Monday
Oct262009
The Baghdad Bombings: A Political Blast
Monday, October 26, 2009 at 9:37
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Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
The media are scrambling to get with grips with the double bombing in Baghdad on Sunday, targeting national and provincial ministries, that killed more than 150 people. As the BBC's flagship radio programme somewhat blithely admitted today, the incidents "refocused" world attention on the country.
We're going to take a couple of days before venturing a full analysis, but the one point we would make, unlikely to be highlighted in the press, is that the event exposes how peripheral the US has become to Iraq's development. For all the troops that remain in the country, despite having the largest embassy in the world, Washington now watches as political battles are played out through violence, back-room manoeuvres, and public criticisms. This was exposed by the timing of the bomb: it came as Iraqi politicians were to discuss the difficulties stalling next January's elections.
As usual, Juan Cole offers one of the most penetrating responses to tragedy and politics:
Two massive blasts shook central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 136 people and wounding 500, and destroying three government ministry buildings, according to the Times of London's Oliver August reporting from Baghdad. It was the most destructive attack of 2009. August notes that the likely perpetrators were either Baathists from the old regime or Sunni Muslim extremists, both of whom want to stop a new, Shiite- and Kurdish- dominated status quo from settling upon Iraq.
AFP Arabic service says that the first car exploded at 10 am Baghdad time at a crowded intersection near the ministry of justice and the ministry of municipalities. The second was detonated ten minutes later on Salihiya St. in front of the Baghdad Province administrative office. Many dead bodies are suspected of still being beneath the rubble of the ministries of justice and public works buildings, which collapsed on the employees.
The ministries were protected by blast walls and the truck bombs could not get that close, but the explosives used were so ungodly powerful that they swept the blast walls away. I have no pretensions to forensics expertise, but that sounds like a clue to me; where are the guerrillas getting such remarkable high explosives?
The particular ministries that were struck may be significant, since Iraq operates on a spoils system and ministries tend to be dominated by political parties and ethnic groups. The Minister of Public Works is Riyadh Gharib, a prominent member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is close to the clerics in Tehran. Public Works as a ministry would thus have a lot of ISCI party members as employees and it is also a huge source of political patronage. Baathists or Sunni extremists would have every reason to hit it.
The Ministry of Justice had been less politicized, but from 2007 was in the control of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. The Minister of Justice from last February is Judge Dara Nur al-Din, an independent Kurd. He had been a member of the Interim Governing Council under Paul Bremer, for which some groups in Iraq may not have forgiven him. The ministry of justice also oversees court cases and executions, including of prominent Baathists, executions that Nur al-Din has defended, and which have angered the anti-government guerrillas.
Read rest of article....
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
The media are scrambling to get with grips with the double bombing in Baghdad on Sunday, targeting national and provincial ministries, that killed more than 150 people. As the BBC's flagship radio programme somewhat blithely admitted today, the incidents "refocused" world attention on the country.We're going to take a couple of days before venturing a full analysis, but the one point we would make, unlikely to be highlighted in the press, is that the event exposes how peripheral the US has become to Iraq's development. For all the troops that remain in the country, despite having the largest embassy in the world, Washington now watches as political battles are played out through violence, back-room manoeuvres, and public criticisms. This was exposed by the timing of the bomb: it came as Iraqi politicians were to discuss the difficulties stalling next January's elections.
As usual, Juan Cole offers one of the most penetrating responses to tragedy and politics:
Two massive blasts shook central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 136 people and wounding 500, and destroying three government ministry buildings, according to the Times of London's Oliver August reporting from Baghdad. It was the most destructive attack of 2009. August notes that the likely perpetrators were either Baathists from the old regime or Sunni Muslim extremists, both of whom want to stop a new, Shiite- and Kurdish- dominated status quo from settling upon Iraq.
AFP Arabic service says that the first car exploded at 10 am Baghdad time at a crowded intersection near the ministry of justice and the ministry of municipalities. The second was detonated ten minutes later on Salihiya St. in front of the Baghdad Province administrative office. Many dead bodies are suspected of still being beneath the rubble of the ministries of justice and public works buildings, which collapsed on the employees.
The ministries were protected by blast walls and the truck bombs could not get that close, but the explosives used were so ungodly powerful that they swept the blast walls away. I have no pretensions to forensics expertise, but that sounds like a clue to me; where are the guerrillas getting such remarkable high explosives?
The particular ministries that were struck may be significant, since Iraq operates on a spoils system and ministries tend to be dominated by political parties and ethnic groups. The Minister of Public Works is Riyadh Gharib, a prominent member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is close to the clerics in Tehran. Public Works as a ministry would thus have a lot of ISCI party members as employees and it is also a huge source of political patronage. Baathists or Sunni extremists would have every reason to hit it.
The Ministry of Justice had been less politicized, but from 2007 was in the control of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. The Minister of Justice from last February is Judge Dara Nur al-Din, an independent Kurd. He had been a member of the Interim Governing Council under Paul Bremer, for which some groups in Iraq may not have forgiven him. The ministry of justice also oversees court cases and executions, including of prominent Baathists, executions that Nur al-Din has defended, and which have angered the anti-government guerrillas.
Read rest of article....
Reader Comments (1)
Insightful? Only for the first few paragraphs.
Cole's comments on how the reduction in car bombings were achieved is reflective of his lack of interest in how jihadi groups operate, and how they were combated.
The car bombs were largely produced in rural areas of provinces like Anbar, and then transported in to Baghdad. Limiting mobility in Baghdad was not enough to defeat them - ultimately dismantling the networks and safehaven all the way back to the farms and garages was essential.
This could not have been done without the political reconciliation between the USG and Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs.
Since the US handed over control to Iraqi forces the central government has refused to pay the security forces of the Awakening Councils, and refused to integrate their militias with government forces.
This repeats the mistakes of the USG 2003-05. Gunmen will rejoin jihadi organisations, and tribal sheikhs have no incentive to collaborate with the Iraqi govt against the jihadi tanzims. The result has been the recovery of jihadi networks.
The Iraqi government MUST integrate the Sunni tribal sheikhs and their tribal forces in to the political and security framework, or reap the consequences.