Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Kitfield In Iraq: 'Through Hell And High Water'

By Siddhartha Mahanta  

James Kitfield

National Journal Foreign Policy & Defense Correspondent

Iraq's elections this week may signal a turning of the tide. Though violence riddled the country's major cities throughout the early voting weekend, determined Iraqis came out in droves to cast their vote. Confident security forces maintained order at polling centers and kept their American support patrols at bay. As Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi -- both Shia -- await the results, questions remain about post-election sectarian violence, the formation of a governing coalition, and the place of the Kurds in that new government.

National Journal's James Kitfield, reporting from Baghdad, took questions Monday on the elections and their impact.

Edited excerpts follow after the jump.

NJ: Given the amount of violence in the elections, did the Iraqi security forces (ISF) take adequate precautions?

Kitfield: You know, it's interesting. I spent the day of the election with one of the senior Iraqi commanders who had about a third or more of Baghdad. They took very stringent precautions -- they cut off most traffic, they had checkpoints at all the major crossways and roadways, and they also had a lot of security at the actual polling stations....

The day began with a lot of bombs blowing off, and everyone was looking around... and it turned out that they were using these little Coke bottle bombs that they snuck in, and they didn't do a whole lot of damage. There were a couple of big casualty events; they took down two apartment buildings, and that was the lion's share of the casualties.... All in all, you're never happy with that level of violence, but it didn't stop people from coming to the polls.

NJ: Did the security forces seem to have a sense of confidence even though the U.S. forces have pulled back from the cities?

Kitfield: Early on they were obviously rattled. I was sitting with them and they were getting these calls in of all these bombs going off, and at first they thought they were mortars, and they couldn't figure out where the mortars were coming from but they were all over the city, including the International Zone -- previously the Green Zone.... They were clearly -- even told me as much -- that they were quite surprised by that. As it became clear these were not high-casualty events -- they were kind of what they called noise bombs to scare people away -- I think they started to gain confidence. And indeed the Americans tried to offer support... and the Iraqis were just insistent: No, we'll take your advice, but we want this to have an Iraqi face on it, and we want to do it ourselves.

NJ: What does the violence during the election say about the strength of the insurgency and the preparation of the ISF to take full responsibility for security? Are early results bolstering factions like the Sadrists or the Sunni groups?

Kitfield: The next thing that commanders on the ground here are looking at is: Who are losers and what's their reaction? Are they going to try to pursue their grievances through the political process?...

Al Qaeda in Iraq and Shiite groups funded by Iran... don't like where this democracy is going, and they were unable to [disturb it]. So I think it's a net plus for Iraqi democracy. They came out in large numbers -- the Iraqis did -- and they were not scared away by these bombs....

Al Qaeda had a long time to try to plan for this; they had really horrific attacks as recently as last fall where they took out some government buildings; hundreds of people were killed in those. Initially, that's what people thought was happening yesterday morning when we got these early reports, but that didn't happen. They were not able to get car bombs in, they were not able to get suicide bombers in, to the poll stations. In the end, it suggests to me that the Iraqi security forces were stronger and that the insurgency is losing some steam.

Now, having said that... it's two steps forward, one step back -- that's for sure. It has been all along. But I see this as two steps forward for the security services and a step back for the insurgency.

NJ: What indications are there that Sunnis who boycotted the elections in 2005 felt these elections were legitimate? There are reports that they have consolidated around Ayad Allawi. What is it that's different for them this time?

Kitfield: Well, it's a big difference, because in 2005 they basically boycotted, as you said, and a lot of people, Iraqis included, think that really fueled this insurgency that led Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.... We had a scare here when the de-Baathification process was reignited by Ahmed Chalabi, where he said as many as 500 Sunni candidates were ineligible. That was whittled down to less than, I think, 150. Instead of boycotting, the Sunnis -- even the people who were not allowed to be candidates -- did not call for boycotts. From what I've heard, it's been over 60 percent voter turnout, even in the Sunni areas of Anbar. That's a very positive sign that Sunnis see the future as working through the political process as opposed to violence....

Yes, they are looking at Allawi because Allawi is secular. Even though he is a Shia, he has shown he's very much a secularist. The Sunnis are very suspicious of Shia religious parties because they think they're much too closely aligned with Iran. So Allawi is very attractive to Sunnis. Early indications -- again, they're very preliminary now, very early -- but it looks like Allawi might have had a significant turnout, and may be a major partner in the coalition.

NJ: Given it took five months for Iraqis to form a government after the 2005 elections, is there a concern that a lengthy period of uncertainty creates a vacuum for insurgencies?

Kitfield: You know, the official line from the U.S. forces and the U.S. ambassador over here is that they're prepared for that. They're hopeful it doesn't take as long as it did in 2005, but it could. They say they've taken the steps to make sure that a transition government would do all the things to keep the ship of state on course.

Personally, I'm worried about that. We're pulling 50,000 troops out in the space of less than half a year, and we're doing it at a time when there will be no official Iraqi government.... I think that does create a vacuum that the bad guys will try to manipulate.

NJ: In the U.S. media, the narrative has been one of Iraqis saying, "I'm going to go out and risk my life and make my vote count." Is that your take? Is there that sense of resoluteness?

Kitfield: Yes, it is my take, and it is my most positive takeaway from [Sunday]. You've always wondered whether this society could hold together given all its ethnic and sectarian divisions. And the longer they go along in this process, the more you see that they are moving away from... for instance, in 2009 they had provincial elections where they basically kicked out all the religious parties because they just weren't getting government services. It was really a kind of great moment for democracy... And I think we've already seen that here, where all the pre-election polling showed religious parties were losing, and the people who were gaining were either Maliki's Rule of Law party, based around security, or Allawi's more secular party, which was a refutation of the sectarian parties.

So to me that's really the most hopeful sign coming out of Iraq is that they seem to have decided that a democracy is about getting my fair share, about working your differences out through political compromise. They've had to go through hell and high water to win that vote and to keep it. It's really kind of an amazing thing to see.

NJ: What are you hearing about irregularities in vote-counting?

Kitfield: So far it's been very positive. A French election monitor said that these are more technically clean elections than our own. I think the UN had nice things to say about it. So far, so good. Again, the other shoe could drop; they haven't counted all the ballots yet.

NJ: Towards the end of 2008, Maliki took on the Shiite insurgents and made himself the candidate of security. How do people feel about Allawi's security credentials?

Kitfield: Well, he was the previous prime minister and I think was actually favored by the U.S. for a while there; Maliki was a compromise. I think people think that Allawi is also strong. Clearly, Maliki gets a lot of bona fides because he really did take on the Shia militias, showed that he could stand up to them, really took a risk in Basra and got that city under control when it was run by the Shia mobs. And then he took on Shiites in Sadr City.

But this whole controversy over de-Baathification that was started before the election, where as I said a lot of candidates were disqualified because of their ties to the Baathist Party -- he kind of supported that, which is really going to anger a lot of Sunni constituencies that he could draw from. I think he got backed into a corner and had to protect his Shia flank, if you will. And that will probably show up when the votes are counted -- that alienated some of the Sunni parties who will go with Allawi instead. Before that controversy, everyone thought Maliki was going to be the front-runner. What I'm hearing now is that it's up for grabs, and everyone's waiting breathlessly to see how the votes are counted.

NJ: How did the Kurdish Gorran party do? How are they regarded by Kurds as well as non-Kurds? People have suggested that they will take votes away from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

Kitfield: I think that's right. They are another reform party, basically saying that the PUK has not delivered -- that they're corrupt, and there's too much nepotism and cronyism.... If it splits the Kurdish vote, it makes it more difficult. The Kurds as a bloc were quite powerful in being the kingmaker. They could put any coalition over the top with 50 percent....

The way these coalitions sort out, it's not so clear to me now that you couldn't have a majority government coalition that didn't include the Kurds, and that would be very worrisome for the Kurds, obviously. Or it would be a much smaller part of the coalition, so it would lose influence. For Kurdish influence at this time, the emergence of the Gorran party -- and I haven't seen how many votes they get vis a vis the PUK -- it is a worrisome thing for the Kurds, because as long as they voted as a cohesive bloc, it magnified their power.