BAATHISTS IN NORTHWEST BAGHDAD: 500 PARTIES, WHY

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 000548


E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/03/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV IZ
SUBJECT: BAATHISTS IN NORTHWEST BAGHDAD: 500 PARTIES, WHY
NOT 501?

REF: A. BAGHDAD 4018

B. 08 BAGHDAD 1005

Classified By: Deputy Polcouns John G. Fox, reasons 1.4 b/d.

This is an ePRT Baghdad 5 Reporting Cable.


1. (C) SUMMARY. The Tarmiyah, Taji and Abu Ghraib "qadas"
(rural counties) of northwest Baghdad Province are home to
many former members of the Baath Party, Iraqi Army, and other
security institutions of the former regime. Most were
low-ranking members, but many remain unemployed and
suspicious of the political process. Despite national-level
efforts in 2008 and early 2009 to address some of their
grievances, their reactions reveal continued frustration and
a sense of exclusion. Several high-ranking Baathists living
in this area wish to re-enter politics and even reinstate the
Baath Party, but most low-ranking members tell us they simply
want the current reinstatement procedures for former officers
and civil servants to be implemented fairly. Apart from
this issue, they maintain support for the current democratic
system and the "nationalist" direction set by provincial
elections. END SUMMARY.

Elections Bring Out Views Regarding Former Baathists
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) In the run-up to and after provincial elections,
ePRT Baghdad 5 engaged with influential people across the
rural qadas of Tarmiyah, Taji, and Abu Ghraib in northwest
Baghdad Province to gauge the political effect of the
elections on this mainly Sunni area. The area was central to
Saddam,s military-industrial base and the wealthy Tigris
River corridor remains home to many former members of the
Baath Party, Iraqi Army, and other security institutions of
the former regime. During our engagements with these people,
as well as with Sunni sheikhs who were not necessarily Baath
Party members, the treatment of former regime employees
emerged as a top political concern, always tied to the need
for "real Iraqis" to push the "Iranians" out of government.
Sheikhs in our area expressed dismay at the scarcity of local
candidates winning seats (27 candidates from Tarmiyah, but
none elected),but all praised the elections as a step
forward as their votes gained seats for Saleh Mutlak,s Iraqi
National Project List and Ayad Allawi,s Iraqi National List,
and helped diminish the number of seats held by the Islamic
Supreme Council Iraq (ISCI) on the Baghdad Provincial Council
(Ref A). Their primary reason for supporting these lists was
almost always their "nationalist" credentials, but they
remained skeptical that such an incremental shift in
government might allow for the re-entry of local
bread-winners into government jobs without outside pressure.

Reinstatement: &Up to God or Maliki8
--------------


3. (C) Former members of the Iraqi Army, including the
Republican Guard, and intelligence services estimated that
there are 45-60 officers of brigadier general's rank or
higher on the West side of the Tigris River from Taji up
through Tarmiyah, and about 500 other officers. They said
they are currently receiving minimal pensions, ranging from
250,000 ID ($215) per month to 450,000 ID ($385) per month
for a staff Brigadier General (BG),under the post-2003
regulations for former officers. Many are Sons of Iraq (SoI)
leaders and take great pride in their achievement of
drastically reducing Al-Qaeda Iraq (AQI) attacks in an area
it controlled in 2006. While they say they did this to bring
security to their own communities, they feel that this work
has not been adequately recognized by the GoI. Many of those
we met were of low enough rank to be reinstated, but stated
Qwe met were of low enough rank to be reinstated, but stated
emphatically that the problem was not the laws and procedures
so much as the political bias of those who are implementing
them. For example, intelligence officers from Tarmiyah and
Abu Ghraib said that, with the establishment of the new
institutions in 2005, they had applied, along with thousands
of their colleagues, to be reinstated. They saw old
colleagues "from the South" re-hired through this process,
but were themselves rejected without explanation. True or
not, the widespread perception remains that sectarian bias in
the Ministry of Interior (MoI),in particular Director
General for Police Affairs Adnan Assidi, is the main obstacle
to getting their jobs back. A potential breakthrough
occurred when the most influential sheikh in Tarmiyah met
with Minister of Interior Bolani three months ago, but there
has been no progress on fulfilling promises that there would
be locally-hired Iraqi Police and Iraqi National Police
brigades for the area. Director of National Intelligence
Mohammed Abdullah Sherwani was also mentioned as an obstacle
(though he is Sunni Turkoman).


4. (C) While national numbers for the reinstatement of former
Iraqi Army under the GoI initiative begun in September 2008
are good, most of those whom we met in our area explained
that their attempts had been denied. One reported that a
current BG had told him candidly that he had two ways to be
reinstated: "God and Maliki." The older officers (Lt Col to
BG) said the law currently under review in the Parliament for
military pensions would adequately meet their demands with an
80% pension, but many of the younger officers wanted to go
back to work to strengthen what is, in their view, a weak and
unprofessional force. All the officers we met said they
would support the referendum on the Status of Forces
Agreement (SOFA) because it would protect Iraq from Iran and
strengthen the ISF, but their first priority was the
reinstatement of "nationalists" into government and support
for the "political reform" amendment passed by the Parliament
with the SOFA. While they were happy with provincial
election results, they did not feel that it gave them the
opportunity to openly pursue their main political objective
of getting their jobs back. Indeed, they feared that pushing
their issue too much would result in "false warrants" and
"secret evidence" produced by the Minister of State for
National Security, Sherwan al-Waeli, an organization that
they deemed illegal.

High Level Baathists More Politically Focused
--------------


5. (C) In separate meetings with three Baghdad Branch Level
Baathists in Tarmiyah, Taji, and Abu Ghraib, a more
calculated set of political views emerged. Sheikh Walid
Al-Ayesh from Tarmiyah said that he has vowed not to return
to politics and that most Baathists had done the same. He
blamed the fall of the Baath Party, which he joined in 1960,
on the takeover by a family both in Iraq and Syria. He said
that most Baathists support Saleh al-Mutlak now, but that he
himself will not publicly support political candidates. At
the opposite extreme is Amer Hardan al-Dulaymi from Abu
Ghraib and Walid,s fellow Baghdad Branch member, who seeks
absolute reversal of de-Baathification. He defended the old
regime and asked how democracy could be the basis for
reconciliation when certain politicians and views are
excluded. He recognized that this is not possible now, but
believed that the United States must have seen its mistake
with respect to putting the "Iranians" in power in Iraq and
would eventually reverse course and restore Iraq,s ruling
class. Somewhere in between Walid and Amer, Abid Irbahim
Sharif from Taji has avoided open politics, but is champing
at the bit to be cleared to run for office. Like Amer, he
sees no irony in looking to the United States to re-instate
the "nationalists" rather than pursuing a more inclusive
Iraqi political system through Iraqis such as Mutlak, Allawi
and even a more flexible Maliki. As Abid said, "There are
500 parties in Iraq; why not make it 501?" As a sign of
Abid,s continued influence in the area, in a recent
reshuffling of the Northwest Taji Sheikh Support Council, he
alone received unanimous support from the sheikhs in the area
to serve on the council. Abid said that he would be arrested
if he even went to Baghdad by "Badr Corps."


6. (C) Influential Sunni Sheikhs in the area expressed
surprising emotion and willingness to share their views about
the importance of reinstating former Baathists and Iraqi
Army, even when they themselves were not high-ranking
Baathists. The love was not always returned, as Major
General Taha al-Mashadani (ret.),a former Baathist, put it,
"We are embarrassed that Sunni politics has become so tribal
-- that is not Iraq, we are more sophisticated than that."
In private he wore a suit and was happy to speak with us; in
QIn private he wore a suit and was happy to speak with us; in
public he went by "Sheikh," wore traditional dress, and was
careful not to speak with us. He expressed support for the
SOFA but, like others we met, strongly opposed the clause
stating the GoI request for U.S. assistance in the conduct of
operations against "remnants of the former regime." Like
Abid, this general predicted that, if the Baath Party were
allowed to run, it would win in the Taji area.

Comment
--------------


7. (C) In an area that has seen big security gains over the
last two years, national-level politics still hold the key to
whether suspended insurgent operations will lead to
reconciliation. Among the many former Baathists and Army and
Security officers in the area, the Maliki initiative to go
after Shia militias, reinstate some officers, and speak more
nationalistically with respect to the constitution and the
security agreement, has given them hope. But the former
Baathists we talked to say that it had not given them jobs,
nor has it engendered among them real trust in the
government. The vast majority of former Iraqi Army officers
we met did not speak of ideology, but their frustration with
the GoI makes them sympathetic to the Baathist claim that
they are the real "nationalists." If local jobs, especially
back in the military, become more plentiful as a result of
provincial and national elections, the top-level Baathists in
this area may lose their ability to play the "nationalism"
card in building support for their reinstatement. In the
interim, former Baathists and officers of all ranks here seek
U.S. reassurance that a military drawdown will not leave them
at the mercy of what is still, in their eyes, a Shia/Iranian
government.


BUTENIS