MAFIA-STYLE NETWORKS STIFLE RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BASRAH 000101 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/30/2017 TAGS: EAID PGOV KCOR IZ SUBJECT: MAFIA-STYLE NETWORKS STIFLE RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS REF: BASRAH 94 BASRAH 00000101 001.2 OF 004 CLASSIFIED BY: Louis L. Bono, Director, Basrah Regional Embassy Office, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d),(e) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Basrah's infrastructure remains decrepit four and a half years after Coalition forces liberated the province. Mafia-style networks comprised of public officials and their associated political parties, militias, and corrupt contractors exploit weak governmental institutions and undermine Coalition reconstruction efforts. The Coalition faces a conundrum. Until Basrah's institutional capacity improves and these networks are broken up, reconstruction efforts will continue to be undermined and resources wasted. A strong, diversified, sustainable-employment-generating economy will not develop, however, without decent transportation, water, power, and telecommunications infrastructure to support it. And until such an economy develops, Basrah's jobless young males will continue to provide the militias fresh recruits. The ramifications reach beyond Basrah: the resulting instability in Iraq's economic heart will make national reconciliation more difficult to achieve. END SUMMARY -------------- TAKING STOCK OF BASRAH'S RECONSTRUCTION -------------- ¶2. (C) Prompted by local contacts' complaints about provincial reconstruction, Basrah Regional Embassy Office (REO) officials looked in depth at Coalition and Basrawi rebuilding efforts. REO officers interviewed representatives from: the Basrah Provincial Council (PC) and its Provincial Reconstruction Development Committee (PRDC); the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF); Basrah University; Basrah's business community; the Basrah PRT; the J-9 element of Multinational Division-South East (MND-SE); the Gulf Region South (GRS) element of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and international engineers, general contractors, and private security firms working on local reconstruction projects. ¶3. (C) REO Officers reached two main conclusions: -- Provincial government institutions dealing with reconstruction do not adequately coordinate their efforts and suffer from corruption, a lack of qualified personnel, and other capacity constraints; and, -- Mafia-style networks comprised of provincial government officials and their associated political parties, militias, and private businesses exploit these weak institutions and undermine reconstruction efforts by impeding contract execution. -------------- -------------- FROM VENICE TO POMPEII: BASRAH'S INFRASTRUCTURE IN 2003 -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) In the 1970s, Basrah, with its meandering canals and legendary nightlife, was known throughout the Gulf as the "Venice of the Middle East." Iraq's second city in terms of population (current estimates vary wildly around 2 million), Basrah had long been the country's economic and commercial center. The great majority of Iraqi oil exports passed through the province (and still do). Iraq's four largest ports, including the Port of Umm Qasr, lay along the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Its merchant families' import-export businesses reached throughout the region and beyond. It boasted some of Iraq's best agricultural land and its greatest concentration of renowned date palms. By early 2003, however, Basrah had endured decades of neglect under the Saddam Hussein regime and heavy fighting in the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf Wars. Further damage during the 2003 invasion and widespread looting left both Basrah City and the province devastated. ¶5. (C) One international engineer recounted what he saw upon arriving in Basrah in summer 2003: 1970s Soviet-built power substations sitting idle, ransacked, and serving as housing for internally displaced persons; copper telephone lines ripped from their fastenings; decayed and destroyed roads and bridges; bullet-pocked water mains spilling 60 percent of the system's throughput; inoperable water treatment facilities; raw sewage winding slowly through open canals; hospital waste and human body parts discharged into the Shatt al-Arab; the Shatt waterway BASRAH 00000101 002.2 OF 004 heavily silted and obstructed by scores of wrecks between Basrah city and Umm Qasr. The city and province, he thought then (and still believes),would require a complete overhaul of its essential services infrastructure. Basrawi contacts agreed with his account, remembering grim post-war conditions. They stressed that only Basrah's petroleum infrastructure--Saddam's golden-egg-laying goose--received capital investment, however inadequate, under his rule. -------------- SYSTEMIC WEAKNESSES PERSIST -------------- ¶6. (C) Notwithstanding substantial Coalition and Iraqi expenditures since 2003, Basrah's essential services infrastructure remains in an ill state. The universal response from Basrawis when advised of the sums spent on reconstruction is: "Where did the money go?" Basrawis enjoy power from the electricity grid on three-hour cycles throughout the day. Cellular and satellite systems provide the bulk of telecommunications services, e.g., telephony, television, and Internet, in the absence of high bandwidth fiber-optic and cable networks. Numerous discrete projects have upgraded isolated sections of Basrah's streets (often after Coalition kinetic operations),but overall the system of roads and bridges is frail. Water quality is poor: one international engineer estimated that Basrah's water system alone needs roughly USD 1 billion in further investment. Wrecks continue to obstruct the Shatt al-Arab and Umm Qasr port, Iraq's primary gateway to international markets. -------------- WEAK INSTITUTIONS IMPEDE RECONSTRUCTION -------------- ¶7. (C) In fall 2006, the Basrah PRT and GRS launched the Basrah Public Works Initiative (BPWI) to improve provincial reconstruction efforts by engaging more closely with, and helping to build the capacity of, relevant Basrawi governmental institutions. In summer 2007, upon the joint request of the Basrah PRT and GRS, the Department of Systems Engineering of the United States Military Academy at West Point came to Basrah to evaluate provincial governmental institutions dealing with reconstruction. The resulting study (the "West Point Study") provided additional background for this section. ¶8. (C) Three groups of provincial officials are involved in planning, coordinating and overseeing Basrah's reconstruction: (1) the PRDC of the Provincial Council; (2) the Reconstruction Unit of the Governor's Office; and (3),the provincial directors general (DGs) of the relevant national ministries' technical directorates (TDs),e.g., Municipalities and Public Works, Water, Transportation, Electricity, Communications, and Planning. ¶9. (C) The West Point Study and REO officers' interviews indicate that these three groups do not adequately plan, coordinate, or oversee Basrah's reconstruction. With Basrah PRT engagement, the PC has produced a Provincial Development Strategy, which is currently undergoing revision. But the document sets forth, only in the broadest terms, goals to be achieved, such as "Rehabilitating Basra Railways and its stations and cadres, and constructing new railways" and "Removing all the obstacles and submerged bodies . . . in Shat Al Arab, Shat Al Basra, and the Tigris." ¶10. (C) Roles and responsibilities are poorly defined among the various officials. Ideally the PC would establish broad priorities, allocate budgets to sectors, and then oversee Governor- and DG-led efforts to develop operational plans and execute them. In practice the PC continually tries to interject itself into executive decision-making, such as the prioritization of specific projects and the evaluation and selection of contractors. Indeed, one prominent civic leader advised that Governor Mohammed Wa'eli's (Fadhila) refusal to share the spoils with the Basrah Islamic List (BIL) parties led to the attempt to depose him. (NOTE: For their part, GRS and MND-SE J-9 officials reported standing firm to maintain the integrity of the bidding process on projects they manage in the face of intense pressure from PC members to grant them a greater role in the selection of contractors. END NOTE.) The TDs exercise little oversight over contractors working on projects within their ambits, and the national-level ministries exercise little oversight over the TDs. BASRAH 00000101 003.2 OF 004 ¶11. (C) In addition to poor coordination among them, each of the entities struggles from a dearth of institutional capacity. Levels of technical competence vary among their staffs, but years of political repression, war and, more recently, militia violence have driven many of Basrah's managers, technocrats, and engineers out of the country. (NOTE: Basrah University, the province's premier institution for educating new professionals, has likewise seen its professorial ranks thin. END NOTE.) The West Point Study and GRS officers observed that the Governor's Reconstruction Unit lacks a genuine "city engineer" to develop a master plan for reconstruction and to coordinate its implementation. According to Basrah PRT officers, the head of the Governor's Reconstruction Unit is an engineer seconded from the Southern Oil Company, not an experienced provincial or city planner. Regarding the TDs, the West Point Study noted, for example, that only 6 percent of the Water Directorate's workforce held a bachelor's degree, and 43 percent are illiterate. Information technology assets and know-how are weak throughout the provincial government, and baseline knowledge of Basrah's infrastructure is poor. Further, the lack of a technical workforce to maintain projects worth millions of dollars renders them useless within a year's time. ¶12. (C) According to international engineers and general contractors managing local reconstruction projects, poor TD oversight is due not only to the lack of qualified personnel. Corruption plays a role. Iraqi contractors complain that TD officials regularly demand money in exchange for permits the contractors need to begin work; one local contractor reportedly gave an Electricity TD official USD 20,000 so that he could start a job, albeit weeks late. (COMMENT: Such "costs of doing business" are probably factored into the bids local contractors submit for Coalition-funded projects. END COMMENT.) -------------- - MAFIA-STYLE NETWORKS EXPLOIT WEAK INSTITUTIONS -------------- - ¶13. (C) PC members protested stridently to REO officers that they wanted a greater role in the contracting process to ensure that known and dependable firms do the work. They insisted that out of town firms, for example, are subject to attack by local militias if they come to Basrah. Moreover, if militia violence and intimidation compels such unknowns to abandon a job or to subcontract it to another firm, the PC is left with no recourse for incomplete or shoddy work. ¶14. (C) But conversations with Basrawi businessmen, civic leaders, and local academics suggested a different story. They told us that many PC members and their political parties--such as BIL/Badr, Fadhila, INA, and the Office of the Martyr Sadr -- have associated militias and contractors whom they seek to reward with business. According to one contact, most, if not all, projects that emanate from the provincial government are awarded to a revolving set of "contractors," who subcontract the work. Political, familial and tribal relations often underlie these connections. ¶15. (C) On their telling, militia attacks on "unknown" contractors are in fact orchestrated attempts by complex mafia-style networks to extort firms into paying the network a cut or walking off the job so that a "known" firm can take its place. Other contacts reinforced this description of the networks and the system of extortion. One Basrawi engineer claimed knowledge of cases in which militias have contacted contractors on the same day they were awarded contracts and advised the winners that they can either pay the militias a percentage of the deal, refuse to take the job, or suffer the consequences. (NOTE: Coalition officials do not publicly announce contract winners, but instead notify them privately. Coalition officials do not identify successful bidders to their competitors. The day of notification, therefore, only Coalition officials and a select few provincial counterparts would know the winner's identity, and the former are unlikely to have tipped off local militias. END NOTE.) ¶16. (C) International engineers and general contractors managing projects report multiple instances of militia attacks on contractors forcing them to walk away from jobs out of fear. On the other hand, jobs worked by contractors with reputed links to political parties and their associated militias generally proceed without interference. Even when militias do not have a direct role in a project, they often receive credit for the work. For instance, Army Civil Affairs members described a BASRAH 00000101 004.4 OF 004 recent visit to a school they renovated in Safwan. The school was replete with posters of Moqtada al-Sadr. When they asked about the posters, they were told "he rebuilt the school." This was a common occurrence during MND-SE's operation Sinbad. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶17. (C) The BPWI is appropriately aimed at improving Basrah's institutional capacity, but until these mafia-style networks are broken up, Coalition reconstruction efforts will continue to be undermined and resources wasted. Further, there are no effective mechanisms in place to deter public corruption. Thus, injecting more funds into the current morass will inadvertently benefit the networks themselves. ¶18. (C) Though not a panacea, at a minimum the militias will need to be weakened before more effective reconstruction efforts can proceed. Weakening the militias could at least defang the networks and help insulate reconstruction projects from their violence and intimidation. Improved security could kick-start a virtuous cycle by enabling reconstruction and economic development that in turn reinforces the security gains. To perpetuate the cycle, however, alternative economic opportunities would need to materialize as the militias are weakened: they reportedly pay locals around USD 400 to plant and record the detonation of an IED; a Basrawi laborer might earn that in six weeks. But unless such a cycle begins, instability in Basrah will endure and make national reconciliation more difficult to achieve.BONO