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ما بعد التجربة

Oil vs Kurdish independence

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Oil vs Kurdish independence
Iraqi Kurds pinned high hopes on oil to fulfill their independence dream. Too bad oil is undermining it, writes Salah Nasrawi
Iraqi Kurds have always argued that they have nothing to lose by fighting for independence but the chains of Iraq’s Arabs. For decades, they have been waiting for, and sometimes trying to create, the right moment to go their own way.
When Kurdistan started extracting oil after gaining autonomy following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 hopes were high among Kurds that lucrative revenues would be used to build an independent economy and consequently help them to break away from Iraq.
This year as the Kurdistan Region Government started selling its crude independently it cut off most of its ties with Baghdad and started preparing for the day when Kurds will erect the political barriers that would separate them from Iraq.
With an estimated reserve of 45 million barrels and initial export of some 320,000 bpd, to be raised to one million bpd next year, in addition to huge gas reserves, the KRG was hoping to generate finance and laying economic foundations for Kurdish independence.
But a sharp drop in oil prices in recent weeks with market forecasts for cheaper crude for years to come has pushed excitement to leave Iraq to ebb. The sudden slide in prices and fear of revenue decline has prompted a different scenario and forced Erbil to handover its oil to Baghdad for sell.
The trend should be familiar in oil geopolitics. History repeats itself and oil shows again it’s a double edged sword.
Last week Baghdad and Erbil announced that they reached a deal to end a lingering oil and budget dispute. Under the agreement the KRG will sell 550,000 barrels of oil a day, including 300,000 from Kirkuk province, through the Iraqi state-owned Oil Marketing Company (SOMO).
In return, the government of Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi will start sending Kurds’ about $17 billion which is their share in the national budget, and an additional $1 billion for weapons and salaries for the Kurdish Peshmerga force. The agreement should end a year long crisis when the government of former Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki ordered a freeze on the KRG’s share of the national budget over an oil dispute after Erbil started selling its crude independently.
While Al-Abadi’s government put a vague statement saying that the agreement “has established that oil belongs to all Iraqis”, the deal was immediately declared as breakthrough by Kurdish leaders. Some Kurdish politicians even celebrated the deal as consent by Baghdad to Kurds’ claims to Kirkuk and other disputed areas.
There are not enough details to confirm if the deal is a breakthrough. It is only a one year agreement that will cover Iraq’s 2015 state budget and clearly states that exports will be made through SOMO’s facilities in Ceyhan, in Turkey.
As expected, disagreements emerged soon. Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said the Kurdish government would still be able to sell its oil after it delivers the amount of oil agreed on in the Baghdad agreement, according remarks published by Kurdish media outlet Rudaw.
Iraq’s oil ministry, however, denied that and insisted in a statement Sunday that the government will consider further oil sales as illegal. Some Iraqi lawmakers wanted the deal to be put for debate in the parliament, a proposal rejected by Kurdish MPs.
Moreover, the deal reignited resentment among Shia in the southern provinces which produce the bulk of Iraq’s oil. They complain that their provinces are badly neglected even though they contribute a significant amount of oil wealth to the national coffers. Angry politicians in Basra renewed calls to turn their province into an autonomous region.
There are even more controversies surrounding the deal. Some Iraqis have pointed to complacency by some Shia political groups. Though the deal was endorsed by the government it was negotiated by Minister of Oil Adel Abdel Mehdi whose Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council maintains close ties with the Kurdish leadership. Before the US invasion, exiled SIIC leaders, including Abdel Mehdi, worked side by side with the Kurdish parties in the opposition fight to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Abdel Mehdi had earlier reached an understanding with the KRG which allowed Erbil to receive an initial $500 million from Baghdad in return for the KRG starting to pump oil to SOMO’s Ceyhan export terminal. That understanding has apparently opened the way for new deal.
Facing these charges the SIIC did not shy away from acknowledging complacency. “If Kurds take 100,000 barrel of oil they have given us the rule of Iraq,” SIIC spokesman Baligh Abu Galal told Dijla television station. Without Kurds, we (Shia) could not have been empowered to rule Iraq. We are strong because we rule Iraq,” he said in a rare acknowledgment of the marriage of convenience that was part of the founding principles of the post-US invasion Iraq.
Still, the question that arises is not how the new deal was reached but why it happened now. Kurdistan has battled for years to secure exporting its oil away from Baghdad’s supervision. It defied all efforts by the federal government to control the crude’s flow. The KRG is already entangled in a legal battle, including a court case in Texas filed by Baghdad to stanch the Kurdish crude exports. In response, the KRG has filed an appeal to overturn the Iraqi request.
In June, following the advances made by the Islamic State terror group and its seizure of several Sunni-dominated cities in northern and western Iraq, Kurdish Peshmergas captured Kirkuk and huge swathes of territories bordering Kurdish Region, taking advantage of the collapse of the Iraqi security forces.
Kurdish officials vowed that they will never give the territories back to Baghdad. Kurdistan Region’s President Masoud Barzani called on the Kurdish parliament to prepare a referendum on independence. Kurdistan also has been pushing the United States and other foreign countries to give the Peshmergas direct military aid, rather than having them received through Baghdad.
In October, the KRG unveiled plans to find funds through foreign loans against future oil revenues. Though it had justified the loans to deal with financial difficulties created by the blocking of its budget by the Al-Maliki’s government, the measure was apparently intended to achieve independent financial institutions.
If any, all these measures show that the vigorous strategy followed by the KRG is to break away by showing that Iraq’s federal system is not working. Even after Baghdad and Erbil reached agreement on oil and the budget KRG officials continued their defying and provocative statements.
On Sunday, speaker of Kurdistan parliament Youssef Mohammad Sidiq told the Turkish Anatolia News Agency that the region will proceed with plans to hold a referendum on independence if “the Baghdad government fails to acknowledge Kurds’ rights.” Barzani’s deputy Kusrat Rasoul said in remarks published Saturday that “Kurdistan flag will be flying over every inch of Kurdistan’s territories,” in reference to the disputed territories seized by the Peshmergas.
But one must look beyond rhetoric in the fraught relations between Baghdad and Erbil to figure out if Iraqi Kurds will keep their bid for independence on high gear or they will concede to the bitter political and economic realities. Contrary to the idea of a prosperous economy depicted in media-hyped images of Erbil’s construction cranes and new housing complexes, Kurdistan’s economy remains fragile.
With little industrial, agricultural, financial and communication infrastructure, landlocked Kurdistan remains highly dependent on its two ambitious neighbours, Iran and Turkey, for trade, investment and transport. The two countries are effectively financing everything from construction to oil installations and from clothing boutiques to food products.
Most villages in the Kurdistan have no electricity or running water, and the region’s overall infrastructure is lacking with few paved roads. Unemployment rate is among the highest in the region and corruption and cronyism are rampant.
It goes without saying that shortage of finance will have devastating consequences on the region’s economy which is already put on hold because of the dispute with Baghdad. This is why Kurdish leaders might have found out that going it alone isn’t any better, and maybe worse, than staying in Iraq.
While the plunge in the crude prices serves a reminder of how geopolitically significant oil prices can be, there are other dominant factors which must have influenced the Kurdish decision to agree to a deal with Baghdad that bans their independent export of oil.
A national homeland for Kurds in Iraq has always been a nightmare for Iraq’s neighbours with a detrimental impact on regional stability. It will lead to the division of Iraq on ethno-sectarian lines with a ripple effect throughout the region. If that happen, oil won’t save Kurdistan from a messy and even bloody Middle East.
By signing last week’s agreement Kurds must have realized that they will run high risks if they continue to give the independence option priority over tangible economic interests and regional stability. That could be enough reason for the KRG to try to look into a different scenario, at least for now.

*This article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly on December 11, 2014

Iraq-Partitioning, ما بعد التجربة

Iraq’s army under friendly fire

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Iraq’s army under friendly fire

Criticism against the dysfunctional Iraqi army is well deserved. But there maybe a hidden agenda behind it, writes Salah Nasrawi

Writing in the New York Times on 6 September 2007 former American governor of Iraq Paul Bremer described the army he ordered to build following the US invasion in 2003 as “the country’s most effective and trusted security force.”

“By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect” wrote Bremer who ordered to disband Saddam Hussein’s army and replace it with the new force.

“In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision,” he concluded. When President Barak Obama decided to pull out US troops in 2011 one alibi he used to answer critics was that the Iraqi army is capable enough to fill the security vacuum.

The American assessment has routinely been challenged and experts have warned of fundamental problems with the new Iraqi army. Though the United States spent some $25 billion and several years training, the army has been fraught with corruption, inefficiency and lack of fighting skills. Its most serious problem remained sectarianism.

It took the near total collapse of the Iraqi army when the Islamic State terror group advanced into northern and western Iraq in June and captured huge chunks of land and arsenals of abandoned weapons for Washington to admit that the army it had created was nothing but a rag tag force.

In recent weeks, however, US officials started delivering their criticism to the Iraqi security forces publically. Mainstream US media have been awash with stories based on official leaks about the army’s incompetence and sectarianism, effectively ruling out the force from efforts to liberate areas taken by IS.

In a front-page report last week the Washington Post talked about “the larger decay across Iraq’s security forces and institutions.” It described them as a “deeply rooted phenomenon that undermines the country’s stability.”  “The force is also insufficient on its own to retake strategic cities such as Mosul,” wrote the paper.

Its main competitor, The New York Times, detailed “entrenched corruption” among top commanders who are involved in businesses such as selling soldiers provisions, liquor on the job or officer commissions. The paper noted that the pattern of corruption and patronage in the forces threatens to undermine a new American-led effort to drive out the IS extremists.

The Lose Angels Times, another leading US paper, joined the anti-Iraqi army chorus and in a report it concluded that the main factor behind the collapse of the army was its “rampant corruption.” It said army’s equipment and ammunition are sold by officers on the black market.

The US media blitz seems to echo similar criticism by leaders of Iraq’s Kurdish and Sunni communities who are at loggerheads with the Shia-led centeral government which controls the security forces. Leaders of both communities are now pushing for dealing with the Americans away from Baghdad, including direct weapons delivery and training.

In a series of interviews last week Kurdish politician and Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari lambasted rampant corruption and mismanagement in the army. In one interview with Reuters Zebari said “only the Sunni tribes are the ones who can deliver” in the war against IS. Also, Gen. Jamal Mohammad, chief-of-staff of the Kurdish forces, the Peshmeraga, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper last week Baghdad insistence of deliveries of weapons through its airport is delaying liberating territories seized by IS.

Sunni leaders were even more blunt and to the point. The main Sunni bloc in the parliament, the Iraqi National Forces, has appealed to Washington to send weapons and ground troops to help Sunni tribes in fight against

While frustration with post-Saddam era’s Iraqi security forces is justified, this sudden surge of US, Kurdish and Sunni criticism and complaints seem to be orchestrated to prove a point. The Iraqi government-controlled security forces are becoming a problem and the United States and its allies in the international coalition should deal directly with Kurdish and Sunni forces.

The roots of the Iraqi army’s problems lie with the US occupation which dismantled the Iraqi state and dissolved the army and built a political system along ethnic and sectarian lines. After the ouster of Saddam, Shia groups insisted that the army should be put under their control. Shia believed that ensuring security for the country’s reconstruction needs an army loyal to the central government in which they were a majority.

But during former Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s eight years tenure Iraq’s security forces became too sectarian due to his policies of exclusion and marginalization against Sunnis and staffing the army and police with corrupt cronies.

His successor Haider Al-Abadi faced the daunting task of fixing the security forces problem.

On Sunday, Al-Abadi disclosed that an investigation into corruption in the Iraqi army has revealed that there were 50,000 false names on its payroll. Known by Iraqis as “ghost soldiers”, because they do not exist while still receiving their salaries, the system has undermanned the security forces’ capabilities in facing security challenges.

Last month Al-Abadi ordered a major shakeup of the military by relieving 26 army officers of their commands and retiring 10 others for corruption and incompetence. He appointed 18 new commanders as part of efforts to reinforce the work of the military on the basis of professionalism and fighting graft in all its forms.”

Also, Al-Abadi is now trying to reform the ministry of interior and the vast police force it controls. On Monday he fired 24 senior officers, few days after removing the deputy minister who was accused of negligence and mismanagement. A plan for overhauling the force is also underway

But the question now how far can Al-Abadi go in reforming the army and police without sparking accusations that he is weakening the Shia tight grip on the security forces?

Iraqi Shia lawmakers and politicians have vehemently rejected the US-proposed mainly Sunni dominated national guard force to police the Sunni provinces. They also reject the idea of US training or supplying weapons to Sunni tribes without government approval and supervision.

Shia groups have also been resisting pressure to dispose off with the Iranian-backed Shia militias which are playing a key role in the war against IS’s by fighting alongside the security forces. In addition, thousands of Shia have volunteered since the IS made its advances in June. On Sunday, Al-Abadi ordered to pay salaries for some 21,000 Shia volunteers which the government now plans to accommodate in the national guard.

But as criticism of the army and praise to Al-Abadi’s reforms are making headlines, other aspects of the story have began unfolding.

On Monday, the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper revealed that Washington has informed a Sunni delegation that it will start training some 100,000 Sunni fighters to combat IS. The paper quoted members of the delegation which includes politicians, tribal chieftains and former insurgents that the force will also police the Sunni areas after IS’s expulsion. The delegates told Al-Hayat that the programme will be carried out without Baghdad’s consent.

If it could some how be implemented, this means Washington is creating a Sunni armed force in spite of the centeral government. With the Kurdish Peshmergas already operating independently from Baghdad, Iraqi will have three armies on the ground with the all implications and the consequences it could have in a nation enmeshed in a civil war.

The Iranians, meanwhile, seem to have their own vision, or even plans, for Iraq’s security forces. On 27 November Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a surprising statement which went largely unnoticed. “The ideology of the Basij has reached Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and, God willing, it will reach Jerusalem soon,” he said referring to Iran’s powerful paramilitary force which works as an auxiliary force engaged in security activities.

On 30 November the Lebanese National News Agency quoted leader of Hezbollah Shia party Hassan Nassrullah as warning of plans to “create a Sunni region in Iraq” which he said with parts of Syrian territories under Sunni control would together be annexed to Jordan. “This would be the alternative Palestinian state,” he was quoted as telling Al-Maliki who was in a visit to Lebanon.

As both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue to have stakes in giving a strong political and military support to Iraqi Shia, there is much to read into Khamenei’s and Nassrullah’s apocalyptic statements and the Baghdad government’s rejection of an autonomous Iraqi Sunni force.

The mere process of having three armed forces built on ethno-sectarian lines will effectively mean Iraq is divided to three different entities. With Syria unraveling, the much talked about scenario of combining the Sunni heartland in both Iraq and Syria in a larger Sunni country could become a reality.

And that is a nightmare for Shia in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon who will be separated by the new Sunnistan.

This article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly Dec. 4, 2014

ما بعد التجربة

Where does Iraq’s money go?

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The failure to pass a state budget has unveiled the full extent of Iraq’s empty coffers, writesSalah Nasrawi

The annual budget debate is an important tradition in parliamentary systems, a time when lawmakers discuss the government’s draft financial blueprint and the public is told about the nation’s financial status.

A budgetary crisis can trigger a standoff and may develop into a government shutdown in which the government temporarily suspends non-essential services until a budget is passed. The failure of the parliament to pass a budget can also spark the fall of the government.

Yet, in Iraq nothing of this sort has happened. Even as 2014 is coming to an end, the country still does not have a state budget for this year, and the government is operating on 2013 budget predictions despite lower oil prices and cuts in production.

The government has also not unveiled plans for the 2015 budget.

The scandalous failure to introduce a budget means that Iraq is entering another year without having an annual financial chart for the country or even a scenario for proposed revenues and spending.

Last week, the new Minister of Finance Hoshyar Zebari surprised the parliament by telling members that the government would not submit a budget, instead making a statement in which he provided figures on government revenues and expenditures.

In summarising the country’s financial status, Zebari told the parliament that the government’s revenues in 2014 had amounted to ID105 trillion, ID96 trillion from oil exports and the rest from non-oil income (the Iraqi Dinar = 0.00086 $).

As for expenditures, Zebari explained that the government had spent ID185 trillion, divided between ID103 trillion on its operational budget and the rest on investment.

While parliaments usually debate the government’s proposals and take action in choosing to increase or decrease spending on any of its programmes, Iraqi MPs were asked to endorse the aggregate figures given by the government without discussion.

Since the collapse of the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraq’s parliament has had difficulty passing annual budget bills in any regular order.

Squabbles over appropriations are routine, and last-minute deals usually come at the expense of a solid budget. Worse still, the government usually fails to introduce its final revenue and expenditure accounts for endorsement before passing a new budget.

Last year, the parliament was unable to pass a budget because of a dispute between the central government and the autonomous Kurdistan Region over independent oil exports from the enclave. The row resulted in cutting Kurdistan’s budget, creating a new fissure in relations between the Shia-led government in Baghdad and the Kurds.

The crisis allowed former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki to use budgetary advances and emergency provisions, circumventing the checks and balances enshrined in the country’s constitution to ensure limits imposed by the legislative branch.

Al-Maliki argued that he wanted to avert a government deadlock as a result of the freezing of funds while the country faced political instability and soaring violence. Critics, however, say that Al-Maliki did not only overreach himself in spending but also gave himself a free rein in using the state’s coffers.

Despite its huge oil revenues, Iraq’s economy is in a shambles due largely to mismanagement, poor public spending and rampant corruption. Some 70 per cent of the state budget goes to food and energy subsidies, funding an inflated bureaucracy and ramshackle armed forces that collapsed in the face of an onslaught by Islamic State (IS) forces in June.

The budget has been hard hit by a displacement crisis triggered by the war against IS, and the government now spends some $500 million a month to feed and house some 1.75 million internal refugees. Additional amounts are being spent on constructing a new force in Sunni-dominated provinces to fight the IS terror group.

But Iraq’s budgetary problems are also more deep-rooted. For most of the past 12 years the government has been violating the budget rules by using loopholes in the constitution and the law.

Few data are available about how much money Iraq has been spending or earning. There are no accurate figures for oil exports, and it is widely believed that oil is being smuggled out in large quantities, sometimes under government officials’ noses.

In addition, the implementation rates of both the state’s operational and investment budgets are either lagging or low. Some departments have failed to spend even half of their annual budgets.

This dismal rate of implementation of the public budget, largely blamed on government inefficiency, reflects badly on development projects and economic growth.

With expectations that Iraq’s economy is likely to shrink by 2.7 per cent this year, the UN has warned of an economic downturn in the country influenced by pressure from rising security spending and the humanitarian crisis.

The government has promised to present a draft 2015 budget but has given no details so far. Estimates for government revenues have totalled ID139 trillion based on an oil price of $90 per barrel, and the head of the Iraqi parliament’s finance committee, Majda Al-Timimi, has predicted that the country’s budget deficit in the 2105 budget will be some $50 billion.

Zebari said the government hoped to cut this deficit by nearly half or more, suggesting drastic measures to cover the deficit and make up for lower oil prices and oil production.

Zebari, a Kurd who was a foreign minister in the former government and has no economic or financial background, has proposed that the government resort to loans and IMF special drawing rights, as well as to issuing bonds against the pension funds and assets of the two state-owned banks, the Rafidain Bank and the Al-Rashid Bank.

He has also suggested raising taxes, levies and customs. In addition, he has suggested that the Central Bank, which has $77 billion in foreign reserves, should lower its reserves to seven per cent instead of its current 15 per cent mark.

The aim, he said, was to raise ID21 trillion to help meet the country’s deficit. However, Zebari’s proposals have been largely dismissed by the government. While the Central Bank has ruled out any move to lower the reserves, an aide to Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi has categorically rejected the idea of foreign loans.

Experts have also warned that borrowing against the country’s reserves to cover the deficit will increase inflation and weaken the Iraqi Dinar.

As the budget bottleneck tightens, many experts believe that the government will have to impose austerity measures to cut spending and waste. While the government has said it will not cut salaries or pensions, other reductions in the lavish spending of oil money may increase unemployment and poverty, already sky-rocketing as a result of downbeat growth.

Iraq’s economy has been hard hit by decades of wars, international sanctions and inefficiency. Though the country has the fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, and is the second-largest producer of crude oil in OPEC, most of the oil revenues go to imports, mostly food and other basis commodities.

But Iraq’s current economic ills are largely due to the bad policies adopted by post-Saddam governments. Instead of rebuilding the economy and sustaining growth in basic sectors, these have relied heavily on oil revenues to bankroll the budget.

Though Iraq’s arable land is estimated at eight million hectares, or less than 15 per cent of the country’s total area, agriculture, which employs one third of the work force, accounts for less than four per cent of the country’s GDP.

The manufacturing, construction and water and electricity industries are in tatters and account for only eight per cent of the national wealth.

Government policies are mainly responsible for the decline in the country’s productive sectors. Corruption comes at the top of the reasons for the depletion of the country’s coffers. Last week debate in parliament revealed that large chunks of $500 million allocated to displaced people had gone into the pockets of corrupt officials.

Now Iraq’s economy is in disarray. While the fiscal crisis, lower oil prices, and violence caused by the war on IS will add more pressure to the government’s revenues, its overall economic performance will also remain detrimental to the country’s growth and progress.

ما بعد التجربة

Iraq’s forgotten human rights

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The world should be more focused on human rights abuses in Iraq, writes Salah Nasrawi
As the war rages on in Iraq nearly twelve years after the US-led invasion, there have been more reminders of the volume of human rights violations in this beleaguered nation which have now reached a massive scale. With a new US-led coalition being forged and targeting Iraq, this high level of abuse warrants the international community to pay special attention to the situation and to put the crisis on the world’s agenda.
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Wide-ranging evidence suggests that the abuses are systematic violations rather than isolated incidents, but because of a culture of impunity for the perpetrators and a lack of proper documentation the true scale of the abuses remains unknown. As the sectarian violence and political turmoil continue in Iraq, the country remains at the bottom of the list of countries with poor human rights records worldwide.
 
The Baghdad government, the Kurdistan Regional Government, the terrorist Islamic State (IS) and the Shia militias all stand accused of gross human rights abuses, some amounting to war crimes, during the escalation of the violence in the country since the US-led invasion in 2003 and the sectarian conflict and political stalemate that followed.
Accountability for these crimes, however, has remained almost non-existent. Earlier this month, the United Nations announced that at least 9,347 civilians had been killed so far in 2014 and 17,386 wounded, well over half of them since the terrorist group the Islamic State began overrunning swathes of the north of the country in early June.

 

Estimates of the casualties from the conflict in Iraq since 2003 vary. Nearly half a million people have died from war-related causes since the US-led invasion, according to a study published in the United States last year. That toll is far higher than the nearly 200,000 civilian deaths reported by the British-based group the Iraq Body Count this month or the lesser statistics produced by Iraq’s government.

 

This deplorable situation stands as testimony to the devastation wrought by the US occupation, the atrocities carried out by the Sunni insurgents, especially the IS terror group, the unbridled reprisals of Shia militias and the horrific violations committed by the government authorities.

 

Serious human rights violations by the United States in Iraq are now well documented, including unlawful murder, rape, the torture of detainees and other war crimes. Three years after the US troop withdrawal, the Iraqi people are still paying a heavy price for Washington’s failure to fulfil its obligations to protect the Iraqi people’s rights, having devastating consequences for their lives and futures.

 

In post-invasion Iraq, successive central governments and the government of the self-ruled Kurdistan Region have not only failed to adhere to the standards required of them under international law, but have also themselves committed serious violations. With the country’s ethno-sectarian conflict deadlocked and violence triggered by the terrorist attacks continuing, these governments have sacrificed human rights for security.

 

Since 2003, various human rights groups have been detailing Iraq as among the world’s top nations responsible for major human rights abuses, ranging from death, torture and arbitrary arrest or detention to the denial of the basic freedoms of expression and assembly.

 

ALARMING FIGURES: The total number of individuals sentenced to death in Iraq since 2004 is believed to stand at more than 1,200. There are around 48 crimes for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, including some, under certain circumstances, including damage to public property.

 

Among the systematic pattern of abuse at the hands of the Iraqi central government’s security forces is the practice of arrests without warrants based on religious sect or political affiliation and the mistreatment of prisoners. The systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, including torture and degrading treatment by interrogators and guards, is widespread.

 

Human rights organisations have been reporting that thousands of detainees languish in prison without charge. Detainees are routinely held incommunicado without access to family or legal counsel. Many of those brought to trial are sentenced to long prison terms or to death after grossly unfair proceedings in which convictions are based on “confessions” extracted under torture or other forms of coercion. Such “confessions” are often broadcast on national television before the trials.

 

Female inmates suffer from overcrowding and a lack of sufficient access to female-specific health care. Women are frequently detained with their young children, who are then deprived of access to education and adequate health care as well as light, fresh air, food and water. Women prisoners have been reporting that the security forces have detained, beaten, tortured, and in some instances, sexually abused them as a means of intimidating or punishing male family members suspected of terrorism.

 

Millions of Iraqis have fled their homes in recent years amid waves of sectarian violence that have sparked mass displacement internally and abroad. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees remain on the books of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration seeking safe haven in foreign countries.

 

More than two million Iraqis remain displaced within their own country. Many of them continue to reside in squatter settlements without access to basic necessities such as clean water, electricity and sanitation, and the government has no plans for their return. As the political crisis continues in the country and the sectarian violence spirals, lasting solutions to the displacement appear as distant as ever.

 

For years Iraq has faced persistent criticism for suppressing basic human rights of assembly and freedom of speech. The country’s security forces respond to peaceful protests with threats, violence and arrests. In many cases army and police forces have used lethal force on Sunni demonstrators gathering largely peacefully and killing and injuring many people.

 

The security forces have responded to protests against corruption and the lack of services in Baghdad and other cities with force, arresting, and in some instances beating, the protesters and then prosecuting them on charges of a failure to obey orders. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has invoked broad and restrictive regulations on protests to refuse permits for peaceful demonstrations, in contravention of Iraq’s constitutional guarantee of free assembly.

 

The Baghdad government and Kurdish authorities continue to use arbitrary power to impose curbs on the freedom of expression. More than 200 Iraqi employees of media networks have been killed since the invasion of March 2003, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous place for journalists. Iraq was named “worst nation” on the 2013 Impunity Index of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for unsolved journalist murders.

 

TERRORIST GROUPS: The situation of human rights in Iraq has further deteriorated with IS terrorists taking over large chunks of land in June and committing savage crimes, including slaughter, carrying out mass executions, abducting women and girls as sex slaves, and using child soldiers.

 

In its 2 October report, produced jointly by its mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations talked of a “staggering array” of human rights abuses committed by IS militants and associated armed Sunni groups in Iraq.

 

Among the gross human rights violations and violence against religious minorities were forcing non-Muslims to convert to Islam. Those who refused have been forced to either pay a protection tax or leave their homes and towns.

 

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as IS was formerly known, has been responsible for lethal suicide car bombings and other attacks, including the bombings of mosques, markets and residential areas. The attacks, directly targeting Shia soldiers and civilians and their neighbourhoods and worshiping places, have been largely responsible for the escalation in religious violence.

 

Al-Qaeda driven cycles of violence have also pushed the country’s Shias to retaliate. Shia militias, which began to remobilise earlier this year, have reportedly carried out retaliatory attacks, including on Sunni mosques. Government-backed Shia militias have also been kidnapping and killing Sunni civilians throughout Baghdad and in other mixed Sunni-Shia provinces.

 

Shia extremists have been accused of carrying out targeted or extrajudicial killings in some mixed districts and neighbourhoods. There have been reports that Shia armed groups have threatened Sunni residents with death if they did not leave the areas. The bodies of men, believed mostly to be Sunnis, who have been killed in execution-style killings are routinely found in Baghdad.

 

CORRUPTION AND LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY: A cross-section of views from a wide range of regional and international rights organisations agree that 12 years after the collapse of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime, many Iraqis today enjoy greater freedoms than they did under his rule. But the fundamental human rights gains that should have been achieved during the past decade have significantly failed to materialise.

 

Human rights groups have documented abuses in the Kurdish enclave that is under the jurisdiction of the autonomous Kurdistan Region. These abuses include the arbitrary arrests of critics of the government, torture and abuse in detention, and unsolved abductions and murders. Violations of freedom of expression and assembly have also been reported.

 

Widespread graft and corrupt governance reflect negatively on all human and civil rights.

 

Saddam’s Iraq was known for its shocking violations of human rights. Mass atrocities by the secret police, public executions, assassinations, disappearances and the detention of political opponents and destruction of their houses were just some of the methods the regime used to maintain control.

 

The post-Saddam governments’ response to the pervasive human rights violations in the country has been disappointing and marked by a lack of transparency and accountability and a disregard for human life and dignity. Both the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights and the parliamentary Human Rights Committee have failed to put human rights at the forefront of their work. Iraq has set up a national human right commission which in theory should work to protect human rights and end abuses, but critics say it has been largely ineffective.

 

Next month will witness two major events which Iraqi rights activists hope will help focus world attention on the dilemma of human rights in Iraq. A group of Iraqi human rights activists will meet in Berlin to try to set up a national human rights organisation that will re-channel efforts by Iraqi groups to monitor abuses by the government and other non-state actors and pressure them to act according to human rights principles.

 

In Casablanca, Arab human rights advocates and groups will come together to work out a plan to advance the movement. The Iraqi participants are expected to urge delegates to the Casablanca conference, which will prepare for an international forum later in November, to put the human rights abuses in Iraq higher on the international agenda.

 

TURNING A BLIND EYE: The international community has done little to stop human rights violations in Iraq and in some cases has turned a blind eye to them. As the US-led coalition embarks on what seems to be a prolonged war against IS, the allies are required to ensure the protection of the civilian population against incidents by their own forces or reprisals by the Iraqi parties.

 

The international coalition should make human rights part of its political approach in Iraq, integrating them into its strategy to resolve the country’s conflict.

 

Violence, inequality and injustice in Iraq present a threat to the country’s future and to regional and world peace. The international community should maintain pressure on the country to rectify its appalling human rights record. Reconciliation, lasting peace and a healthy future for all its citizens will be impossible if past and present abuses are not addressed.

 

One major step which the international community should take now is to prevent Iraq from becoming an island of impunity. Iraq perhaps more than many other places qualifies for a tribunal of its own to address suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity. The world should send out a clear message that those who commit gross human rights crimes in Iraq should be prosecuted and punished no matter how much time has elapsed since the crimes were committed.

 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al-Hussein, has also called on the government of Iraq to consider acceding to the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court. In a report published earlier this month, Al-Hussein said Iraq should take immediate steps and “accept the exercise of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction with respect to the current horrendous situation facing the country”.

 

The tribunal will offer the chance to put the perpetrators of the abuses on trial and condemn atrocities committed by government authorities and belligerent groups, and it will also help in resolving Iraq’s lingering sectarian conflicts which are now threatening world peace.
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Chained to Al-Maliki’s legacy

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The tragic legacy of former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki continues to haunt the country, writes Salah Nasrawi
Shortly before he stepped down as prime minister under growing threats from the Islamic State (IS) terror group and increasing political instability, Iraq’s former prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki appointed several of his operatives to key government posts.
Among the last minute reshuffles was naming his chief of staff as the new governor of the country’s Central Bank and his secretary as the new head of the cabinet office. Al-Maliki, who had staffed government and security forces posts with cronies during his tenure, also reportedly named another partisan as the new head of the state-owned Iraqi Media Network.
Moreover, Al-Maliki, who ended his term without a budget approved by parliament for the years 2014 and 2015, allegedly left his successor, Haidar Al-Abadi, taking over the reins with empty coffers due to unchecked overspending and rampant corruption.
Though Al-Maliki was appointed vice-president in the political deal that made him step aside, he has refused to give up his prime ministerial offices in one of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s former presidential palaces in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.
The Iraqi media has also reported that he has insisted on keeping the large army units tasked to protect the prime minister for his guard.
The message could not be clearer for Al-Abadi: Al-Maliki has been bidding to make life tough for the new prime minister by making him face enormous challenges. Yet, Al-Maliki, who reluctantly gave up his post to Al-Abadi, has not only added insult to injury as far as the new prime minister is concerned, but he has also raised tensions in Iraq’s already messy political process.
Now Al-Abadi must work with an entrenched bureaucracy in which most of those on the higher echelons are Al-Maliki loyalists and with a system created to serve the former strongman’s policies. The negative impact of Al-Maliki’s political appointees on the actions of the new prime minister and his staff is expected to be daunting.
In addition to the appointees that may get in the way of Al-Abadi, Al-Maliki has also been forcing himself into the political debate. Though his vice-presidential post is ceremonial, the former prime minister has not hesitated to intervene in controversial political issues.
He has been using his position as head of the State of Law bloc and secretary-general of Al-Abadi’s own Dawa Party to organise political meetings and discuss crucial government matters, such as its relations with the US-led international coalition to fight the Islamic State terror group.
Last week Al-Maliki told a gathering of Dawa Party supporters in Kut south of Baghdad that “all of you should stand with the government when [it moves] in the right direction and warn it against any wrong doing.” This was a veiled threat that Al-Maliki is still a heavyweight to be reckoned with and is still playing a role behind the scenes in Iraqi politics.
No one had expected Al-Maliki to disappear from public life after his forced resignation, but his comeback onto the Iraqi political scene has been surprisingly quick and aggressively bullying.
Since he came to power Al-Abadi has been subject to outbursts in social media dubbed by Iraqis as “Al-Maliki’s electronic army”. Nearly a dozen media outlets are said to be operated by Al-Maliki-hired spin doctors to spread anti-government misinformation.
Some of Al-Maliki’s cronies have been deriding Al-Abadi publicly. In an interview with the New York Times last week Hanan Al-Fatlawi, an outspoken Al-Maliki crony, described Al-Abadi as having a “weak personality” and “no courage to decide important things”.
Having promised a different governmental approach, Al-Abadi was expected to make changes to improve security and provide essential public services such as electricity, healthcare and housing.
Al-Abadi has been trying to dump Al-Maliki’s legacy by reaching out to other political forces. He has promised that his government will be all-inclusive and that his partners will share in decision-making.
Al-Abadi has also pledged to clean up the government and the security forces of corrupt and inefficient officials. One of his first steps in government was to abolish the office of the general command that was set up by Al-Maliki to run the day-to-day affairs of the security forces.
He had reportedly dismissed dozens of Al-Maliki-appointed top officers who are suspected of corruption, malpractice and incompetence. Others have been investigated, including on how they were promoted and assigned high commands despite weak performances.
On Saturday, Al-Abadi succeeded in convincing the parliament to endorse his candidates for the key posts of the defence and the interior ministers nearly one month after he formed his unity government.
The breakthrough is expected to consolidate Al-Abadi’s government as the country prepares to mount an effective military response to the IS onslaught.
Al-Maliki had previously vetoed the new Sunni Defence Minister Khalid Al-Obeid and insisted on his ally and leader of the Badr Corps Shia militia Hadi Al-Ameri for the interior minister portfolio.
There is speculation regarding Al-Maliki’s intentions in defying Al-Abadi, particularly since the new prime minister is a junior member of his own Dawa Party. There are also concerns that Al-Maliki may be trying to set up a second set of institutions or a double government, his strategy being to portray Al-Abadi as weak, ineffective and unable to face responsibility.
One theory is that Al-Maliki wants to establish himself as a Shia hero who can crack down on IS militants and other Sunni insurgent groups and ensure the future of a Shia government in Iraq.
Another theory is that Al-Maliki may be afraid that his political opponents will press the Iraqi and foreign judiciaries to bring him to account on charges such as mismanagement, negligence, corruption and even war crimes during his years in power.
Over the past eight years, Al-Maliki has been accused of power grabs and committing gross constitutional violations and overlooking or sidestepping the law. Despite damming evidence he has escaped prosecution because of the influence he has been able to exercise over the country’s judiciary.
In terms of human rights, the security forces under his command and other government agencies have been accused of all kinds of abuses and violations of freedoms, including the freedom of expression, publication, assembly and peaceful demonstration.
Under Al-Maliki’s government Iraq became a nation of corruption. Grafts, kickbacks, commissions and bribery became common practices, and while in office Al-Maliki fired three anti-corruption heads when they tried to probe his cronies.
Allegations about the corruption of his son Ahmed and other siblings abound.
Al-Maliki has also been accused of mishandling state funds, interfering in the operations of the Central Bank, and misusing assets in the Iraqi Development Fund. But perhaps the most serious charge against him is his responsibility for the disaster unfolding in Iraq today.
Al-Maliki failed to resolve the disputes with the autonomous Kurdish Region over oil-revenue sharing and disputed territories when he was in office. The Kurds finally succeeded in extracting oil themselves and selling it independently, also seizing territory as large as their original enclave.
For eight years Al-Maliki ran Iraq in a sectarian and authoritarian way which alienated the country’s minority Sunni Arabs, a policy which is primarily responsible for the unabated Sunni insurgency today.
Al-Maliki’s marginalisation and exclusion of the Sunnis and their repression by his security forces were largely responsible for the bloody insurgency and the violence that has ensued across Iraq.
Al-Maliki’s incompetence and negligence remain main factors underlying last summer’s spectacular collapse of the Iraqi security forces and the quick sweep of Sunni militants through Mosul and other Sunni-dominated provinces.
Even the country’s Shias suffered under his authoritarian rule.
In a scathing attack against him, a spokesman for the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council Baligh Abu Galal was quoted on Sunday by Iraqi media outlets as describing Al-Maliki as an “enemy of Iraq, Islam and the Shias”.
On Monday, Shia grand ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who has shunned Al-Maliki for years, received Al-Abadi in an audience in a clear message of support for the latter and disdain for the former.
The quagmire in Iraq is America’s enduring folly, and the Al-Qaeda group, the forerunner to the murderous IS, also has had its own role to play in the on-going bloodbath. Iraq’s neighbours cannot be exempted either from the tragedy.
But the country’s post-Saddam leaders are primarily responsible for the catastrophe that has befallen Iraq and now threatens to obliterate it from the political map of the Middle East.
Among these leaders, Al-Maliki remains Iraq’s chief destroyer. Many Iraqis are dismayed by his legacy and are deeply concerned at the prospect that he will now continue meddling in Iraq’s chaotic politics.