DECONSTRUCTING BABIL? SECULAR SHI'AS AND SUNNIS WARY OF PC,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000091

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

BAGHDAD FOR NCT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV KISL KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: DECONSTRUCTING BABIL? SECULAR SHI'AS AND SUNNIS WARY OF PC,
COALITION FORCES

REF: A) HILLAH 79 B) HILLAH 80 C) HILLAH 82

HILLAH 00000091 001.2 OF 002


CLASSIFIED BY: Alfred Fonteneau, Regional Coordinator, REO
Hillah, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (U) This is a Babil PRT cable.


2. (C) SUMMARY. The unabated efforts of the Babil Provincial
Council (PC) to usurp power from local municipalities and gain
control of the provincial security forces continue to provoke a
secular Shi'a and Sunni backlash against the SCIRI-controlled
body (reftels A, B, and C). While it is difficult to gauge the
extent of this trend within the entire provincial community,
secular Shi'a and Sunni opinion leaders, including reporters,
NGO activists, police, and tribal leaders, continue to express
their frustration with the PC. These opinion leaders also view
USG reconstruction efforts in Babil as ineffective and perceived
U.S. political disengagement in the province as irresponsible.
They also continue to ask the REO and the PRT to provide strong
leadership over the PC, without which they maintain,
reconstruction efforts will be in vain and this strategic region
south of Baghdad will become increasingly unstable. END SUMMARY.


3. (SBU) Secular Shi'as in Babil represent a small portion of
the entire Shi'a population. They tend to be generally well
educated and are usually either middle or upper class. The
Sunni population of Babil comprises of approximately twenty
percent of the total population of the province and is
concentrated mostly in northern Babil.

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WHAT RECONSTRUCTION?
--------------

4. (C) Concerning the PC, reconstruction and the Provincial
Reconstruction Team (PRT),a secular Shi'a journalist declared
that the "people are not satisfied." "The PC and the government"
he continued, "want to make projects fail or they authorize
projects because they are in the direct [financial interest] of
the PC." Signs of reconstruction in the province are
non-existent, the journalist claimed, and that the PRT should
realize that the PC only recommends projects that correspond
with their political vision and enhance members' financial
positions, i.e. corruption. Babil is lacking many basic
necessities, including hospital equipment, cooking gas, fuel,
electricity and most importantly, employment opportunities,
despite the best efforts of the PRT to assist the provincial
government, according to the journalist.


5. (C) REO and PRT staff recently met with a delegation of
secular Shi'a journalists during a "brown bag lunch" and
discussed media development and local political issues. The
journalists explained that while technically they feel free to
report on topics they deem important for public consumption,
they remain unsure as to which subjects remain inappropriate to
address. Direct critiques of the PC and SCIRI policies, they
further stated, are not issues they would often report, as such
attacks could result in severe retaliation, including torture,
kidnapping, assault on family members, and assassination. This
issue was such a concern that the participants even asked REO
staff to assist them in securing firearm permits from the Babil
police. As to the accomplishments of the PC in the sphere of
reconstruction, one journalist summed it up by declaring that,
"They do not reconstruct, they deconstruct."

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THE PC AND THE SUNNI POPULATION
--------------

6. (C) A Sunni human rights NGO leader related to REO staff
that, "you helped us to get rid of Saddam, but you left us with
a worse regime." Sunnis in Babil, he maintained, face daily
discrimination at the hands of the local government and the PC.
When asked to provide specific examples of discrimination, he
stated that the government and the PC have been actively
targeting Sunnis since the fall of the old regime. The police
in northern Babil, he explicated, purposefully arrest a son from
every family, employ torture techniques worse than those used by
Saddam's security forces, and have taken control of Sunni
Mosques. Furthermore, he argued that the current attempt by the
PC to dissolve the Sunni-controlled Iskandariyah City Council
only further demonstrates the PC's efforts to marginalize Sunni
political participation in the province (ref A).

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THE PC VERSUS QAIS
--------------

7. (C) The Sunni and secular Shi'a outrage concerning the
alleged termination of General Qais Hamza Aboud Al-Momouri has

HILLAH 00000091 002.2 OF 002


also increased their suspicion about the activities and
motivations of the SCIRI-dominated PC (ref C). On May 13, Iraqi
Police (IP) and military reports confirmed that a large
demonstration of approximately three hundred to seven hundred
people (mostly IPs) in support of Qais occurred in central
Al-Hillah, the provincial capital. The protest sparked fears
within the Governor's administration of a possible IP mutiny,
although first hand accounts indicate that the IPs remained
mostly peaceful during the rally. An Iraqi Police Lieutenant
and supporter of Qais stated that a representative from the
governor's office met with the protestors during the
demonstration and told them that the Ministry of the Interior
(MOI) had refused to endorse the PC decision to fire Qais.
However, other reports received by the REO do not support this
claim, and it is possible that the governor's office simply told
the IPs this in order to convince them to disperse.


8. (C) Individual policemen have stated that if the PC
successfully fires the popular General, at least half of the
Babil IPs will be forced to quit their jobs due to fear of
reprisals and that SCIRI will have achieved its objective of
taking control of the Babil security forces. On multiple
occasions, secular government officials including the Mayor of
Al-Hillah, IP leadership and Qais himself have requested that
the REO intervene on behalf of the besieged General. It is
interesting to note that in a strange twist of fate, northern
Babil Sunni tribal sheikhs have voiced their public support for
Qais (a Shi'a) to REO staff on two separate occasions (ref B).
These individuals have also expressed to REO staff their
frustration that the United States is not doing enough to help
the General.


9. (C) COMMENT: Clearly the Sunnis and secular Shi'a of Babil
have legitimate reasons to feel frustrated with the current
administration of the province. The PC's maneuvering to augment
their authority on the municipal level and garner power over the
Babil security forces is only further estranging the PC from the
province's non-Shi'a Islamist population. The perception
amongst Babil Sunnis and secular Shi'a is that the USG is
unwilling to influence the political developments on the ground,
whether through guaranteeing Qais' professional survival,
rebuilding the province quickly, or reigning in the
SCIRI-dominated PC, which only adds to their aggravation. The
proliferation of such a belief will certainly undermine the
Coalition's credibility with these groups. The REO and PRT
continue to publicize to the PC, local civic groups and the
population of Babil as a whole, through individual contacts and
public diplomacy efforts, that the U.S. will support the
province by cooperating on reconstruction efforts and assist the
Iraqi government with helping them to establish democratic
processes (septel). END COMMENT.
MEURS