Iraq...How I See It

At the risk of losing the interest of some of my readership I want to digress from blogging about my personal experiences and offer a perspective on the progress in Iraq from where I see it. I know I am committing the ultimate taboo of writing, an author must always write with their audience in mind. My intent is to inform and not to bore. After all, in an indirect manner, you, the American people (specifically the taxpayer and voter) are my Supreme Commanders. For those of you that I bore, I apologize now, and will send a more personal blog next month.

I don’t claim to know everything, but I see a lot in my dealings with Iraqi Security Forces and the local populace in the nearby villages. I can’t speak knowledgably regarding specific actions or decisions at the higher echelon of governance, but I submit to you a perspective from the ground level, where as they say, “the rubber meets the road”; the level at which policy escapes the nebulous and becomes the visible.

If British and American governance advisors were to sit down in a room and write a constitution for a newly created country the product would be very similar to the document now governing Iraq. In fact, that’s almost exactly what happened. The Iraqi constitution draws heavily on the political constructs of both Great Britain and the United States. Officially, Iraq is a presidential parliamentary government. They have executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The executive includes a Presidency Council (President with two vice presidents), and Prime Minister with a cabinet of ministers. The legislature is intended to be bicameral with a Council of Representatives (think House of Representatives or House of Commons) and Federation Council (which is yet to be established). The Federation Council will likely be more of a House of Lords than popularly elected Senate. Many seem to think this Federation Council will be a national level conglomerate of Tribal Sheiks; again this is yet to be seen even 4 years after the ratification of the Iraqi Constitution. (May I remind you that nations aren’t built overnight, General Cornwallis surrendered on Oct 19^th 1781, but the first US Congress did not seat until Mar 4^th 1789). In terms of geographical governance structure, within the country of Iraq are the semi-autonomous (the level of autonomy depends on who you’re asking) region of Kurdistan and the rest of the country broken into provinces. Within the provinces are Qada (loosely translated county or district) consisting of Nahiya (cities, townships).

This should suffice as a primer of knowledge on Iraq’s government. Now the issues…where to begin? Let’s begin with the root of democracy: popular elections. When an Iraqi casts a vote they are casting a vote for the party, not the individual they want to represent them. They are voting for a slate of ideas and promises made by these political parties, of which there are many (only three really have national impact though). What does this mean? The elected officials have no constituency. When the votes are tallied, for instance in the case of the Council of Representatives, the parties are told how many seats they won and then the party chairman takes out a list of people they want to appoint to those “elected” seats. This means the politician is more motivated to impress the party chairman than to advocate for his supposed “constituency”. This plays directly into appropriation of funds and where funds are directed within Iraq.

The issue of funds and resources is a big deal, especially at the local level. Power will inevitably be drawn to where the money is. There is no money at the local level. Provinces are designated as the lowest spending unit. In other words, counties, cities, and towns are not receiving a budget of discretionary funds. The lowest level of government with a budget is the state or province. The counties, cities, and towns have yet to figure out the power of taxes, but there isn’t a lot of local wealth to draw upon. The Marine Corps comes into play here because we have money. We have funds for projects. At face value this is a good thing. Many schools have been renovated, many roads have been paved, and many public utilities have been renovated due to Marine Corps funds. This provides jobs as well for the local contractors and keeps the money local. However, this causes fewer funds to be pushed to the local level by the province. The county requests funds from the province and the province usually responds, “take this idea to the Marines and see what they can give you, then we will pay the rest”. So our well-intentioned funds have inadvertently crippled the development of the budgetary bureaucracy that needs to exist for Iraq to move forward. Furthermore, the Iraqi government funds that do get spent on the local villages and towns are contracted out. The provincial capital is going to contract someone in the provincial capital to go out to the village and do the job. Thus the project might get accomplished, but the funds aren’t trickled down to the local level through local contracts.

You can spend an entire life lambasting “the Bureaucracy”, but I caution you in criticizing “The Man” and his bureaucracy, because without those structures, our government, the supposed pinnacle of democratic achievement, would fail to operate a single day. Bureaucracy consists of the standardized processes that link the ambiguous executive and legislative decisions with tangible execution of policy. It serves a purpose, and this is made evident in Iraq, a country that lacks an established bureaucracy. There are plenty of good decisions and policies being made, but connecting the policy with funds and then with action has proved difficult. The Iraqi people are accustomed to tribal structure. The sheik takes care of everything for the tribe. This doesn’t mesh with the democratic structure that Iraq has tried to adapt. The Marine Corps tries to legitimize the local councils and mayors by forcing Sheiks to get funds from us only through local council approval, but as soon as we (and our bottomless purse) leave, the local council has no funds to legitimize their presence. It is my opinion that most of these issues are a result of the asymmetrical efforts on behalf of the State Department and the Department of Defense. DoD has done a great job training the Iraqi security forces. We aren’t needed to sort out the security here, they do a fine job at that. The lack of presence by the State Department at the local level has stymied the growth of the government. It usually ends up this way. The US Marines will go anywhere, but we aren’t trained to do nation building. Adapt and overcome is what we have done and the trial by error has proven interesting.

In the end, I think Iraq will adapt and overcome. They will find a system that works for them. They need to figure out how to better cater to the needs of the people. Taxes need to be formalized and a bureaucracy needs to be established. What they need most is for us to leave, they need to struggle a little on their own and learn from the struggle for self-improvement.

I hope this message isn’t too skeptical. I have simply taken my observations and opinions to paper (digital paper as it were). Make no mistake, we needed to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and he wasn’t going to leave without a fight. The Iraqi people are much better off without him in control. They might have had security, but they did not have freedom. And I submit to you, freedom is worth suffering for. Furthermore, I don’t think we have overstayed our welcome. We needed to be here after the fall of Saddam because the country would have dissolved in a petty civil war in the power vacuum. We, the US Marine Corps, the strongest tribe (as they call us) needed to enforce security in order for Iraq to find a foothold. They have found that foothold and they aren’t letting go. It is time now for us to go, we know it, and my Commander-In-Chief knows it. The coming years will be the true judge of our success or failure.