Ali Allawi: When the real war began

The lawlessness in Baghdad and in most of the country that followed the invasion in the spring of 2003 did not equate to a political resistance as such, and was mainly due to criminality. It was clear that most of the Shia went along with the occupation for the time being. The Sunni Arabs were another matter, though.

The first indications of Sunni Arab attitudes to the occupation occurred in Fallujah. Fallujah, in the middle of the tribal heartland of the Anbar province, was known for its conservative religious culture. The city had taken exception to the arrival of the troops who had taken up positions in the main municipal buildings and in a number of schools. Rumours began to circulate that the US army had been equipped with special binoculars that could see through people's clothes. This compounded the apparently heavy-handed patrolling and searches of homes, and led to a heightening of tensions.

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A series of demonstrations against the US presence culminated in a major incident in front of one of the schools occupied by the US army. Shooting broke out and nearly 17 people were killed, and over 75 wounded. In a follow-up demonstration, a further three people were killed by US fire. Grenades were thrown at the building, injuring seven US servicemen. The pattern of incidents continued in the town in the months of May and June 2003. By the end of summer, the people of Fallujah were openly boasting that they were in outright rebellion against the occupation.

In May, many reports mentioned hostility to the occupation in the towns and villages of the upper Euphrates. In Hit, US soldiers were confronted with angry crowds demanding a cessation of the ubiquitous search operations. They attacked both the town's municipal building and its police station, and burnt them down. In Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, drive-by shootings at American soldiers became a regular occurrence. In Baghdad's predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of al-Adhamiyya, shoot-outs between US troops and armed groups erupted at the Abu Hanifa mosque. The imam of the mosque, in a sermon delivered on 6 June 2003, openly called for resistance to the occupation. His message was endorsed by scores of Sunni prayer leaders throughout the country. A series of small-scale attacks against American military convoys and checkpoints took place mainly in the Sunni triangle, and in the small towns and villages in the southern approaches to Baghdad. Iraqis cooperating with the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] became assassination targets. By the end of June 2003, central Iraq appeared to be in the midst of a low-level, decentralised insurgency. This was vehemently denied by the CPA, the military and the politicians in Washington and London. Even star reporters talked about resistance and guerrilla attacks, but not an organised insurgency. It would take a brave and prescient academic, Professor Ahmed Hashim, to declare that Iraq was indeed in the throes of an insurgency.

August 2003 was the month during which the actual dimensions of the insurgency, and its potential for derailing the plans for the occupation, began to emerge. On 7 August, a powerful car bomb tore into the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, killing 18 people. It was the worst attack on a non-military target since the end of formal hostilities.

The motives for the bombing were not clear at first. Several theories were put forward, for instance that it was the work of the former regime's security agents or al-Qa'ida operatives. The work was also attributed to groups that shared in the widespread anti-Jordanian sentiments in the country due to Jordan's apparent partiality to the former regime, and its recent decision to grant asylum to two of Saddam's daughters. By mid-August, alarming reports began to be received by the CPA that al-Qa'ida-related groups, especially the Ansar al-Islam, were planning an escalation of terrorist attacks.

On the afternoon of 19 August, a flatbed truck carrying about a ton of high explosives was detonated at the UN's Baghdad headquarters at the Canal Hotel. Twenty-two people were killed and 150 injured, some very seriously. Sergio de Mello, the UN's representative in Iraq, was among those killed. The bomb had exploded immediately below his office, which was demolished. The attack was the work of a suicide bomber. Eyewitnesses talked about a truck careering towards the building at high speed before exploding at the foot of de Mello's office. A group affiliated with al-Qa'ida took credit for the operation. The UN in Baghdad was left leaderless, with its staff shocked and seriously demoralised. The UN had mistakenly believed that its neutrality and evident support for a quick restoration of sovereignty to Iraq would make it somehow "different" from the occupiers and therefore immune to attack.

The logic of the incipient insurgency worked, however, in an altogether separate dimension. The UN, like all other international agencies operating in Iraq, was a soft target, and attacking it would drive home the insecurity and violence in the country. The UN did not respond immediately to the massive provocations of the attack on its headquarters. Its staff were still being augmented by new arrivals, and there was no noticeable increase in security consciousness on the part of the staff. The CPA strengthened its perimeter defences around the UN compound, but Kofi Annan discounted evacuation. It took another suicide bomber to convince him otherwise. On 22 September, a bomb exploded in the parking lot, killing several Iraqi policemen. The UN senior directors in Baghdad then unanimously recommended to Annan the evacuation of all UN staff from Iraq. Annan accepted this but nevertheless kept a residual UN presence of about 30 international staffers in the country.

The UN had effectively withdrawn from Iraq. As an institution, it was traumatised by the bombing, the worst in its history. Many blamed the UN Secretary General for agreeing to the coalition's wish to allow the UN to re-enter Iraq with inadequate security arrangements, simply to send a "business-as-usual" message.

On 24 August, in an ominous portent of things to come, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim was hurt by flying glass from a bomb that exploded as he was ending his evening prayers at his quarters in Najaf. Three of his guards were killed by a further explosion. Some tried to portray it as part of an ongoing challenge to the authority of the senior Najaf grand ayatollahs by the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. Thinly veiled accusations levelled against the Sadrists from both the established Shia political groups and the followers of the Marjiyya became more vocal. Muhammad Baqir al-Mihri said: "The majority of the Shia follow Sistani except the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr. They have abandoned [the majority] because of the presence of former Ba'athists in their midst." He went on to demand the arrest of the murderers of [the Shia cleric] Sayyid Abdul Majid al-Khoei, and in a clear reference to Muqtada added, "even if the murderer wears religious garb and has an important social status". The more established Shia groups were concerned that the coalition might be alienated from the Shia generally by the confrontational methods of the volatile Sadrists. There was a consensus amongst both the Najaf hierarchy and the leaders of the main Shia political groups that events were working to the advantage of the Shia and consolidation of their power. Al-Sadr's direct challenge to the coalition was therefore an unwelcome diversion. This became even more pronounced when Muqtada al-Sadr called for the formation of a new Islamic army, the "Jaysh al-Mehdi" or the Mehdi Army. This would present a double challenge - to the coalition and to the established parties - but none of the Shia establishment would directly challenge Muqtada al-Sadr and his as yet untested strength with the Shia masses.

On Friday 29 August, as Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim was emerging from the south entrance to the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, having just delivered the weekly sermon, he and nearly 100 other people were killed by a powerful car bomb. Chaos and pandemonium broke out as worshippers, fearing another bomb, struggled to leave the shrine area. His death was at first received with shock and disbelief, and then with anger and sorrow. In the few weeks before his death the Ayatollah had established himself as the key Shia political leader and, by his carefully crafted statements, as the voice of moderation.

While formally rejecting the occupation, Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim had sought a limited degree of cooperation with the CPA, and had placed considerable hopes on the Governing Council as a preparatory step on the way to the transfer of full sovereignty. No one took responsibility for the blast.

Wild theories proliferated, with some holding the Sadrists as the prime suspects. But it was clear that, given the sophistication of the device and the split-second timing of the blast, it could only have been perpetrated by experts in explosives. The police investigation into the bombing concluded that it had the same markings as the UN bombing earlier that month. Fingers were pointed at the intelligence operatives of the former regime or elements from al-Qa'ida. The Governing Council was at first unsure how to handle the disaster. Eventually it declared three days of public mourning. Nearly half a million people attended Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim's funeral procession in Najaf.

The murder of Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim was a devastating blow to the Shia Islamists and of course to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) itself. The Ayatollah had moulded Sciri around his person, and his leadership was unquestioned. His position on the occupation and his guarded co-operation with the coalition established the precedent that allowed for an acceptable degree of engagement between Shia Islamists and the CPA.

While his speeches were peppered with often unfavourable remarks about the coalition and the need to transfer authority to Iraqis as soon as possible, his true position was far more nuanced. The complex of motives that governed his decision-making ranged across potentially contradictory objectives. Thus an early departure of the coalition had to be balanced against the possibility that the Ba'ath and its new-found allies amongst radical Sunni Islamists could mount a comeback. Ignoring the US-sponsored Governing Council could result in Shia Islamists being excluded from power as well as possibly alienating the coalition as a useful ally in the post-war power struggle with other groups. His legacy to the Iraqi opposition was immense, and it was under his tutelage that a number of strategic relationships were forged.

The murder of Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim capped a month of escalating violence. The bombings in particular crystallised the nature of the resistance that the coalition was about to face, but few were prepared to acknowledge a persistent pattern. This could provide a basis for arguing that an insurgency existed or was about to be born, which would undermine their sunny composure. The attacks were seen as the work of "dead-enders", or by what became euphemistically known as FREs - former regime elements.

It would have been a dangerous volte-face if any other explanation to the persistent insecurity in Iraq was admitted. There was always the perception that the invading force would be widely welcomed by a grateful Iraqi public. To link the continuing violence in post-war Iraq to a possible miscalculation about the response of Iraqis, Arabs and Muslims to this exceptional act was to risk opening once again the whole debate about the war. But this had to be confronted. After the initial shock of occupation wore off, the politics of the country began to be overwhelmed by power struggles pitting all kinds of groups against each other, of which the CPA was wilfully ignorant. The problem was that the coalition's project for Iraq was ill thought out and poorly executed. Its opponents knew what they wanted - or more accurately, they knew exactly what they didn't want.

This is an extract from Ali Allawi's The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, published today 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