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[size=30]A report monitoring 20 years of 'confusion and chaos' in the Iraqi military establishment
[ltr]2023.05.05 - 10:25[/ltr]
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[ltr]2023.05.05 - 10:25[/ltr]
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Baghdad - people
Like all Iraqi institutions and its main joints, the security institution, which was structured by the order of the military ruler of Iraq after his invasion, Paul Bremer, and reconfigured by his order, suffered from floundering, fluctuations, and erosion at times and development at other times. 20 years have passed since its demise, according to a report by "NEIRIJ".
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The report, which was prepared by Imad Hussein and followed by "NAS", (May 5, 2023), said that the constitution of the new regime authorized the prime minister to take over the general leadership of the armed forces, and after many experiments and the formation and abolition of agencies, it can be said that the military security establishment in Iraq has settled on three pillars. The main ones are the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior, and other organs directly linked to the Prime Ministry.
Likewise, during the presidency of Saddam Hussein, the security and military forces were divided into two main ministries: defense and interior, and a few devices and formations were added to them that were directly related to the president, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In general, the Iraqi security forces consisted of: the Republican Guard, the regular army, and the popular organizations. In addition to the Internal Security Forces, the Border Guard, and the Saddam Fedayeen.
The following is the text of the report:
invasion kernel
After the invasion and the decision of its ruler, Bremer, to dissolve the existing army, the new army was established by merging the fighters of the armed factions, and some elements of the new parties as well, to be its nucleus, and officers lower than the rank of colonel were summoned to establish the first legion according to a sectarian and ethnic structure.
At the same time, high military ranks were granted to the fighters of these factions and parties, and they were granted important positions with the “jihadi service,” which is one of the phases of “redressing thoughts,” as compensation for the period of their opposition outside Iraq and considering it as continuous service. Which created the term “integration officers” in popular circles and even the military security corps, to mock the killing of the opportunity to form a national army that transcends sects and nationalities.
In addition, the “Venel” security company in charge of training the fighters of the new Iraqi army classified the recruits based on their nationality and sect during the training sessions, which caused incidents of sectarian or national friction between the elements of the nucleus of the new army.
The control of the allied parties and factions over the new institution has two benefits: the first is a corrupt bureaucracy that facilitates the theft of a large part of the budgets of these institutions, and the second is ensuring the loyalty of this institution to the existing regime and protecting it by all means, even if it is destructive.
The problem that afflicted the military security establishment can be viewed from several angles, one of which is the many elements.
Iraqi army census before and after 2003
In 1990, the Iraqi army ranked fifth in the world as the strongest regular army, then the year 2003 witnessed its decline to its lowest levels before it was dissolved and a new one was created.
During the years 1985-1989, a period in which Iraq was fighting a war with Iran, the number of army soldiers reached one million soldiers, and in 1990 the size of the army increased by 39%, bringing the number of its soldiers to one million and 390 thousand soldiers (equivalent to 33% of the total Iraqi workforce In that year), and after the invasion of Kuwait, his strength declined by about 66%, bringing the number to 475,000 soldiers.
During the years of the siege 1992-2002, its number ranged between 407 and 479 thousand soldiers (7-9% of the total workforce), and in the year of the fall of 2003, the number of Iraqi army soldiers was 432 thousand soldiers.
After 2003, the new authority abolished compulsory military service and opened the door to volunteering. The number of Iraqi army soldiers reached 179,000 in 2004, 227,000 in 2005, and 495,000 in 2006, and reached its peak in 2012, when the number of soldiers reached 802,000.
The year following the peak year witnessed a significant decrease in the number of enlisted personnel, as about 625,000 soldiers left the service, and the number of army soldiers became about 177,000 by 2013.
This significant decrease indicates the lack of a solid military doctrine, as the tense security situation in Syria at the time and its repercussions on Iraq, along with the emergence and expansion of terrorist factions, prompted 78% of the army personnel to leave the service, and only 22% remained to confront the terrorist forces coming to establish their state.
The collapse of the layers of the security forces also triggered the file of (aliens) - which is a popular term used by Iraqis for fake names registered as soldiers in the Iraqi army, which have no presence on the ground, and the purpose of their existence is to receive their salaries for the benefit of the political party responsible for their registration - and most of the forces participated in various Its backgrounds are linked to the corruption of this file, as former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi revealed after assuming power to succeed Nuri al-Maliki in 2014 about the existence of more than 50,000 space soldiers whose salaries go to senior officers and “integration officers.”
During the war with ISIS 2014-2017, the number of soldiers reached 209,000, while it increased to 341,000 in 2019. By the year 2023, the Iraqi army has become the 45th rank in the world, down 11 ranks from the previous year, when it was ranked 34, and includes About 200,000 soldiers, in addition to 130,000 paramilitary personnel, do not have reserve forces.
The Ministry of Defense has authority over all branches of the armed forces, which are: the land force, air force, naval force, army aviation, and air defense, in addition to other branches. The land force is the largest in number, while the air force is the most controversial branch and subject to political divisions. .
The Iraqi Air Force has a fleet of 290 aircraft, a large part of which is for training and reconnaissance purposes. The F-16 is the most prominent and newest aircraft in the Iraqi air fleet. Since 2003, this force has been under Kurdish control, with only 3 personalities in command, who are: Kamal Al-Bazrangi , Anwar Hama Amin and Shehab Jahid Hama Khan Zanganeh, and since then it has been the subject of a political struggle over positions and the identity of the pilots.
internal on the scale of the census
With regard to the Ministry of the Interior, the number of its employees has increased about 13 times, as their number after 20 years of occupation reaches 650,000, while it was about 40,000 before 2003, 12 ministers took turns in its leadership, and since 2006 it has become part of the share of Shiites according to the division The political ministries, and in return awarded the Ministry of Defense for the year.
The Ministry of the Interior includes many security agencies and police agencies, the most prominent of which are the local police forces that follow each governorate and consist of the people of that governorate, in addition to the Federal Police Forces, the Border Forces Department, the Facilities Protection Police, the Special Police Commandos, the Antiquities and Heritage Protection Police, the Anti-Terrorism Directorate, the Community Police, and others concerned Drug control, rescue, rapid response and civil defense.
Each of these agencies and police agencies also includes units concerned with intelligence and includes emergency regiments and special forces within these agencies, as well as forensic evidence associated with the provincial police, and is supervised by the General Directorate of Criminal Evidence in the Ministry.
The Federal Police is similar in its formation and training to the Iraqi Army.
The file of training the military forces is one of the most prominent files that have been turned upside down during the past and current eras of government, as it previously possessed the sobriety that qualified it to create forces that compete in this regard with regional and global powers, while today it has become a file mired in confusion, corruption, nepotism, and ambiguity.
The training doctrine in the Ministries of Defense and Interior, in most of its stages, is superficial and depends on the personal judgments of the leaders on the one hand, and on the size of the “knowledge and connections” of individuals on the other hand, in addition to the different international training bodies on the third hand, which produced a military human flow that knows no borders. And his duties and rights, which raises many questions about the feasibility of the huge sums spent every year on those forces.
Security spending and arming forces
The new Iraq began its financial journey with a budget of $13 billion in 2003, of which only 1% was spent on the security sector, and it reached its peak in 2015, when the security sector cost 12.5% of the total budget, which amounted to about $105 billion, which is logical. As that year witnessed the largest and most prominent battles to liberate the occupied territories at the hands of ISIS.
The growth of this institution and the increase in its allocations in the general budget turned it into a sector over which militias and parties that share power and influence compete, which was revealed by Nuri al-Maliki, Secretary-General of the Dawa Party and former Prime Minister, in a leaked recording, about Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization, acquiring 40 thousand Salary, and Muqtada al-Sadr receives 12,000 salaries allocated to the “Peace Brigades” in the military, in addition to political parties that have fixed stakes in security institutions.
The work of the security system during the last two decades has not succeeded in providing security or confronting terrorism without major international interventions and financial, strategic and military support. Poor training and arming and many gaps in military logistical services, and the security system in Iraq needs a filter to get rid of those associated with armed gangs, in addition to its need for training and arming with the latest devices and equipment.
The official spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool revealed that the security apparatus did not play a sufficient role to protect Iraq, pointing out that the construction of the army and the security apparatus in 2003 was done in haste. After that, the army got involved in securing the protection of the city of Baghdad through checkpoints and patrols following the outbreak of the cycle of violence and sectarianism, pointing out that the Iraqi military leadership at the highest levels noticed these failures and negatives, especially after the events of Mosul, Salah al-Din and Ramadi.
These failures, which Rasul referred to, raise many questions about the reason for the absence or weakness of the role of all security institutions at once, despite their abundance, ramifications, and diversity of their actual, as well as official, references.
Prime Minister's organs
In addition to the Defense and the Interior Ministry, there are four security agencies that report directly to the office of the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, namely: the Intelligence Agency (established in 2004), the National Security Agency (2004), the Anti-Terrorism Agency (2007) and the Popular Mobilization Authority (2014).
Theoretically, the Iraqi Intelligence Service and the National Security Service are among the most important security agencies in the country, as the former are entrusted with the tasks of maintaining Iraqi national security by working all over the world according to the principle of both external and internal intelligence.
The agency defines its tasks as being responsible for collecting information and evaluating threats to Iraqi national security, and on the basis of that it provides advice to the Iraqi government and intelligence support to the armed forces of all kinds.
It is rumored that the intelligence agency is close to the United States of America, which made it hated by the armed factions, until it came to the point that it was accused of providing intelligence information to the American government that helped it carry out the operation targeting Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and his companions near Baghdad Airport in early 2020.
On the other hand, he achieved some successes, as he contributed to providing information that contributed to the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other information that contributed to the arrest of his assistant Sami Jassim al-Jubouri, as well as many successful missions at the internal and regional level.
During two decades, the position of Director of the Intelligence Service was held by five personalities since its re-establishment, namely: Muhammad Abdullah Al-Shahwani between 2004 and 2009, and Zuhair Al-Gharbawi between 2009 and 2016, then he was succeeded by Mustafa Al-Kazemi, who began his work in the position from 2016 until 2020. When he took over the position of Prime Minister, he became an agency running the apparatus, who deliberately appointed Judge Raed Jouhi (famous for the arrest warrant he issued against Muqtada al-Sadr in 2004) to manage the apparatus, who was dismissed from his post as soon as Muhammad Shia al-Sudani took over the reins of power. The new ministers personally supervise the apparatus.
As for the National Security Agency, according to its definition of itself, it works to maintain security inside the country by activating the internal intelligence units, as its work is evident within the borders of the country, and it is, on paper, similar to the General Security Directorate that was in force in Iraq before the invasion in 2003.
With regard to the Counter-Terrorism Service, it was formed in 2007 after the disengagement of the Iraqi Special Forces from the Ministry of Defense, with the change of the name of the Special Operations Command to the First Special Operations Command. About three years later, the Second Special Operations Command was formed with the increase in the number of members of this apparatus and the increase in its funding and the tasks assigned to it, in a way that made it the best specialized force in combating terrorism in the country in terms of training, armament and skill.
revolutionary crowd
After ISIS occupied the city of Mosul, the center of Nineveh Governorate, and the issuance of the supreme Shiite authority in Iraq, Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, his famous fatwa - sufficient jihad - and the exit of tens of thousands of volunteers whom the Ministry of Defense was unable to absorb for organizational and political reasons, the popular crowd was established under tense circumstances and a legal situation Distorted, its main nucleus was formed by armed factions linked to or close to Iran and active in Syria in defense of Bashar al-Assad’s regime since 2011, with unlimited support by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, known for his closeness to Iran, and it also included thousands of volunteers who responded to the fatwa with ideological motivation.
Many faction leaders declared at the beginning of its establishment that it is a ideological and sectarian project that seeks to be the Iraqi version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and that its loyalty is absolute to the Iranian guide Ali Khamenei, which became clearer after the spread of dozens of video clips to train the elements of that newly-born formation, containing the famous sentence: “Is there a Nasir Fida’i? At your service, Khamenei.” On the other hand, there were forces working to distance themselves from Iranian influence and stressing the patriotism of the crowd's tendencies and the independence of its decision from any external party.
The overlap between military and religious authorities, national and dependent tendencies, the beliefs of leaders, individuals and adversaries, and legal and legislative covers are all challenges and problems that have accompanied the establishment of this controversial body until today.
The path to creating an “Iraqi Revolutionary Guard” was not free of thorns, as former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a decree in 2016 classifying the popular crowd as an official force affiliated with the prime minister, which was interpreted by those who follow the institutional state as a breach of the state and the security establishment, as seen by the authorities. Close to the crowd as a step back, and between those and those, the popular crowd has continued its official legal status until now, with some events that emerge from time to time and reveal the fragility of that accession deal, such as the bombing of the house of former Prime Minister Mustafa by armed elements affiliated with factions in the popular crowd. Al-Kazemi with drones.
The recognition of the Commission by the Prime Ministry was followed by Parliament’s legislation of Law No. (40), which is the law that considered the popular crowd a formation that enjoys moral personality and is part of the Iraqi armed forces and linked to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The law also ordered the disengagement of the members of the Commission who join this The formation of all political, partisan and social frameworks, and political work is not allowed in its ranks, which is no more than ink on the papers of the law.
Over time, the dialectic of separation between the Hashd and the factions emerged, where the dual identity was apparent in its best form. So-and-so brigade is subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and formally obeys his orders, but in reality he has other internal and external references that carry out their orders and agendas, so the one fighter became in two contradictory places. It is an official element of the Iraqi armed forces, and at the same time an element of an armed faction outside the framework of the state.
The biography of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which is close to 8 years old, and its armed factions, some of which are more than two decades old, was accompanied by many proven violations, as it came to the presence of prominent figures in its ranks on the list of sanctions by the US Ministries of State and Treasury, such as the head of the commission, Faleh Al-Fayyad, and the Chief of Staff, Abdul Aziz Al-Muhammadawi. “Abu Fadak” and the leader of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq faction, Qais al-Khazali and his brother Laith, in addition to armed factions such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, al-Nujaba, and others.
These factions also branched out and produced new factions that are smaller in size and fewer in number to carry out secondary agendas without appearing in the image, such as operations targeting logistical support convoys carried out by factions such as “The People of the Cave”, and implementing political agendas such as attacking media headquarters and bombing stores selling alcoholic beverages such as “Rab’ Allah”.
In addition to the foregoing, the Popular Mobilization Forces and its factions are directly accused of crimes of kidnapping and mass killing, controlling lands in the liberated provinces and refusing to return them to their owners, during the battles to liberate those provinces and beyond, the most famous of which is the Jurf al-Sakhar area in Babel and many regions of Diyala, Mosul, Salah al-Din and Anbar, and on another level, There are accusations that these factions are involved in suppressing popular protests - such as the October 2019 demonstrations - and political ones - such as the Sadrist movement's storming of the Green Zone 2022.
The “Sinak incident” during the October protests, which claimed the lives of about 23 people and wounded 120 according to the lowest estimates, is one of the most prominent evidences of the involvement of the Popular Mobilization factions in the suppression of the protesters, as two contradictory statements were published on that day, the first of which was the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority at the time, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who He implicitly admitted the responsibility of elements affiliated with the crowd for the incident, accusing the Peace Brigades of fabricating the crisis, and the second, the head of the commission, Faleh al-Fayyad, is trying to clear the crowd and its factions of the famous massacre.
In a country whose security and military institutions are fragmented into all these entities, designations, and affiliations, and devoid of walls that block intrusions from outside or inside, and unable to build a unified force isolated from corruption and the influence of its leaders and sheikhs, the description of its security and military institutions will not rise above the classification of “fragile” at best, and they will not be formed A national security military institution, except by correcting mistakes, from its roots that are more than 20 years old, and this will not be beneficial to the leaders of the new quotas.
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