Iraq

This afternoon, the New America Foundation hosted "The New Forgotten War," a talk about the future of Iraq. It featured Ad Melkert, the special representative for the U.N. secretary-general in Iraq.

Melkert, a former Dutch member of parliament, remains cautiously optimistic about Iraq's future, with an emphasis on the cautious part. The good news is that security in Iraq is better than it was two years ago. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been able to confront violence in the southern part of the country, Melkert said. As a result of the safer state, investment is starting to rise, but it still has a long way to go. Corruption, the terrible infrastructure, and legal concerns hamper Iraq's ability to draw serious investment.

One serious problem for the nascent state is budgetary, Melkert said. When oil prices are high, the government spends all of its revenue, but when they fall, they have to slash the budget.

Further, Iraq is still under dozens of UN chapter seven sanctions, stemming from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The current leadership says these sanctions need to be lifted because they were implemented against Hussein and not the current government.

These problems could potentially be amplified in the coming months and years as foreign security forces draw down in the country. Melkert said that one of two things will happen. Either the Iraqi forces will somehow maintain order, or the insurgents will attack as soon as the United States leaves. Right now, police officers, public servants, and UN workers and buildings remain prime targets.

New America Foundation/Flickr

28 years ago, Israel launched an airstrike against the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, terrified by the prospect of an Iraq with nuclear weapons. 19 year ago, the U.N. imposed comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq, declaring the country's nuclear program needed oversight. Seven years ago, former president Bush announced that an Iraq with access to weapons of mass destruction, potentially including nuclear technology, demanded a U.S. military response.

And six years after that invasion, Iraq is lobbying to rebuild nuclear reactors. Just one more entry for FP's list of states looking to go nuclear to lose sleep over.

Photo: RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images

We've reached a very strange point in human history when it is assumed that people who don't have access to food will have working cell phones:

In a test project targeting 1,000 Iraqi refugee families, the United Nations agency will send a 22-dollar (15-euro) voucher every two months by SMS to each family, who will be provided with a special SIM card.

The beneficiary can then exchange the electronic voucher for rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil, canned fish, cheese and eggs at selected shops.

Addressing concerns about mobile phone ownership among the refugee population, WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said all the 130,000 Iraqi refugees currently receiving food aid from the agency in Syria have mobile phones.

Update: UN Dispatch's Matthew Cordell has more.

In a talk given this afternoon at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, retired Gen.  John Abizaid outlined his view of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. He argued that it is foolish to approach issues on a country-by-country basis, complaining that "we look at Iraq through a soda straw. We look at Afghanistan through a soda straw." Instead, says Abizaid, the United States must develop a regional strategy that accounts for the roles of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

For the same reason, he suggested, the debate over whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan has been over-simplified; the discussion should be broadened to include the relative demands of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region at large.

Abizaid also emphasized the ideological nature of the conflict, and the need for soft power to address the root causes of radicalism. He noted that Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban leader, is referred to as "the commander of the faithful."

"While we may chuckle at that title," Abizaid said, "the people fighting for him do not." When asked whether there should be a shift to a counter-terrorism approach in Afghanistan that relies more upon targeted strikes than nation-building, Abizaid responded that such a plan is impractical. Stabilization in Afghanistan and Iraq is a precondition for effective counter terrorist operations, he argued, because it provides the infrastructure needed to develop the "superb, superb intelligence" needed.

The theme of the talk was that instability anywhere in the region is a serious threat to surrounding countries. With our "ground forces spread thin" and "our 24-7 forces totally engaged," the United States must more fully incorporate diplomatic, political and economic plans to get a handle on the region. A number of questions were directed to the resources required for such a broad regional approach, and towards the end of the talk, the retired general was asked if the situation would be better in Afghanistan had the United States not invaded Iraq.

"All's I know is that we did what we did, and we are where we are," he answered.

In response to Admiral Mullen's testimony on the need for more troops in Afghanistan, Senator Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) asked, "Do you understand you've got one more shot back home? Do you understand that?"

The question is reflective of polls showing distinctly waning support of the war effort in the United States. A Washington Post-ABC News poll has found that only 46 percent of respondents thought that the war was worth fighting; 51 percent said that it wasn't.

It's certainly a dramatic change since the time of the U.S. invasion. According to Gallup numbers, a whopping 93 percent of respondents in 2002 agreed with the decision to send U.S. forces to Afghanistan. That number steadily declined to 72 percent by mid-2004. Between that point and mid-2007, however, that number was remarkably stable, dropping only two percentage points over the course of three years. That might be reflective of Afghanistan's status as "the forgotten war;" people's opinions probably don't change much if they aren't paying attention.

It's interesting to compare this trend to the United States's other war. In the case of Iraq, there's an obvious decline in the number of Americans who think sending troops to Iraq wasn't a mistake (from 75 percent in 2003 to 39 percent in 2009) and an increase in the number of people who think that it was a mistake (from 23 percent in 2003 up to 58 percent in 2009). But whereas opinion on Afghanistan has been steadily declining; virtually every poll on Iraq represents another significant fluctuation. In mid-2004, for example, the percentage of supporters swung from 58 percent down to about 44 percent, and then back up to about 56 percent.

In general, there certainly seems to be decreasing support for any war over time; another Gallup poll suggests that soon after wars end, there is a consistent increase of people who "feel that war is an outdated way of settling differences." 

Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Sanctions slapped on Iraq because of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 would have made it impossible to bring the MiG-21 and MiG-23 jet fighters back while he was in power.

Two of the jets were ready for "immediate use", the statement said, and a preliminary agreement had been reached with the Serbian government to repair the others and send them back.

The statement did not say when the existence of the fighters had come to light

During his visit to Iraq earlier this month, Serbia's Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac told Iraqi officials about the existence of the jets, said a senior Serbian Defense official who did not want to be quoted by name.

"None are in flyable condition, they are dismantled and in crates. Only one MiG 23 that was displayed in (Belgrade's) air force museum is whole," he said. 

This is welcome news for Iraq, which has been looking to build up its air defences, but something seems very off about this. Slobodan Milosevic has been out of power since 2000 and Saddam Hussein since 2003, yet only now has anyone mentioned these planes?

I'm no expert, but given that (according to Wikipedia, at least) Serbia only has about 40 MiGs of its own, it seems like the 19 they were keeping in storage would be kind of hard to miss. 

Also, since when was Milosevic that concerned about violating international sanctions?

Photo: Dmitry A. Mmottl under a creative commons license.

Iraqi intelligence officials in the Prime Minister's office quickly took action when they learned a man was trying to sell a painting he claimed was a Picasso looted from Kuwait in the 1990 invasion. Unfortunately, as the London Times' Oliver August reports from Baghdad, the painting is probably not authentic:

Was it the strange proportions, the outsize legs? Was it the tag on the back that read “the Louvre; to the museum of kuwait”, even though the Louvre has never had a Picasso in its collection and would not, a spokesman said, have sold one if it did? 

The reality took the gloss off what was otherwise a brilliant operation. The would-be seller, named as Maitham al-Issawi, 33, was given it by his father, a former army officer, just before he died. He had asked for a “down payment” of $450,000.

A security official told The Times: “Two weeks ago we were informed by an intelligence department at the Prime Minister’s office about this matter. The painting was seized along with the suspect and both were taken to the provincial police command.

“The painting was originally inside a house but we didn’t like the idea of a raid because we feared the suspect might burn the painting. An ambush was set up outside and he was lured into the city where he was arrested in the middle of the road." 

Regardless of this painting's authenticity, the Iraqi government intends to continue going after stolen art and cultural items. It is looking not only for items from Kuwait but also many looted from Saddam's palaces in 2003. August reports:

The official hinted that the Prime Minister’s office had more information on looted artwork and that it could swoop again soon.

The American military withdrawal from Iraq has led to an uptick in violence, and now life is getting even more difficult for many Iraqis. More than 2 million in the south are expected to be victims of a severe water shortage, "described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilisation."

Iraq has experienced droughts before, including severe ones 10 years ago and just last year. But the damage of below-average rainfall for two winters in a row has been exacerbated by a number of new dams built in Turkey, Syria, and Iran, sucking dry the once-mighty Euphrates River that has provided the region with water for centuries. Iraq's huge marshes are in even more danger of drying up than they were under Saddam Hussein, who purposefully drained many of the marshes as a punishment to the residents.

The loss of water will not just hurt farmers, either. The city of Nasiriyah has lost two of its four power generators because of falling river levels, and may have to shut down the other two if the river continues to fall. While a wetter winter may help in the future, only a water policy reversal by Iraq's neighbors can stop future droughts.

ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images