TOP SHI'A LEADER DEMANDS DECENTRALIZATION, FRETS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 003107 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/25/2018 TAGS: PGOV PINR KISL IZ SUBJECT: TOP SHI'A LEADER DEMANDS DECENTRALIZATION, FRETS OVER MALIKI SCHEME Classified By: PolMinCouns Robert Ford for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Baghdad is not delivering, complained Ammar Al-Hakim, leader-in-waiting of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI),the country's largest Shi'a political grouping. The government's failure to deliver services and distribute resources points to the need for wholesale decentralization, he argued. Ammar also expressed wariness about the Prime Minister's initiative to establish tribal support councils - an effort seen by observers as a challenge to ISCI's political primacy in the south. Separately, a source told us Ammar's ailing father had met in Iran with hardline cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. End summary. ¶2. (C) Ammar al-Hakim, the 36-year-old acting leader of Iraq's largest Shi'a grouping, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI),received poloffs for a Ramadan evening visit on September 24. Ammar seems sure to succeed Al-Hakim's terminally ill father Abdul Aziz, who has been in Iran for treatment, as head of ISCI. -------------- GOI Not Serving the People -------------- ¶4. (C) The GOI was failing utterly to deliver services and distribute resources, especially in the provinces, Ammar lamented. From electricity and water to schools (three shifts of students daily in many schools in the Shia heartland) and unemployment, Ammar fretted that the problems were not diminishing. To the ISCI heartland provinces of southern Iraq, the GOI in Baghdad appears paralyzed. The government's Public Distribution System, which provides a basket of basic commodities to all Iraqis, is chronically short of essential items and badly needed infrastructure projects are announced but somehow never implemented. Apparently arbitrary decisions by distant officials, with little regard for the facts on the ground, often make citizens' difficult lives even harder. Ammar added that government officials in the Baghdad ministries have corrupt networks of trade and contracts and the Shia Islamist Coalition ministers on top seem unable to break them. -------------- Decentralize Now! -------------- ¶5. (C) In Ammar's view, these problems pointed to the need for a radical restructuring of Iraq's political system toward decentralization and provincial empowerment. There was no need, for example, for a massive Ministry of Education in Baghdad, Ammar suggested. The people in Karbala are much better placed to know how many students there were in Karbala this year, and in ten years, and how many schools and teachers would be needed to educate them. With the Ministry of Commerce's ration card system, Ammar said the Iraqi Government should halt the import of commodities and simply give Iraqi citizens cash vouchers. Iraqis could use their money to buy high-end imports or cheaper brands and the corrupt trade contracts would be eliminated. ¶6. (C) The role of the central government should be to manage sovereign affairs like defense and foreign policy, and ensure equitable distribution of resources among the provinces. Ammar opined that aside from defense, foreign affairs and economic planning, the other ministries in Baghdad could be ministries of state with only a couple dozen employees each. The provinces should have primacy in managing delivery of basic government services that affect their citizens' daily lives. The health ministry, for example, should not be funneling funds from Baghdad to hospitals in the provinces; that should be done, if at all, from provincial governments only. ¶7. (C) Comment: Ammar's calls for decentralization and deep suspicion of a concentration of power in Baghdad were very reminiscent of our discussions with Kurdish leaders. The distrust in Baghdad shared by the Sh'ia ISCI party and Iraq's Kurdish communities is a common denominator likely to sustain a political alliance that seems genuinely to be built around a shared history and vision of Iraq's future. End comment. -------------- Ammar Wary of Maliki's Support Councils -------------- ¶8. (C) Ammar volunteered that he was concerned about Prime Minister Maliki's Tribal Support Council initiative, in which government resources are channeled directly to tribes whose shaykhs in turn become de facto providers of government services, also playing (most controversially) a security role. Iraq does not need more militias at this stage, Ammar BAGHDAD 00003107 002 OF 002 complained. The constitutionality of Maliki's approach is also suspect, Ammar charged. A constitution should be treated as a sacred document, it cannot be ignored and violated at will, Ammar exclaimed. ¶9. (C) Comment: Particularly in Iraq's southern provinces, Maliki's tribal support project could be viewed as a patronage network that circumvents the local governments, mainly controlled by ISCI. To the extent the support councils encourage tribes to mount armed security patrols, this again could be seen as a direct challenge to the ISCI-affiliated Badr Corps-controlled police leaderships in cities like Najaf. End comment. -------------- A Childhood Deferred -------------- ¶10. (C) The heir to the Al-Hakim clerical dynasty, Ammar, now 36, recalled that he became acutely aware of the harsh realities of Iraqi politics at a young age. For several years in the late 1970s, he lived with his father and grandfather while they were confined under house arrest in Najaf. At the age of seven, he was charged with distracting the guards watching their house as his family used rooftop messages written on trays and read with binoculars with the family of Shi'a cleric Muhammad Baqr Al-Sadr, themselves under house arrest nearby. By the age of nine, he was addressing hundreds of worshippers gathered for prayers in Syria. Most of his childhood was spent in exile in Syria and Iran. Ammar noted, almost with amusement, that as befits custom he had married at the age of 16, and he will soon become a grandfather at the age of 37. -------------- ISCI -Sadr Detente (?) -------------- ¶11. (C) Separately, Mustafa al-Kadhimi (strictly protect),a well-connected Embassy contact who facilitated our meeting with Ammar, told us that his friends at ISCI told him that Ammar's father Abdulaziz had met with hardline Shi'a cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, himself in Iran to pursue theological studies. (Comment: If subsequently confirmed, meetings between Al-Hakim and Al-Sadr could be significant and would support speculation that the two Shi'a factions, thought to be irreconcilable, might now be seeking to make common cause against PM Maliki's consolidation of power. End comment.) CROCKER