The attached briefing summarizes the latest US government, Iraqi government, and MNF-I data on the fighting. The maps and charts reflect major progress in defeating Al Qa'ida in Iraq, and in reducing the levels of violence throughout the country. If this victory can be consolidated in Ninewa, Mosul, and the other remaining areas where Al Qa'ida is now concentrating, the key source of civil conflict in Iraq will be largely eliminated.
At the same time, the data in this brief also show why General Petraeus and other senior commanders warn that the victories to date do buy time for political and economic solutions, but cannot "win" the war. As Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus and others have repeatedly warned, there are still serious levels of violence in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. These can still surge back into more violent fighting unless Iraq makes far more rapid progress in development, and couples this progress to major advances in governance and development at the national, provincial, and local levels.
If there is any clear message that comes out of the data shown in the attached briefing, it is that victory -- in the sense of creating a relatively stable and secure Iraq that has a high degree of pluralism -- is possible, but not yet probable. The level of military victory to date is still limited, and Al Qa'ida will be able to carry out suicide bombings and major acts of destabilizing terrorism for at least several years to come. Real stability and security is dependent on a wide range of further progress that will probably not be completed until the end of the next Administration in the US, and only after successful and open national, provincial, and local elections in Iraq.
The US may well be able to make steady "conditions-based" force cuts over the next few years, go well below the 15 brigade level planned for 2008, and convert to a "strategic overwatch" level that relies on the Iraqi security forces for most fighting and security efforts. This will only be possible, however, if Iraq makes progress fast enough in four key areas to give the military successes of the last year real meaning:
• Political Accommodation
o Pass and enforce key legislation to deal with federalism, share the budget, define provincial and local powers, share petroleum resources and revenues, amend the constitution, hold elections with open lists that have local candidates, and bring Sunnis and other Ba'athists back into the government and security forces. o Resolve the Arab vs. Kurd vs. minority issues in the North, and define Kurdish autonomy in ways all factions can live with. o Create a stable modus vivendi for different sects and ethnic groups in mixed area, particularly the great Baghdad area. o Give the Sons of Iraq and other Sunni tribal and local groups a fair role and share of power in the Iraqi government and security forces, and stabilize the security gains made to date in Anbar, Diyala, and other areas where tribal forces and support have played a key role in defeating Al Qa'ida and reducing the levels of tension and insurgency. o Peacefully settle the issue of Shi'ite federalism -- and the power struggles between the Sadr faction, the ISCI-Hakim faction, Fadhilla, and Al Dawa -- in the nine largely Shi'ia provinces in the south. Do so without losing national control of petroleum resources and key infrastructure, a steady expansion in Iraq's role and influence, and in ways that limit the role of religion in governance and law, and protect non-Shi'ites.
• Security
o Complete the development of the Iraqi armed forces as mixed, national forces that can come to fight most counterinsurgency battles, provide their own support and sustainment, and then expand to be able to defend Iraq against its neighbors and maintain Iraq's sovereignty on all its borders -- including Iran, Syria, and Turkey. o Change the past concepts of police development to create largely local forces that can still be effective in limited security roles, and which are not guilty of sectarian and ethnic abuses. o Create an overall mix of security forces than Iraq can eventually self-finance, and which shifts much of today's force levels back into roles in the civil economy. o Move beyond the current focus on counterinsurgency to establish a level of security that deals with crime, and which is backed by effective courts and law enforcement art the local level, and which gives Iraqis day to day security.
• Governance
o Create a functional mix of government services at the central government, "federal," provincial, and local level. o Develop an effective system to formulate, management, and spend the federal budget, with working central government ministries, and a proper sharing of funds with federal, provincial, and local governments. o Limit corruption, and sectarian and ethnic factionalism, to levels that do not block the provision of effective services, and deprive governance of popular legitimacy.
• Development
o Spend government money and the capital budget on development, and spend the money usefully and effectively. o Salvage as much as possible out of the massive waste of development funds and aid to date. o Provide immediate job programs for Iraq's huge pool of unemployed and underemployed, and transition them to real jobs linked to sustained development. o Focus on immediate development priorities like increasing petroleum export revenues while reducing product imports; banking and financial infrastructure, water and electricity, restructuring state industries, and revitalizing the agricultural sector. o Find working solutions to developing the petroleum sector with outside investment and technology; opening up Iraq to foreign investment at a broader level, and resolving the future role of the state in state industries and other sectors of the Iraqi economy.
The good news is that many Iraqi officials, officers, leaders, and professionals understand and support these priorities. The same is true of the US country team in Iraq, and many in the US, UN, and other donor governments outside Iraq. The bad news is that Iraq's leadership remains divided and is far too slow to act, and the US has not committed itself to any clear long term action plan and has not yet developed broad popular support for the kind of sustained presence necessary to help Iraq move forward.
The charts and tables dealing with governance and development in this briefing are a warning of how much waste there has been to date, and that Iraqi actions move too slowing, and may push the US to withdraw too quickly. Iraq's petroleum revenues do, however, give it the opportunity to move forward, and every form of Iraqi success reduces the risk of a premature US withdrawal. Nevertheless, five years after the invasion, the US and Iraq still have at least five years to go, and the role of the US can only diminish quickly -- and give Americans the incentives they need to keep up sustained support -- if Iraqis assume more responsibility in all of the above areas at a faster pace than they have done to date.
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K Street, NW, Washington DC, 20006 | Tel: 202-887-0200 | Fax: 202-775-3199
