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It has been published for informational use only.
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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.
20
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.
27
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.”
28
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.
29
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.
32
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.
34
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.
36
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.
38
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.
41
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.
44
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.
49
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.
50
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
58
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.