maysan Province and Iran due to

successful Coalition and ISF efforts against them.133

129 Ibid., 43. 130 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” June 2008, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Master_16_June_08_%20FINAL_SIGNED%20.pdf, iii. 131 Ibid., 7. 132 Ibid., iv. 133 Ibid., 29.

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Between the June and September 2008 reports, Muqtada al-Sadr called for a

reorganization of JAM into a social/cultural organization with a small, obedient armed

wing.134 Most JAM members complied with this order, however some left to join a new,

more lethal SG. The Iranian influence section of the report harshly describes for the first

time Iran’s provision of refuge to JAM and Special Group members who fled Iraq to

IRGC-QF training camps in Iran.135 Furthermore, the report maintains that Iranian

support to violent Shi’i militias is a principle cause of sustained violence in Iraq, and “the

most significant threat to long-term stability in Iraq.”136 The optimistic tone of the

discussion of Sadr’s call for reorganization and the waves of JAM and Special Group

personnel fleeing to Iran indicate a high degree—perhaps a pinnacle—of success in

military operations against these groups. The report uncharacteristically provides

numerical representation of these successes: Outside Sadr City, a single U.S. Brigade Combat Team killed over 770 JAM and SG fighters. In addition, in Baghdad alone, Iraqi and Coalition forces have uncovered caches containing over 7,500 mortar and artillery rounds, nearly 1,000 rockets, over 1,100 rocket propelled grenades, nearly 1,150 grenades, and nine IRAMs, among other weaponry.137

The report does maintain, however, the possibility of some SG elements preparing to

return to Iraq to conduct more attacks.138

Overall, the 2007 Surge proved that a military application of U.S. power could be

an effective deterrent to the rising tide of Shi’i militias. Although violence increased in

134 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” September 2008, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_Report_to_Congress_Sep_08.pdf, 23. 135 Ibid., 7. 136 Ibid., v. 137 Ibid., 23. 138 Ibid., 28.

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this period with Iranian support, the U.S. military effort was ultimately able to limit the

scope and influence of the Shi’i militias in key areas of Iraq such as Sadr City and

Basrah. These military successes were unfortunately about to be short lived, however.

BACKSEAT APPROACH: U.S. ON THE SIDELINES, 2008-2011

On 17 November 2008, the Iraqi Parliament ratified the status of forces agreement

with the United States. According to the agreement, U.S. troops had to pull out of Iraqi

cities by 30 June 2009, and be completely withdrawn from the country by 31 December

2011.139 Additionally, Iraqi Security Forces would assume the lead role in all future joint

military operations, or provide approval of any unilateral U.S. operations: “All such

military operations that are carried out pursuant to this agreement shall be conducted with

the agreement of the Government of Iraq. Such operations shall be fully coordinated with

Iraqi authorities.”140 The status of forces agreement is recognized as having a significant

limiting effect on U.S. operations against the Shi’i militias—as much as the Surge of

2007 afforded U.S. forces more freedom to target the militias, the status of forces

agreement limited the U.S. ability to combat the militias. This agreement is frequently

cited as an elemental reason why the U.S. was not able to have a lasting, degrading effect

on the violent Shi’i militias.

139 Department of State, “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq,” 17 November 2008, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/122074.pdf. 140 Ibid.

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The December 2008 report reintroduces a dedicated Shi’i militia section, and

mentions by name one of the Special Groups, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH).141 The report

notes that JAM and AAH elements have been at least partially successful in re-infiltrating

into Iraq and conducting attacks, but the overall trend is that these groups are expressing

interest in reconciliation with the Iraqi government in return for amnesty and general

reintegration.142 Moreover, the report assesses that Sadr’s new social/cultural

organization, al-Mumahiddun, is his attempt to regain the support of his traditional base

and reenter Iraqi politics.143 With regards to the recently ratified security agreement

between the U.S. and Iraq, the report details Iran’s attempts to publicly and covertly

derail the agreement, and its continued efforts “to host, train, fund, arm, and direct

militant groups intent on destabilizing Iraq.”144

The March 2009 report indicates that a subtle shift has taken place in Iranian

calculations towards Iraq after Tehran perceived Iraqi government outcry against Iranian

support for Shi’i militias had reached an intolerable level.145 Thus, Iran selectively

reduced the number of militants it supports, while simultaneously improving the quality

of weapons it supplies to them.146 The report mentions by name another Special Group,

141 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” December 2008, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_Report_to_Congress_Dec_08.pdf, 18. 142 Ibid., 18-19. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid., v. 145 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” March 2009, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Measuring_Stability_and_Security_in_Iraq_March_2009.pdf, 6. 146 Ibid.

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Ketaib Hezbollah (KH), and names it as a primary threat along with AAH.147 Muqtada al-

Sadr, for his part, calls on AAH to rejoin the Sadrist movement and accuses the group of

abandoning resistance to the Coalition. Furthermore, he calls on AAH to join his newly

formed militia, the Promised Day Brigade (PDB).148 All of the aforementioned militias

continue to experience internal problems, largely due to a leadership vacuum in country.

Moreover, EFP incidents reportedly decreased during the reporting period to the lowest

rate since early 2006 when they are reported to have begun.149

As of the July 2009 report, U.S. forces had pulled back from Iraqi cities, as

mandated by the security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. The report notes that

Iranian-supported Shi’i militias, now including Sadr’s Promised Day Brigade (PDB), are

exploiting the new urban security vacuum to regroup and perpetrate attacks.150 However,

all Shi’i militias save AAH, KH and PDB seem to be transitioning away from violence.

Thus, the reporting on the residual, violent groups now falls under the category, “Shi’a

Extremist Groups.”151 On the whole, levels of Shi’i militia related violence are low, and

concomitantly, EFP attacks are as low as 2006; successful border patrolling has

147 Ibid., 19. 148 Ibid., 23. 149 Ibid. 150 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” July 2009, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_Report_to_CongressJul09.pdf, v. 151 Ibid., 25.

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heightened the difficulty of reaching weapons caches and transporting components into

Iraq.152

As of September 2009, AAH had entered into national reconciliation talks with

the Iraqi government, but PDB and KH continued to attack U.S. forces.153 The report

highlights a shift in Iranian behavior towards a soft power approach, leveraging

economic, political, religious and humanitarian resources to influence upcoming Iraqi

elections; its support for violent activity seems to have been relegated to a secondary

position.154 However, the report assesses that Iran will continue to fund and provide

“limited lethal aid” to the Shi’i militias [emphasis added].155 When possible, the militias

rely on EFP attacks against U.S. forces, and since the U.S. withdrawal from Iraqi cities,

the militias also now rely on indirect fire attacks.

The December 2009 report describes the Shi’i militias as “residual,” and places

continued emphasis on Iranian soft power to influence the upcoming Iraqi elections and

government formation.156 At this point, Iraqi Security Forces have been in charge of Iraqi

security for almost a year, and thus bear primary responsibility for disbanding the

remaining militia elements. The report notes that Iraqi government officials have

censured Iran over its enduring support to the Shi’i militias, but these rebukes seem to be

152 Ibid., 25. 153 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” September 2009, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/9010_Report_to_Congress_Nov_09.pdf, vi. 154 Ibid., 8. 155 Ibid., 27. 156 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” December 2009, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Master_9204_29Jan10_FINAL_SIGNED.pdf, 8.

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in isolation from the broader Iran-Iraq relationship and therefore, likely ineffective.

Overall, Shi’i militia members seem to have transitioned from violence to political action.

For example, AAH is observing a ceasefire while participating in reconciliation talks

with the government.157 The tone in the most recent reports has been positive, although

caveated with the notion that these successes remain tenuous.158

The first report of 2010 categorizes attacks by Shi’i militias as sporadic, and

explicitly outlines the three groups still classified as Shi’i militias: Promised Day Brigade

(PDB), Ketaib Hezbollah (KH), and Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haqq (AAH).159 These groups are

still described as Iranian-supported, but overall this report deemphasizes Iran’s lethal aid.

Moreover, the report attributes low levels of EFP attacks to the reduced exposure of U.S.

forces as targets, and seems to suggest a subsequent reduced attention on the part of the

U.S. to the Shi’i militias despite their continued existence.

The Iraqi parliamentary election of 2010 occurred prior to the final “Measuring

Stability and Security in Iraq” report of June 2010, and the formative period of seating

the government was still ongoing as of the writing of the report. During this time, the

report notes, “Iran will focus its levers of influence, including economic, financial,

religious, and potentially lethal aid to Iraqi insurgents, to shape Iraqi politics toward its

157 Ibid., 23. 158 Ibid., 35. 159 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” March 2010, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/March%209204%20SecDef%20signed%2029%20Apr%202010_1D80.pdf, viii, 29.

51

own interests [emphasis added].”160 In addition to potentially funding and arming the

militias to affect political change in Iraq, Iran “will likely…[calibrate] support based [in

part] on [its] assessment of U.S. Force posture during redeployment.”161 Thus, the U.S.

may have assumed based on this assessment that the problem of the Shi’i militias would

disappear upon its complete withdrawal from the country a year and a half later. As a

final note, according to the report, the size of the remaining Shi’i militias has shrunk, but

some elements of AAH split with the central group to return to violence amid the group’s

reconciliation with the government.162

From these post-status of forces agreement reports, there are a few important,

observable trends. Namely, as the U.S. withdrew back into its forward operating bases,

the levels of violence decreased, but this trend was seemingly accompanied by an

increased political presence of the Shi’i groups coupled with a more politically active

stance from Iran in Iraqi politics. It would be incorrect to infer from the decreased levels

of violence that the Shi’i militias and political groups were figuratively “fading into the

sunset” of a long and complex war. Instead, these groups were transforming the influence

gained in the battlespace into political capital.

160 Department of Defense, “Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” June 2010, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/June_9204_Sec_Def_signed_20_Aug_2010.pdf, 9. 161 Ibid., 32. 162 Ibid., 28.

52

CONCLUDING ANALYSIS

Upon reflection, the “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” reports and

accompanying primary sources illustrate an inverse relationship between U.S. abilities to

target the Shi’i militias, and the lethal capabilities and longevity of the militias

themselves. Progress and regression occurred in U.S. policy towards the militias, as well

as a consequent degeneration and re-evolution within the militias themselves. The period

from 2005-2006, which saw the U.S. take a more legalistic approach, resulted in the

empowering of several Shi’i militias and a resulting inability to control the scope and

intensity of their operations. With the Surge in 2007, increased ability to target the

militias resulted in a temporary increase in violence, but ultimately proved that military

force was an effective tool in running these groups out of Iraq—if only temporarily.

During the last years of the U.S. presence, from 2008-2011, the U.S. capacity to target

the militias was diminished due to the restrictive nature of the status of forces agreement,

which resulted in a return of many militia members to Iraq to reconstitute their efforts

there.

Looking then to the individual groups, over the course of the reports from 2005-

2010, all but the most violent of the militias disappear from mention, with Ketaib

Hezbollah (KH), As’aib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH), and Promised Day Brigade (PDB)

receiving mention in the final report. Conversely, the original major players such as the

Badr Brigade and JAM evolved into political organizations and distanced themselves

from militant activities—although they retained the residual capabilities to resume such

activities in the future. The U.S. likely believed the remaining radical militias would

53

naturally disband after its withdrawal because these groups, unlike the Badr Brigade for

example, had much less conflicting and ambiguous missions—theirs was simply to force

the U.S. and its coalition partners out of Iraq.

This inquiry leaves one with several lingering, and interrelated questions: Did the

U.S. believe the Shi’i militias would fade away after the U.S. withdrawal since attacks

were largely focused solely on U.S. forces by the end of their presence? Furthermore,

what would have happened to the militias if the U.S. had stayed in Iraq longer? Finally,

did the Shi’i militias survive the American presence because of their Iranian patronage—

i.e. was the U.S. leery of provoking Iran beyond an invisible red line, which resulted in

the preservation of the militias?

54

Chapter 4: Conclusion

In part, the United States’ coarse understanding of Iraqi Shi’i political movements

on the eve of the invasion is understandable. The long-strained and largely non-existent

diplomatic relations between Iraq and the U.S. led to an information black hole on the

ground. Thus, the U.S was forced to rely on Iraqi exiles with various ulterior motives.

This could be called the Chalabi effect: in essence, after the decision to go to war was

firmly decided upon, the U.S. had no choice but to take its chances with exiles who

would offer up their services and knowledge. However, even exiles with purer intentions

than Ahmad Chalabi possessed their own sets of misconceptions due to decades spent

outside of Iraq. The confluence of these factors led to a toxic information environment on

the eve of war, which only worsened as events unfolded after the invasion.

During the CPA’s rule, the U.S. attempted to disband the Shi’i militias using legal

means, while increasingly focusing its military effort on the growing and all-consuming

Sunni insurgency. Early on it became clear that the Shi’i militias were not being

successfully disbanded, but in U.S. government reports the problem was painted as solely

an Iraqi issue. Moreover, the militias were Janus-faced. They antagonized Coalition

forces and fueled sectarianism, but they also filled the security vacuum by protecting

Shi’i populations and holy sites while the Iraqi Security Forces were being rebuilt from

scratch. Today, this same effect is still in place, as these same militias such as the Badr

Brigade parade through Shi’i neighborhoods as a counter to IS forces in places where the

Iraqi security forces are ineffective or unwilling to go. Perhaps this problematic duality of

the Shi’i militias contributed to the U.S.’s singular focus on the nuisance Sunni groups,

inadvertently allowing the Shi’i groups to grow and strengthen.

55

Meanwhile, the radical elements of the Shi’i militias that evolved into the Iranian-

supported Special Groups were born out of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM).

JAM attacks on Coalition forces brought the growing influence of the Shi’i militias to the

attention of the U.S., and forced a military response to the problem. The U.S. increasingly

obtained greater freedom to operate against these violent militia elements, and the

success of these efforts reached a pinnacle in mid- to late-2008. However, as critics of the

Surge predicted, the significant military successes did not endure once U.S. forces pulled

back from Iraqi cities and Iraqi Security Forces became the lead military force in the

country. This was particularly the case with regards to the Shi’i militias that fled to Iran

around 2008 under military pressure from the U.S., which then returned from hiding to

regroup after the U.S. presence ended.

Over the course of the military presence in Iraq, the U.S. was constrained by

several factors, which prevented it from successfully degrading and disbanding Iraq’s

Shi’i militias: a dearth of interest and resources in the initial years; narrow target

selection criteria before the Surge; and, the restraining effect of the 2008 status of forces

agreement. Essentially, the U.S. was most successful against the Shi’i militias when it

could operate with liberal targeting criteria backed by significant military resources—i.e.

at the height of the Surge. However, the U.S. vacillated between lacking the will, and

lacking the political capital or other non-military means to persuade the Iraqi government

to disband the militias and reintegrate them into the security services or the government

more broadly.

However, the U.S. was assuredly not a unitary actor in this story, and other actors

had arguably more of a role to play with regards to these militias. Iraqi domestic political

considerations likely constrained the central government from acting effectively against

the militias. To illustrate just one significant example, Maliki likely perceived his policy

56

toward the Shi’i militias to have influence over his electability among Shi’i voters, and

this undoubtedly affected the tenacity, or lack thereof, he displayed in combatting these

groups. Additionally, after the withdrawal of U.S. forces, a power vacuum was created

and arguably made the Iraqi government more susceptible to Iranian influence than

before. Thus, another tenet complicating the narrative is Iraq’s need to balance its

relationship with Iran. With Iraq in such a fledgling state of governance and Iran in a

position of power and influence over her, the Iraqi government has to consider Iran’s

ability to destabilize the Iraqi government through its continued subversive use of Shi’i

militias.

Nevertheless, the U.S. undoubtedly played a major role in the longevity of the

Shi’i militias. The ongoing fight against the Islamic State has forced the U.S. to recognize

the central role it played in the rise and continued existence of Iraq’s Shi’i militias. The

enemy is novel, but the players and the situation are familiar, as the U.S. pairs with Iraq,

and Iran pairs with the Shi’i militias to fight the Islamic State—just as these four groups

fought AQI in the last war in Iraq. However, the critical moment in this tale arrives when

the Shi’i militias are without a fight: will they finally disband?

57

Appendices

APPENDIX A: ACRONYMS

AAH: Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq

AQI: al-Qaeda in Iraq

CLC: Concerned Local Citizen program

CPA: Coalition Provisional Authority

EFP: explosively formed penetrator

IAO: Islamic Action Organization

IIA: Iraqi Interim Authority

INA: Iraqi National Accord

INC: Iraqi National Congress

IRGC-QF: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force

IS: Islamic State; also commonly referred to as ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,

or ISIL, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

ISF: Iraqi Security Forces

JAM: Jaysh al-Mahdi

KH: Ketaib Hezbollah

MNF-I: Multi-National Force-Iraq

MOI: (Iraqi) Ministry of Interior

OMS: Office of Martyr Sadr

ORHA: Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance

PDB: Promised Day Brigade

ROE: rules of engagement

SCIRI: Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

SG: Special Groups

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TAL: Transitional Administrative Law; full name: Law of Administration for the State of

Iraq for the Transitional Period

59

APPENDIX B: IRAQI SHI’I POLITICAL PARTIES AND CORRESPONDING MILITIAS

Political Party Militia

Islamic Da’wa Party None

Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq

(Formerly Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or

SCIRI)

Knights of Hope

(Badr Brigade, or Badr Corps, was formerly the associated

militia until it split to become its own party around 2007)

Badr Organization Badr Brigade / Badr Corps

Sadrist Trend Peace Companies

(Formerly Jaysh al-Mahdi, or JAM, until its disbandment in

2008)

None Special Groups: Asai’b Ahl al-Haqq (AAH), Ketaib

Hezbollah (KH), Promised Day Brigade (PDB)

*This table does not represent a comprehensive list of all active Shi’i political parties and militias in Iraq; rather, it is an accounting of those groups pertinent to this project.

60

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FIGURE SOURCES

Figure 1: Courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Figure 2: Courtesy of the Perry-Casteñeda Library Map Collection

Figure 3: Courtesy of Globalsecurity.org

Figure 4: Courtesy of the U.S. Government Accountability Office

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This does not constitute an official release of CIA information. All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or any other U.S. Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or CIA endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed for classification.