JAAFARI AND QASSIM COOKING UP NEW COALITION TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 003261

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/27/2017
TAGS: PGOV IZ
SUBJECT: JAAFARI AND QASSIM COOKING UP NEW COALITION TO
OUST MALIKI

Classified By: Pol Counselor Matt Tueller for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: In separate meetings, former Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari and senior Shia Independent CoR legislator
Qassim Daoud told us of their ongoing efforts to form a
non-sectarian coalition with the aim of unseating Prime
Minister al-Maliki. They claimed they have received the
blessing of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other senior
Shia clerics to build a "new" United Iraqi Alliance (UIA),
the Shia coalition formed in 2005, and Jaafari and Qassim
want to move the "new" UIA away from a sectarian grouping
into a nationalist-oriented coalition that includes Sunnis
and Kurds. While they claimed to have made substantial
progress in enlisting coalition partners, a Fadhila Party
leader told us they have mustered only 60 seats. Qassim said
Sistani confided he was "fed up" with the Sadrists and
advised Qassim and Jaafari not to include them in the "new"
UIA due to their troublemaking tendency. Qassim said the new
coalition would not initiate a no confidence process against
Maliki until it had already agreed on his replacement, since
no one wants a repeat of the protracted leadership vacuum
that led to Maliki's rise. Qassim told us that while he
thinks Moqtada al-Sadr is under Iranian influence and his
Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) militia is a "terrorist" group, he
nonetheless favors including the Sadrists in mainstream
politics as the only way to contain the movement. He warned
of a widespread Shia street perception that MNF-I is
attacking JAM while arming Sunni groups. Jaafari and Qassim
both complained of Kurdish intransigence over the
Hydrocarbons law and urged USG pressure to bring the Kurds to
a reasonable position. End Summary.

Seeking Sistani's Blessing for a "New" UIA to Oust Maliki
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2. (C) In our September 26 meeting with Qassim and September
27 meeting with Jaafari, both were unsparing in their
criticism of the Maliki government and spoke at length of
Maliki's perceived faults and failures. Qassim remarked that
"even an artist can not change the dull to the bright" when
describing Maliki's leadership record, and Jaafari alleged
that Maliki's Group of Four alignment (of which both branches
of the Da'wa party are members) violated the Iraqi
Constitution by conferring executive power on a presidency
council. Jaafari and Qassim are both reported to harbor
ambitions to succeed Maliki, and Jaafari in particular
appeared to use our meeting as an opportunity to preen and
tout his claimed ability to unite Iraq and solve its many
problems. For example, he rattled off a list of claimed
accomplishments from his tenure as Prime Minister, adding
with a tinge of bitterness that his opponents had brazenly
usurped credit for his achievements. He maintained that
while Maliki speaks of 2008 as the year in which he will
begin to improve national security and delivery of services,
Jaafari by contrast would take such steps immediately so that
Iraq could enjoy the success of these measures in 2008.
Qassim alleged that Maliki had been chosen as Prime Minister
"as a compromise candidate known to have no ability, no
vision, and a sectarian approach," and that recent USG
statements of support for the Maliki government had "abused
the present situation" and helped prolong Maliki's
incompetent rule. Jaafari stated tartly that the USG must
"face reality" about Maliki's limited leadership ability.



3. (C) Stating that the Iraqi Council of Representatives
"needs a signal to change governments," Qassim explained that
he and Jaafari are working to revamp the United Iraqi
Alliance (UIA),the sect-based grouping that swept Shia
politicians to power in 2005 elections, with the aim of
toppling the Maliki government and helping to form a
successor government. For his part, Jaafari said he sought
to restore UIA unity but not with the aim of supporting the
Maliki government. Both Jaafari and Qassim said the "new"
UIA would have a nationalist rather than sectarian
orientation, and would be open to Sunnis and Kurds as well as
Shia in order to promote national unity. Qassim said he and
Jaafari obtained blessing for this new alliance from Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during a widely-publicized
three-hour meeting on September 22, and he claimed they also
received approval from the three other Najaf Marja'iyah as
well as Fadhila Party spiritual leader Sheikh Muhammad
al-Yaqubi. With the assistance of Sistani's son, Qassim
averred he and Jaafari are in the process of establishing a
14-person committee comprised of two representatives from
each of the seven original UIA partners (Da'wa, Da'wa Tanzim,
Fadhila, the Sadrists, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council
(ISCI),ISCI's Badr, and a bloc of independents led by
Qassim) to chart a future course for the alliance. Qassim
said he had first grown close to Sistani while serving as
then-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Security Minister, an
experience that also resulted in bad relations with Moqtada

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al-Sadr due to his role in the 2004 security crackdown on
Sadrists in Najaf.


4. (C) Qassim asserted that the Sadrists, Fadhila, Da'wa
Tanzim and most Shia independents were already on board and
that ISCI/Badr was positive about the project, leaving only
Maliki's branch of Da'wa squarely on the outside. Hassan
al-Shammari, bloc leader of Fadhila's 15 CoR members,
disputed this assertion, however, telling us that Fadhila had
not agreed to either rejoin the UIA (the party withdrew from
the alliance earlier this year) or to join any other
alliance. Shammari claimed that "the Jaafari Bloc" currently
had about 60 CoR seats comprised of the Sadrists, Jaafari's
Da'wa allies, Da'wa Tanzim, and Qassim's "Solidarity Bloc" of
independents. Qassim also claimed to be in discussions with
leaders of Sunni parties regarding their inclusion in the new
alliance, noting that Saleh al-Mutlaq of the National
Dialogue Front had agreed to join provided the new alliance
adopted a name other than the UIA. Qassim emphasized that,
once formed, the new alliance would not move to take down
Maliki until they had sorted out in advance an orderly
succession process, noting that he wishes to avoid a repeat
of the protracted post-Jaafari leadership vacuum, a "tragic
period" that permitted the bombing of Samarra's Askari Mosque
and led to Maliki's rise.

Iran-Influenced Sadrists No Good, But Better In Than Out
-------------- --------------


5. (C) While Jaafari asserted flatly that Maliki's Group of
Four had destroyed the UIA, Qassim averred that friction
between the "refined" ISCI and the "aggressive" Sadrists had
caused the latter to play a "destructive" role within the
alliance. Qassim says he has long argued with Sistani and
other Shia leaders for the inclusion of Sadrists in
mainstream Shia politics in order to contain their movement
and "help them understand the meaning of democracy." While
the Sadrists "are far from being exemplary politicians,"
their behavior has improved since the 2005 elections.
Jaafari sounded a similar theme, arguing that Sadrists must
be brought into the political fold, even though there are
criminals among them, because they represent the voice of the
poor. Qassim confided that Sistani is "fed up" with the
Sadrists and advised him and Jaafari not to bring the
Sadrists into the "new" UIA because they would continue to be
unreliable and troublesome alliance partners. Sistani told
Qassim that Sadr had asked him for advice on whether the CoR
Sadrist bloc should rejoin the UIA, and that he refused to
provide such advice because Sadr had not asked for guidance
prior to withdrawing his bloc from the UIA. Qassim further
stated that Sistani had even used an Arab proverb that can
best be translated as "in some circumstances the wastrel is
preferable to the man of faith" to convey the notion that the
GOI needs people who can deliver to the people, using the
example that it would be preferable to bring back Saddam's
Minister of Trade, who has a proven track record of
competence, than the current Minister who delivers nothing to
an impoverished and needy people.


6. (C) Jaafari did not broach the issue of Iran's role in
Iraq, but Qassim stated that Moqtada al-Sadr and the Jaysh
al-Mahdi (JAM) are under Teheran's influence. He denounced
JAM as a terrorist group, noting with a wry grin that even
though al-Qaeda and JAM are the same type of group, Iraqis
call the former "terrorists" and the latter "a militia."
Qassim claimed to have warned Iran's Ambassador to Iraq not
to create another Hezbollah through the JAM, and that he told
Iranian Qods Force leader Sulaimani that Iran was playing a
dangerous game in Iraq that threatened the welfare of Iraqi
Shia, the very people Tehran claims to support. After
meeting with Iranian government officials such as a top
National Security official, the Foreign Minister, and former
President Rafsanjani during an official December 2006 visit
to Iran, Qassim said he concluded that the extent of Iranian
influence in Iraq was far greater than he had previously
suspected. He said the Iranian Ambassador had told him Iran
played "an important role" in bringing about Sadr's JAM
freeze order, but Qassim opined that JAM elements that do not
comply with the order are funded and armed by Iran.

Shia Street, Police Plan, Pressure the Kurds
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7. (C) Like many Shia politicians we meet with, Qassim
exhibited an imperfect understanding of MNF-I efforts to
encourage local citizens in Anbar to battle al-Qaeda, and we
clarified for him - as we have done with others - that MNF-I
is not arming Sunni militias in Anbar. Nonplused, Qassim
warned that it is "very dangerous" to allow Sunnis to form
militias, particularly Sunnis of unknown loyalties and
motivations, and he expressed doubt that such fighters could
be integrated into Iraqi Security Forces. He warned that a

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common perception exists among the Shia masses that MNF-I is
creating Sunni militias while at the same time MNF-I is
hitting hard at JAM, the only Shia group that stepped in to
protect the Shia from rampaging Sunni bands after the 2006
Sammara mosque bombing. He said that this was unfortunate,
particularly as it builds undue sympathy for JAM at a
"historic moment" in which JAM prestige is extremely low
after the August Karbala mayhem and the assassination of two
southern governors. On the topic of police, Qassim said he
agrees with the conclusions of a Congressional report on the
Iraqi police by retired Gen. James Jones. He floated a plan
to recruit 1000 new future police leaders from among Iraq's
40,000 new and mostly unemployed college graduates, and then
ship them off to European - not Arab - capitals to train and
observe how paramilitary police forces function in a
democratic society. (We note that this plan seems to be
making the rounds, as VP Abdel Mehdi advisor Zuhair Hamadi
recently told us he is pushing for a similar approach).
Finally, both Qassim and Jaafari complained at length about
the uncooperative and allegedly unconstitutional approach of
the Kurds on the Hydrocarbons law, and both implored the USG
to pressure the Kurds to take a reasonable position on the
draft bill.
CROCKER