Extracts from

One Year On: Nation Building in Iraq

A Status Report

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Revised March 31, 2004

The purpose of these extracts is to provide a “case study” example of some of the major challenges facing the international community following a failing/failed conflict situation.

Key Political Milestones (As of March 18, 2004)

In fact, some form of political turbulence, and at least some incidents of low-level violence, is inevitable. No rival leader or political party has been allowed to function since Saddam’s bloody purge of his rivals in 1979. Religious leaders have no open political experience for the same reason. Aside from a few figures like Sistani, no leader has had broad political visibility or a broad popular base. Even basic governance has been precluded by Saddam’s insistence on tight control from the top and refusal to delegate functional authority. Saddam’s legacy is essentially a political and administrative vacuum and Iraqis have to feel their way towards a modern political system under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Nevertheless, the calendar for major milestones in Iraqi nation building is tentative and highly unstable. It will ultimately depend on the Iraqis, and particularly on how well they work together in creating a new government.

The Department of Defense currently project the following dates:

2004

March 8 Transitional Administrative Law signed

March 26 CPA will create a new Iraqi Ministry of Defense and a cabinet-level National Security Committee

April 1 Establishment of Election Commission (approximate date)

April 15 Annex to TAL released describing selection process and powers of Interim Government (approximate date)

May 30 Selection of Interim Government (approximate date)

Phase I (Interim Government)

June 30 Iraq Interim Government Takes Power US Embassy replaces CPA; Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist

July 30 New Iraqi government becomes fully operational

2005

January 31 Elections for the National Assembly complete: No later than January 31, 2005 (December 31, 2004 if possible)

January 31 At the same time, all Iraqi voters will elect governate councils—again not later than January 31, 2005

Phase II (Elected Government)

Early 2005 Iraqi Transitional Government takes power

– Legislative: National Assembly

• 275 elected officials

• Electoral law will aim to achieve at least one-quarter women and fair

representation of all communities in Iraq

– Executive: Presidency Council, Council of Ministers, Prime Minister

• President and two Deputies elected by National Assembly

• Presidency Council appoints Prime Minister and Council of Ministers

• Prime Minister responsible for day-to-day government management

– Judicial Authority

• Higher Juridical Council will supervise federal judiciary

• Federal Supreme Court – 9 members nominated by Higher Juridical Council and appointed by Presidency Council

August 15 National Assembly completes draft of permanent constitution

October 15 Referendum for constitution--a constitution written by the National Assembly must be presented to the people in a general referendum no later than October 15, 2005

December 15 Elections for permanent government completed--a government elected under the terms of the new constitution, must be held no later than December 15, 2005-- this fourth election will bring a directly elected government to power in Iraq

December 31 Permanent government assumes office

Moreover, the Department of Defense calendar only shows some of the milestones that must take place.

• Courts and legal systems have to be put in play.

• Iraq has to take over control of the security mission from the US and over the reshaping of its military and security forces.

• Some 37 ministerial bodies in the central government have to be brought under full control.

• Iraq has to take over full control of the efforts to modernize and rehabilitate the petroleum industry, industry, the financial sector, agriculture, and national media and communications.

• Elected bodies must be established to deal with the 18 governates and local and urban governments

Key Development Issues

The most serious problems, however, are longer term ones. A great many projects will be started and facilitated that cannot possibly be finished with the available aid funds. The Bush Administration has pledged to Congress that it will not seek FY2005 aid funds, but the CBO report of January 2004 on Paying for Iraq’s Reconstruction estimates some $50-$100 billion will be needed for nation building during 2004-2007.

The CBO notes that this $50-$100 billion total does not begin to cover the full cost of creating a new economy and meeting a backlog of human needs. It may still sharply underestimate the scale of the funding required, even if war and sabotage do not add further major burdens. Total reconstruction expenses and government budgets could range from $94 to $160 billion during this period, and oil revenues are estimated to range from $44 to $89 billion, and seem likely to total well under $70 billion.

Many projects are being built to US standards, rather than Iraqi ones, and the history of such aid projects is that they often are not sustained once turned over to the recipient country. The overall planning of aid also had to be improvised after May 2003, and often without anything approach a realistic survey of Iraqi needs. Furthermore, at least some of the planning was done more on the basis of US experience and a free market ideology than an effort to deal with economic reform in Iraqi terms.

Many projects are likely to be partial successes at best, and many will need to be recast and restructured once an Iraqi government takes over. The problem will also be compounded by the fact that State will take over from Defense, but it is Defense that has previously had charge of the aid effort. As of March 8, some $5 billion of contracts had been awarded to some 17 companies in seven major sectors. Almost all were formulated by the Department of Defense, and to date, the State Department has had authority over around 10% of the projects funded and planned. The CPA’s Program Management Office may continue in some form once State has taken firm control of the embassy, but at some point, bureaucratic politics almost ensure that a new State team will take over in the middle of rapid transitions between Iraqi governments.

The overriding issue, however, is where the overall aid process is headed, what kind of new economy the Iraqis want to create, and how some longer-term plan and effort can be created that its tailored to Iraq’s real needs and expectations – an aspect of creating a new Iraqi government that currently does not seem to be a high priority on anyone’s calendar.

Iraq’s economic and social problems will continue well beyond 2010, even under the best of circumstances. Iraq can also only approach the progress it needs to make if it is not crippled by loan repayments well in excess of $100 billion, and reparations claims that are even larger.

The Security Problem

The CPA, the US military in the field, and Department of Defense seem to have been far slower in addressing the equipment needs of the security forces either in terms of assessing what was required or contracting to have it delivered. Many police posts did not even have telephones as of March 2004. Many lacked weapons, vehicles, and personnel projection equipment, and pay was erratic at best (some units had not been paid in three months). Some were holding stockpiles of weapons like mortars and RPGs gathered from Iraq’s arms depots, but did not have small arms.

The border police and border guards not only were very badly equipped, many lacked even basic facilities. Some were never given uniforms, much less desert terrain vehicles, metal detectors, and weapons that could compete with the mortars and RPGs held by the smugglers. A $310 million program was underway to provide some 8,200 new guards and computerized passport controls, but have made little progress. These problems occurred in a climate where some 60,000 people without proper travel documents were detained between June 2004 and March 2004 at the Munthriya border crossing alone, and Iranian pilgrims immediately reacted to the closing of border crossings by hiring smugglers to bring them in.