Ali Allawi: The Occupation of Iraq

The invasion of Iraq was launched on 19 March 2003 by American forces led by the Third Infantry Division, with British support, from Kuwait into Iraqi territory. The war was fought fitfully over a three-week period. There was no doubt about the final outcome, even if at certain points there appeared to be some resistance. But this was quickly overcome.

In Basra, the British had effectively surrounded the city by the first week, but did not establish control until the end of March. Meanwhile, the Americans had met unexpected resistance in the city of Nasiriyah, mainly from the Fedayeen Saddam, a militia loyal to Saddam and his family. The march to Baghdad was halted by sandstorms in the central Euphrates area, and also by running skirmishes and ambushes. But the Iraqi army and the vaunted Republican Guard simply melted away. The troops did not surrender en masse as had been expected - they simply went home. Coalition intelligence had expected that entire units would switch sides and form the core of a future loyal military force with which they could cooperate.

Apart from a very few exceptions, however, this did not happen. Reports of the wholesale surrender of Iraqi army units were simply unfounded. By the time the vanguard of the US invading force had reached the outskirts of Baghdad, the armed forces of Iraq had almost disintegrated. The regime tried to use the Arab "volunteers" who had flocked to join the battle against the invaders. Some 4,000 were, reportedly, in Baghdad, awaiting orders from the Iraqi High Command. They were thrown into a hopeless battle in the airport area against the Americans, and were decimated.

Large-scale operations ended when the US army entered Baghdad in force on 9 April 2003 and, in a symbolic gesture, pulled down the statue of Saddam in Firdaus Square in the heart of the city.

The involvement of exiled Iraqis in the planning and execution of the war had been negligible. The Kurds had been effectively sidelined by the decision not to open a northern front, but their peshmerga forces did play an important supporting role to US special forces who had been deployed earlier in Iraqi Kurdistan. There were, in addition, three other possible groups that could have contributed an "Iraqi" element to the coalition forces: the Badr Brigade, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), and armed members of the Iraq National Accord (INA).

The group that was finally trained in Hungary had far fewer recruits than had been expected, and its members were allocated to the various US and British frontline units as interpreters and liaison officers. The Badr Brigade was prepared to enter Iraq, but the US had sent a forceful message to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) warning that if any organised force from Badr was to enter the battle it would be considered an enemy combatant and treated accordingly. This did not stop Badr from infiltrating its units into a number of towns and cities near the eastern borders with Iran that were outside the main invasion routes of the US army.

In mid-April, Badr forces seized Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, while a Sciri cleric, protected by Badr gunmen, occupied the government buildings in Kut, the capital of Wasit province. In the west, Iyad Allawi's INA moved into the tribal areas of Anbar province. The INA had no armed wing as such and relied on winning over tribal elements that it had cultivated over the years from its Jordan base. This was part of INA's plan of coopting Sunni Arab tribes that had been alienated from the regime, or whose loyalty could be bought. It was part of the grand strategy that evolved with the CIA, which included the use of dissident military and security officers, Ba'ath party leaders and tribal chiefs to undermine key props of the regime's power structure. There was, in fact, very little to show for INA's effort, except for minimal resistance to the presence of the occupying armies, in the very early days after the war in the western and northern parts of the country.

The INC also tried, from its temporary headquarters in the Dokan area of Kurdistan, to recruit a force that could help it in the looming struggle for power and influence in Baghdad. The organisation had maintained regular contact during the early days of the war with both the Pentagon and United States Central Command (Centcom) in Qatar. The resistance in Nasiriyah by Fedayeen Saddam to the advancing American army appeared to show up the absence of Iraqi participation in the war against Saddam. At that point, the Pentagon decided to fly the INC contingent down from Kurdistan to Nasiriyah, as part of the effort to put an Iraqi Arab face to the coalition forces, for both symbolic and tactical reasons.

After a few days of training, the Free Iraqi Forces, as it was now named, was attached to US special forces. It was used in a few engagements in the marshlands, notably in the Shatra area, where it appeared to have uncovered a large cache of arms. The publicity effect of this move was enormous. A number of groups saw this as a Pentagon attempt to load the dice in favour of the INC. But the reality was somewhat different. The group stayed isolated in an abandoned camp, and had to scrounge for transport. On 16 April, Ahmed Chalabi and his small force arrived in Baghdad and ensconced themselves in the Hunting Club.

Iraq's inhabitants did not meet the invasion with joyous scenes of welcome for a liberating army. The collapse of the decades-old dictatorship left a power vacuum, especially in the south and in the poor Shia suburbs of Baghdad. Islamist forces and their allies, who laid claim to the loyalty of the population, quickly filled the power vacuum. Parallel power-structures evolved in nearly all towns and cities of southern Iraq, but they remained undetected by officials installed by the occupying authorities. In places such as Sadr City, the giant Shia slum of east Baghdad, the dormant Sadrist Movement, about whose existence virtually nothing was known by the West before the war, sprang to life, and within days after the fall of Baghdad it had secured the area. The movement had not been quashed by the former regime, as many had thought, but had simply gone underground. The speed and extent of the Islamist wave that swept over Shia Iraq was as if a tsunami had silently and very rapidly spread to cover the south. No one had predicted the strength of this wave and the depth of support that it engendered amongst the poor and deprived population of the area.

In Baghdad, with occupation forces settling in to run the country, the goings-on in the south, or even in Sadr City, were matters of little concern. The US had quickly defeated the Iraqi armed forces and could now nudge and cajole its allies in the opposition and inside the country to work together to produce an acceptable governing formula for the country.

Clashes between the shadow local governments and the administrative structures that were being put in place by the coalition were not slow in coming. Frequently, the struggle for local control of southern towns was between proxies of the coalition, some of whom had come with the invading armies, and others that had been hand-picked by local commanders or who had been suggested by the field operatives of the CIA or British intelligence. The individuals selected to run these towns had little sensitivity or knowledge about local conditions.

In nearly every southern province, as well as in Sadr City, the original administration that had been put in place in the wake of the invasion fell apart, and power seeped to the newly emergent Islamists and their local allies. The failure to establish local control, especially in the larger cities that had been bypassed by the invasion force, was an issue that was to come back to haunt the coalition, time and again. To a large extent, this was because of the insufficient number of troops that had been committed to the invasion. General Eric Shinseki, the retiring US army commander, had suggested in congressional hearings before the war that Iraq would need a force of nearly 500,000 troops to pacify and control the country properly after the fighting. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, however, had dismissed his views. A larger force would have given the coalition's local proxies the wherewithal to at least face up to the challenge of the Islamists more forcefully.

The assertion of local power by underground Islamist forces was first manifested, with tragic consequences, in the holy city of Najaf. Sayyid Abdul Majid al-Khoei, the secretary general of the Khoei Foundation, had developed strong relationships with western governments and agencies throughout the decade that he spent in London after the collapse of the March 1991 uprising. The foundation was seen as a moderating force in the world of Shia Islam, and a useful counterweight to the Iranian regime. As the war with Iraq became ever more likely, al-Khoei, who had avoided any direct involvement in the politics of Iraq, began to show a marked interest in Iraqi affairs. In late 2002, he had even floated the idea of institutionalising the position of the Shia in Iraq by forming a Shia council that would oversee the civilian affairs of the community after the fall of the regime. His approach was communitarian.

As war became imminent, he was approached by the CIA to help in the effort of controlling the city of Najaf and establishing a conduit between the Maraji' of Najaf and the coalition. He eagerly accepted the challenge. On 3 April 2003 he was flown by a US Marine helicopter with his group into Najaf. He established himself in an abandoned house and began a series of visits to the city's leading ayatollahs, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had recently issued a statement advising Iraqis not to hinder the progress of the coalition's troops. Al-Khoei appeared to be well supported and funded in this effort. He quickly organised a civilian council and set himself the task of returning basic services to the city's population.

With the support of the US military, plenty of resources at hand, and an illustrious name, al-Khoei believed that he would be able to master the politics of the city. But he made two cardinal errors. First, in his keenness to bind the disparate groups in Najaf, he reached out to the Saddam-appointed custodian of the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali, the so-called killidar (keeper of the keys), Haider al-Rufaii, who had been cowering inside the compound of his house since the fall of the regime. He was deeply unpopular, not only because it was believed he had taken some of the shrine's treasures and donations, but also because he had been a member of the Ba'ath Party, as well as a member of the defunct, rubber-stamp National Assembly. The other mistake made by al-Khoei related to his treatment of Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers in Najaf. He belittled their significance, as he was essentially ignorant of the changed power relations in Najaf because of the rise of the movement associated with the murdered Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr.

On 10 April, al-Khoei, together with an armed escort, accompanied Haider al-Rufaii to the Shrine of Imam Ali. There, while the two were in the custodian's offices, they were accosted by a mob of angry supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr. After an exchange of gunfire and the throwing of grenades, the mob seized al-Khoei and al-Rufaii.

Al-Rufaii was hacked to death in front of the gates of the shrine. Al-Khoei was killed later, apparently after failing to receive protection in Muqtada al-Sadr's house nearby. Although one of al-Khoei's entourage managed to contact the US military and the CIA, al-Khoei's erstwhile protectors did not interfere to stop the mêlée at the shrine. (It was later admitted that the US commanders in the area had instructions not to approach the heart of the city lest it be interpreted as an infringement of the sanctity of the shrine.)

The murder of Abdul Majid al-Khoei left a deep impression, not only in Najaf but also throughout Iraq. He had been a well-known and respected figure throughout the Iraqi exile community, even though his recent engagement in politics had not been universally welcomed. Islamists found in him a potential rival, and his strong links with western agencies were held against him. In the complex interrelationships of the religious families of Najaf, his name carried significant weight. At the same time, his early advocacy of the Marji 'iyya of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani made him a powerful contender as one of the gateways to the Grand Ayatollah. After his murder, the Grand Ayatollah barricaded himself in his house, surrounded by armed supporters. Later, a mob tried to force Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and Muhammad Said al-Hakim to leave Najaf, on the grounds that they were of Iranian origin. It was only after a tribal force of 1,500 armed men was assembled who swore to protect the Grand Ayatollahs that the immediate threat to the Marji'iyya diminished. Muqtada al-Sadr, whose relationships with the assailants were unclear, had established himself as a leader in the tortuous politics of the city and therefore of Shia Iraq as a whole. The murder of al-Khoei and the circumstances surrounding it would feature constantly in battles between the coalition and Muqtada al-Sadr, as al-Khoei's murder was pinned to the Sadrists.

The circumstances of the emergence of local power groups in other towns and cities of the Shia south were not so dramatic as the tragic events of Najaf. In Nasiriyah, the city fell under the tutelage of local tribesmen allied with the Da'awa Party and a returning ayatollah, Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri. In the string of towns and villages adjoining the border with Iran, a motley collection of disparate Islamists and tribesmen seized control of places such as Badra.

Amara, the capital of Maysan province, was initially controlled by Abdul Karim Mahoud al-Muhammadawi, a guerrilla fighter whose exploits in the marshlands earned him the title Lord of the Marshes. In Basra, a variety of groups associated with the Sadrist movement, including a breakaway faction called the Fadhila Party, and Sciri, established their authority. In Sadr City, the Sadr movement was irresistible and enjoyed huge local support.

In Karbala, the authority of the followers of Ayatollah Taqi Mudarressi and his Islamic Action Organisation became evident, but the group had to share control of the city with Islamists of the Da'awa Party and Sciri. This uneasy mixture of a formal occupation authority and local power groups with profoundly different agendas marked the emergence of provincial politics in the newly enfranchised Shia south.

The pattern in other parts of the country was completely different. In the Sunni Arab provinces, as well as in parts of Baghdad, antipathy to the invasion and a serious fear of disempowerment marked the emergence of an entirely separate consciousness - that of resistance to the occupation. In Iraqi Kurdistan, there were no serious attempts to displace the governing structures of the Kurdistan Regional Government by the coalition. The main problems that were confronted at local and provincial levels involved attempts by the Kurds to extend the scope of their control into Kirkuk, parts of the city of Mosul and Nineveh province, and southwards into the mixed areas of Diyala province and eastern Wasit. The imposition of Kurdish control over disputed territory became a central feature of Kurdish attempts to define the territorial limits of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The collapse of central authority in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq in the weeks preceding and following the fall of Baghdad on 9 April 2003 led to outbreaks of looting and property-destruction on a huge scale. The looters were not confined to any stratum of society, and they responded in the classic fashion described by Ali al-Wardi when law and order breaks down in Iraq's civil society. Centcom ignored the call for the coalition to have a strong military police presence in all areas falling under the coalition's control. When looters saw that the new authority was unwilling or incapable of projecting its power, all inhibitions constraining the looters disappeared. Nearly every ministerial building was stripped of its contents, and fires were ignited in the buildings, both to hide the crimes and to burn down hated symbols of the state's power. Hotels, palaces, villas of the elite, embassies, hospitals, barracks, power stations, waterworks, were all targeted and mostly looted, vandalised and burned down. The National Library with its priceless manuscript collection was looted and the building set on fire. Thousands of vehicles and construction equipment were spirited off, mainly through the Kurdish north, and sold on to smugglers and dealers in Iran, Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Baghdad's police force, normally 40,000 strong, had disappeared, and there were no firefighters to dampen the flames.

Fires raged out of control for days, and Baghdad was strewn with a large number of gutted and burnt-out buildings. The scene of devastation was striking, and had never been anticipated by the war's planners. The nonchalance of the coalition's soldiers and officers in the face of brazen plunder, reportedly because of the lack of orders to intervene and stop the looting, gave rise to the charge of the coalition's indifference to the widespread destruction of Iraq's cultural legacy and infrastructure. The looting and destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage became something of an international cause célèbre and played into the hands of the war's many opponents around the world.

The first, highly alarmist, reports suggested a calculated plunder of the National Museum's contents, which set off alarm bells in international antiquities markets. The reports were given some credence by Western archaeologists, who had cautioned that the war might devastate Iraq's antiquities. A number had been in the vanguard of opposition to the war, and their ranks were stiffened by Iraqi archaeologists who also appeared to give credence to these reports. There was, in fact, considerable theft from the National Museum's treasures, but never to the extent originally claimed. The museum's director quietly scaled down his estimate of loss, but not before the FBI had been called in to examine the case.

The first weeks after the fall of Baghdad had set the stage for the drama that had only just started. The mostly Shia population of the south had stubbornly refused to make the connection between the overthrow of a hated regime and the invasion and occupation of the country. The Sunni Arabs were alienated, sullen and resentful, and bided their time until an appropriate response. The Kurds were determined to maximise their gains and to set themselves up as the coalition's indispensable allies.

The United States had invaded Iraq with no plan as to how to administer the country, even though the issue of the post-war governance of Iraq had been discussed well before the invasion. The Iraqi opposition was divided on the problem, with some groups advocating the formation of a provisional government that would assume power immediately after the overthrow of the regime. But the reality was that Iraqi exiles had been mainly concerned with the political arrangements and structures through which they would assume or inherit power, not with the actual task of running the country on a day-to-day basis. The detailed requirements for the transfer of control from a centralised, dictatorial and perverse Ba'athist-led Iraq to a form of effective governing body had been left for the US to consider. This, however, it totally failed to address.

The key players

Ayad Allawi

Close to Western and Arab governments. Former head of the INA (see below) and member of the Governing Council. Prime Minister of the Interim Government.

Muqtada al-Sadr

Head of the anti-occupation Sadrist movement and its Mehdi Army. Leader of a large Parliamentary bloc and a force behind the current government, led by Nuri al-Maliki.

Paul Wolfowitz

US Deputy Secretary of Defence (2001-2005). A strong advocate of the war against Saddam Hussein's regime. Now president of the World Bank.

Donald Rumsfeld

US Secretary of Defence (2001-2006). Resigned following heavy Republican losses in US Congressional elections of November 2006.

Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim

A leading Shia cleric based in Najaf. He is a nephew of the late Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Najaf in 2003.

Iraqi National Congress (INC)

Umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Iraq National Accord (INA)

An Iraqi political party founded by Iyad Allawi and Salah Omar al-Ali in 1991. It was founded at during the Gulf War as a resistance group to Saddam Hussein.

Badr Brigade

The armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Its members have entered the new Iraqi army and police force. The organisation was based in Iran for two decades during the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Khoei Foundation

An organisation created by Abul-Qassim Khoei, a grand ayatollah who was regarded as the undisputed leader of the world's Shia community. Followed the "quiescent" tradition in Shia Islam by avoiding political entanglements. Was decisively opposed to the Khomeini proposition of direct rule by clerics..

Da'awa Party

A militant Shia group and conservative political party.

About the author

Ali A Allawi is a senior adviser to the Prime Minister of Iraq. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he has served as the country's first post-war minister of defence, and minister of finance. Before being appointed by the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003, Allawi was a professor at Oxford University. He lives in London and Baghdad. In January, The Independent published a widely acclaimed article by Allawi outlining a blueprint for peace in Iraq. He recommended devolution within Iraq, economic and political regional integration in the Middle East, and the setting up of independent boards to oversee reconstruction and security issues.

'The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace', the definitive account of the invasion and its aftermath, is published tomorrow by Yale University Press (£18.99). To order a copy for the special price of £16.99 (including p&p) call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk

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