Iraqi Civil War

Oh Donald Rumsfeld, how did a man so dim get so far. Yesterday, Rumsfeld and Gen John Abizaid were asked by the Senate Appropriations Committee about the prospects of an Iraqi civil war, and what we were going to do about one should it erupt. The Washington Post brings us their reply. From the Post:

"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to," Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee when pressed to explain how the United States intended to respond should Iraq descend wholesale into internecine strife.

If civil war becomes reality, "it's very clear that the Iraqi forces will handle it, but they'll handle it with our help," Abizaid said later when asked to elaborate on Rumsfeld's remark.

Only an idiot believes that. The Iraqi security services are in no way, shape, or form able to deal with a civil war. To understand why, let's take a look at a similar situation from recent US history.

In the Spring of 1980, Fidel Castro declared the port of Mariel an open port. That Summer, 125,000 Cubans made the trip from Mariel to Miami in what came to be known as the Mariel Boatlift. The influx of refugees into an already depressed economy ultimately led to a major crime wave, so the city of Miami did what any city would do in that situation, they rapidly beefed up their police force immensely.

The problem was that everyone from major drug cartels to street gangs sent their loyalists with clean records to the police academy, which resulted in a very corrupt police force. Eventually, 10% of the force ended up jailed, fired, or disciplined; and that's just the ones they had hard evidence against.

Fast forward to Iraq. We have just done the same thing that Miami did in the early eighties. We have built up roughly 240,000 security forces in just a couple years. If we are as lucky as Miami, that means about 30,000 corrupt forces, and I doubt we're that lucky.

Thus the security forces in Iraq have loyalties that are divided between clan, religious, and business interests. Take a look at what happened the other day. Forty-seven Shia employees of a brick factory were drug from buses and executed.

A lot of people saw this as an example that a civil war was already underway. It looked to me like a plain and simple protection racket. I'm sure that the executions were carried out by some form of militia that is probably also members of the Iraqi security forces. Someone has probably already contacted the factory owner letting him know that he can fill those jobs, and also make sure nothing like this ever happens again, for a price.

That's the problem we face, there is sectarian violence taking place, but there also a lot of people using that violence as a cover for advancing their own criminal agendas and parts of the Iraqi security forces are probably taking part in both activities. That being said, how in the world are we to expect the Iraqis to deal with a civil war in any meaningful way? The realistic answer is that they can't.