why did rebuilding iraq fail

(Atef Hassan/Reuters), ultimately happened there tells the story. However, the paltry numbers of followers that Chalabi could scrape together compared to what he claimed, and the increasing evidence that those on the inside did not know or care for him, made it impossible to simply hand the reins of power to Chalabi and expect that he could manage the state. "The connections burst once they started to be used, and the sewage thus leaked from the bathrooms down through the building and into light fixtures and through the ceilings.". "All I'm asking American or other companies to do is come to Iraq I'll put a blanket of security around you, I'll go with you out into areas of the country with my team," he said. He also knew that the Iraqi people needed to be provided with basic security and basic services or they would begin to turn to warlords and militia leaders instead. It was a free-for-all climate best demonstrated when Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, successfully requested that $12 billion in cash be shipped to Iraq. In fact, there was a major problem, albeit one principally derived from the poor prewar planning rather than from mistakes made by Bremers team in Baghdad. Both the CENTCOM commander, General Tommy Franks, and the office of the Secretary of Defense made clear that they wanted to reduce the American military presence in Iraq as quickly as possible, and if there were any serious efforts at nation-building to be made, they were determined that someone else do it. This gap, and the fact that the Administration had no intention of providing the numbers of troops they required to actually make such a strategy work, became apparent to American military commanders in late 2003. Rebuilding Iraq: Prospects and Challenges Unfortunately, another pathology of the senior leadership of the Bush Administration was that most of them shared an abiding antipathy to the UN and other international organizations. As former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz noted in an interview with Vanity Fair, the threat of Saddam with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was simply the one threat upon which all of the senior members of the Bush Administration agreedand believed that it could be used to justify the war to the public. However, neither the UN, the international NGOs, nor many other governments were interested in working under these conditions. "So the program moved forward, despite the fact that everyone understood there were not enough contracting officers, and there was not enough oversight to adequately manage the funds on the ground.". At the political level, the United States actually began to do a bit better starting in 2005. Much of $60B from U.S. to rebuild Iraq wasted, special The Failed Reconstruction of Iraq - The Atlantic Can the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement help address Lebanons governance crisis? He was prevented from cooperating with Central Command planners, and many of his requests for key personnel were denied. This effort began with what became known as the Baghdad Security Plan, which was designed to concentrate large numbers of Iraqi and Coalition troops in Baghdad and employed the proper tactics to secure the capital and allow political and economic reconstruction efforts to begin to take hold there. Iraq The purpose of the ICDC was to provide local militia forceslike those used successfully in many other counterinsurgency and stability operations around the worldas adjuncts to the national military forces. Some were no-bid, such as the $1.4 billion contract handed to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq's oil industry. Why was that? A firm based in Dubai managed to keep around $4 billion in Pentagon construction contracts, for example, despite routinely marking up the price of switches and plumbing parts between 3,000 and 12,000 percent, according to an audit Bowen conducted in 2011. As it was in the beginning, the end of this story is entirely in the hands of the United States. US-led bid to rebuild Iraq riven by infighting and ignorance, US government report says. Coalition Provisional Authority Unfortunately, the prewar planning guidance handed down from the civilian chiefs in the Department of Defense now dictated what the military forces on the ground did and did not do, and that meant that they did far too little. The firm has said it conducted its work with "integrity, transparency, accountability, and discipline.". Having brought exiles and militia leaders into the government and given them positions of power, it became virtually impossible to get them out, and even more difficult to convince them to make compromises. Clearly a number of lawmakers "have signed on to this solution," said Bowen's deputy Glenn D. Furbish, a top auditor in SIGIR for the past eight years. The breeding grounds for troubles and extremism surely loom large. As a result, the United States created the twenty-five-member IGC and gave it an important role in guiding reconstruction. Not surprisingly, the ICDC turned out to be a total debacle: It had virtually no combat capability, was thoroughly penetrated by the insurgents, militias, and organized crime, and collapsed whenever it was committed to battle. However, in Washingtons fever to churn out more Iraqi soldiers to hold up as proof that no more American or other foreign forces were needed, the Administration insisted on a breakneck pace that virtually eliminated any ability to vet personnel before they were brought into the ICDC. Investigations into why Western forces primarily the US and British Armies failed to build effective and accountable Afghan and Iraqi armies have not focused enough on The experience of nation-building in other states over the past twenty to thirty years left the experts convinced that the process of political reconstruction could not be rushed. [20] However, Bremer had another problem to deal with: Washingtons demands. They whispered to the press that it was his execution and not their unrealistic expectations and inadequate preparations that were to blame. "They actually issued us a site to build a facility that, when we went to the GPS coordinates provided or when we tried to it was discovered that that site was actually not in Iraq; it was in Iran," said Robbins. However, because Washington had not allowed enough timelet alone created the circumstancesfor genuinely popular figures to emerge, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) simply appointed twenty-five Iraqi leaders well-known to them. They then built public support by providing the security and basic services that the government could not, explicitly following the model employed so successfully by Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. A State Department-funded childhood vaccination program helped cut the national infant-mortality rate by nearly three-quarters. While the Administration does not seem to have intended to use the Iraqi army to secure the population, they believed that because it would remain cohesive, there would be little threat from disgruntled soldiers joining organized crime or insurgent groups, as actually happened. Reconstruction in Iraq has failed. There are exceptions to the tales of fraud and waste. Last, because too many Coalition forces were off playing whack-a-mole with insurgents in the sparsely populated areas of western Iraq, the rest of the country was relatively denuded of troopsindeed, there were vast swathes of southern Iraq where one might not see Coalition or Iraqi Army forces for hours if not dayswhich allowed the militias and organized crime rings to gradually take control over neighborhoods and villages all across the rest of Iraq. Moreover, by insisting that all of the problems of the country were caused by the insurgencyrather than that all of the problems of the country were helping to fuel the insurgencyand that, especially in 2004 and early 2005, the insurgency was really about al-Qaida operatives and former regime dead-enders, the United States concentrated its efforts in the wrong places and on the wrong problems. Once again, this was particularly true with regard to the intellectual foundations of the Administrations approach to war, which underlay all of the planning. It is far more likely that Sistani just did not understand the agreement and its complex caucus system and allowed various other leaders in the Shia community to manipulate him into opposing it because it was a threat to their new power and wealth. ago. The violence has also sparked a "brain drain" as professionals flee Iraq, leaving unskilled workers to try to carry on. The militia leaders exerted their power by laying claim to areas of the country that the governments security forcesand the Americanscould not occupy or patrol. In Iraq, there was no DDR program, nor could one have been pulled together overnight. More than anything else, this conviction fed the Sunni-based insurgency. Not surprisingly, many of the Sunni officers were humiliated by how they were treated and went home to their tribes in al-Anbar province and joinedalong with their sons, cousins, and nephewsthe burgeoning Sunni insurgency. While States capacity to handle postwar reconstruction and nation-building probably would also have proven inadequate without massive international cooperation, it was still orders of magnitude beyond what DoD possessed. ", Only retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq before shifting to Afghanistan and then briefly directing the CIA, was ebullient, claiming the effort had brought "colossal benefits to Iraq. The first of these was the decision to accelerate massively the training of the new Iraqi Army. They built up their militias and insinuated them into the various security services. Iraq reconstruction a failure | News | Al Jazeera The Seven Deadly Sins of Failure in Iraq: A In 2004-05, the Bush Administration largely convinced itself that the problems besetting Iraq were not as great as their critics claimed. But the largest responsibility for the screw-up lies generally at the Pentagon and particularly in the Army, according to the report. Such capabilities were resident in segments of the UN bureaucracy and, to an even greater extent, in scores of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have assisted in nation-building around the world in the past. The problem is most easily understood in this way. At bottom, many in the Administrationand virtually all of those leading the march to warsimply did not believe that a major effort at reconstruction was necessary. Only a dramatic change in approach by Washington can do so. Neocons did their best to turn Iraq into a failed state, and it almost happened (and might still). By mid-2004, major projects had ground to a halt because of the insurgency, sectarian warfare and the soaring cost of security. Investment in post-2003 Iraq refers to international efforts to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq since the Iraq War in 2003. At the same time, training time was cut to just two or three weeks. It took so many needless blunders to drive the country to its current state. It never learned from its mistakes and never committed adequate resources to accomplish either its original lofty aspirations or even its later, more modest goals. The buildings had been ransacked by looters. [8] Likewise, during the 1990s, this author personally heard individuals who would later become senior Bush Administration officials insist that Saddams opposition had doomed American efforts to make peace between the Arabs and the Israelis in the 1980s. By Abbas Kadhim. Across the board, planning was disjointed, inadequate, and unrealistic. This, coupled with their ignorant but adamant belief that a major reconstruction effort would be unnecessary in Iraq, hardened them in their stand-offish approach to the UN and other members of the international community. In particular, throughout 2004-05, Administration officials believed that the problems besetting Iraq were almost entirely the fault of the Iraqi insurgency, which they maintained was largely driven by al-Qaida and by a small number of former regime figures. When de Mello was killed in August 2003 by a truck-bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad, the Secretariat immediately reduced its presence in Iraq to little more than a skeleton crew on the grounds that the United States, which had insisted on retaining complete control of the effort, was failing in its most basic task: providing the security that was the sine qua non of any reconstruction efforts. The United Nations, through its various agencies, can call upon a vast network of personnel and resources vital to various aspects of nation-building. The oil industry is not a big employer, however, and "Iraq is still far from having a vibrant, market-based private sector," Bowen reports. Studies conducted before the digging of the new pipelines started showed that the soil was too sandy, but neither the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing the effort nor the main contractor at the site, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), heeded the warning. Many of the IGC leaders were horribly corrupt, and they stole from the public treasury and encouraged their subordinates to do the same. As of this writing, the situation in Iraq seems bleak, but there are still areas of progress that could lead one to be hopeful that all is not lost. U.S. officials did get a number of things right, but they never understood-or even listened to In this authors conversations with Iraqis both inside and outside Iraq since the end of the war, there certainly have been those who suggested that since most of the conscripts were Shia and merely following orders, the people would have accepted them as enforcers of law and order after Saddams fall. As a result, Bowen calls the claims of success "suspect. Now, its definitive. New report cites failures in massive Iraq reconstruction initiative. Instability in Iraq | Global Conflict Tracker - Council on The equipment had largely been stolen or destroyed. How Not to Reconstruct Iraq, Afghanistanor America US-led bid to rebuild Iraq riven by infighting and ignorance, US government report says. The seeds of a great many of Iraqs problems lay in this arrangement. Virtually every senior Iraqi said the decade-long U.S. occupation was beset by huge misspending and waste, and had accomplished little. At the very least, we should not assume that the United States has much longer to turn things around. Bremers team heard the same thing, and an important element in their decision to disband it was to try to send a signal to the people that the old regime was gone, and the Coalition would be starting again from a clean slate to create new institutions without the taint of Saddam. He knew that the Sunnis had to be brought back into the government to end the insurgency. This was the basis of the neo-conservative refrain that the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad. Likewise, this mistaken conviction was part of the reason that Washington quickly shifted its attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, in the belief that Saddam somehow stood behind both the Taliban and al-Qaida. Americans returning from Iraqmilitary and civilian alikehave proven unanimous in their view that the Iraqis desperately want reconstruction to succeed and that they have the basic tools to make it work, but that the United States has consistently failed to provide them with the opportunities and the framework to succeed. It too seems likely to fail as a result of the too little, too late approach Washington has taken toward the reconstruction of Iraq from start to finish. While this rationale was understandable, it did not mean that the decision was faultless. The reason for the complexity was that it was designed to exclude the unpopular exiles and militia leaders who had been brought into the power structure through the creation of the IGC and allow for genuinely popular leaders to be elected to new regional and national political bodies.[29]. The ability to tap into a much larger network of people with desperately needed skills, by itself, was a crucial virtue of the UN that was lost to the United States out of sheer hubris.[18]. "It's hard even now to imagine $12 billion in hundred-dollar bills, wrapped into bricklike bundles, then put on huge pallets and brought over by troop carrier airplanes to be dispersed in a war zone," Waxman said. Combat units found themselves in charge of large urban areas with no sense of what to do, whom to contact, or how else to get help. Compounding the problem, the Administration concurrently took a number of steps that discouraged those who might have helped them to address these failings by helping to build new political, economic, and security institutions in Iraq capable of replacing Saddams fallen regime. Thus, the experts on reconstruction generally urged the inclusion of Iraqi voices in the decision-making process, but not the turning over of decision-making authorityor the appearance of itto any Iraqi group. It quickly became clear that Iraqs governmental apparatus had largely collapsed. Instead, the focus was on a longer timeframe of building a new political system from the ground up over a period of years, during which time an international coalition, blessed by the UN, would retain sovereignty and only delegate authority to new Iraqi political entities as they became ready. The 2500-acre site, 50 miles south of Baghdad, comprises both the ruins of the ancient city as well as surrounding villages and agricultural areas. The result was a massive boost to the forces of instability in the country.[22]. Bowen's interviews with influential Iraqis reveal, however, that they don't seem to have noticed all this investment or don't seem grateful. Some, like the Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Masud Barzani, truly did represent their constituency. Iraq reconstruction a failure The U.S. couldnt even restore the countrys electric system or give a majority of its people potable water. The small number of officers who understood it were typically relegated to the special forces and rarely ever rose to prominent command positions. Report Cites Problems with Iraq Rebuilding Costs, Corruption Plagues Iraq Reconstruction Effort, Bush Critic Back in Baghdad to Lead Reconstruction, Review of Iraq Effort Must Include Contractors, Analyst Sees Flaws in Iraq Rebuilding Plan. Of greatest importance, they convinced themselves that solving Iraqs problems did not require any difficult political, economic, or military decisions, and no matter how much the evidence diverged from their theories, they refused to accept reality and give up their theories. Between 626 and 539 BCE, the city was the capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire and the largest metropolis in the world. Those that haven't stand idle because Iraqis are unwilling to work there, or they can't get fuel to run equipment. Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Business Transformation Paul Brinkley has spent much of the past year traveling around Iraq, trying to revitalize and spark international investment in those factories. Defense officials have acknowledged that a substantial chunk of the Pentagon's spending in Iraq went to repair the looting and other damage done by Iraqis in the immediate period after the war ended, when U.S. troops were not tasked with keeping order. They used the instruments of government to exclude their political rivals from gaining any economic, military, or political powerparticularly Chalabi, who gained control of the de-Bathification program and used it to exclude large numbers of Sunnis from participating in the new Iraqi government. As a result, they fashioned a new approach to Iraqi participation in the reconstruction and the development of the Iraqi political sector, called the November 15 Agreement for the date that it was finally accepted. Shortly after Baghdad fell in 2003, huge contracts were awarded to several U.S. companies. Khalilzad did not have every skill that one would have wanted for that postperhaps no mortal couldbut he was a superb negotiator, and he understood some critically important basic truths. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to conduct in-depth, nonpartisan research to improve policy and governance at local, national, and global levels. [28], Not everything that Bremers CPA did was a mistake, however. In the name of security and national interests, the West has done a tremendous disservice to its own people as well. In other words, it does not yet look like the point of no return has been crossed. By abruptly disbanding the military and security services without a DDR program, the United States turned as many as one million Iraqi men loose on the streets with no money, no way of supporting their families, and no skills other than how to use a shovel and a gun. A major manifestation of this fatally misguided approach lay in the realm of military operations. Moreover, the Administrations critics are probably wrong in their contention that the Army could have been used to maintain order, and so take the place of the missing Coalition soldiers who should have been there to do so. As bad as the Administrations prewar assumptions were, as tragic as it was that General Franks and his command did not see the need to stabilize the country, and as badly as the mistakes of the CPA were in compounding these problems, there were still more to come, and these too became critical components in the overall problems besetting the reconstruction. That was the strategy that the U.S. military attempted to employ in Iraq immediately after the invasion. A sort-of elected government was more or less in place, and in the press interviews I did in response to my book I was regularly required to defend its thesis that reconstruction in Iraq had failed almost totally, and that the same process was going down in Afghanistan as well. Bowen's report indirectly assigns blame for mismanaging the endeavor to the Bush White House, which had the authority to force U.S. government agencies to coordinate their work but failed to exercise it. As a result, the Coalition had nothing to offer former Iraqi soldiers and (particularly) officers, who had once enjoyed privileged positions in their society. Two major theories have emerged regarding the American endeavor in Iraq. As a result, he worked tirelessly to force a new national reconciliation agreement that might accomplish the first two goals and to make it possible to have a government that could partner with a new American military approach to achieve the third. [9], As bad as some of these rationales for war may have been, far more damaging was the way in which these rationalizations influenced the Administrations senior leadership regarding the necessity and demands of postwar reconstruction. A probe by Bowen's office of the American official overseeing early reconstruction in Hilla, for example, yielded evidence of widespread bribes, bid-rigging, money laundering, kickbacks and illegal gifts in a scheme that included four colonels, who all got prison terms. Authors, like Andrew Bacevich, present the first theory1. 7 mo. "We'll show you factories, and if there's a good being manufactured, all I'm asking you to do is consider purchasing some of it from an Iraqi company.". But they had enough infra and systems and institutions to avoid what you see happening in Afghanistan.
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