Iraq: Making Sense of the Insurgency, Understanding the Elections
by Pat Scharfe
The acclaim for the recent Iraqi election has been very widespread in the Western media. President Bush has repeatedly declared elections to be the solution to Iraq's ills, and there is great hope that he is at last correct. This hope has been what passes for intelligent debate over the last few weeks. This is partly natural, since in Bush's "democracy at gunpoint" strategy, we've seen a lot of gunpoint and not a lot of democracy thus far. Still, thorough thinkers on the left should go beyond the idea that the bad of war is not enough to justify the good of elections. The left's critique of the war has often been incoherent, and hardly anyone has attempted to seriously address the major questions. Why does the U.S. face an insurgency in Iraq? What are the legitimate grievances of the insurgency? There is a new question, too: what effect will the elections have on the insurgency and its causes? To answer these questions, it's best to begin with an overview of the insurgency, which usually gets lost in the violence and fog of war.
Flash back to Iraq in April 2004. The key flashpoint in the conflagration of that month was the American decision to shut down Muqtada Al-Sadr's newspaper, Al-Hawza, for "spreading lies." It was widely condemned by the Iraqi press (which is quite lively, even though we rarely hear about it). It also gave al-Sadr an opportunity to exploit the tyranny of the U.S. for his own advantages. His "Mahdi Army" escalated their demonstrations in parts of Sadr City in Baghdad and Najaf to the point where Sadr's followers had become the de facto police and government. On April 5, 2004, Paul Bremer, the chief American representative in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, declared al-Sadr an outlaw based on a long-secret warrant for his arrest.
At the same time, after four American security contractors were brutally murdered and dragged through the streets of Falluja, the U.S. occupying forces staged "Operation Vigilant Resolve" in early April 2004. More than 470 Iraqi civilians were killed, and at least 1200 were wounded.1 However, it was not enough. A truce was signed allowing a former Ba'ath general, Muhammad Latif, to control the city. It was an insurgent victory. The city was out of the reach of the American military and was able to adopt Islamic law as a basis for city government.
Both of these movements in that key month were able to tap into certain very common forms of discontent, such as the wretchedness of Iraq's public services. The mainstream media has reported extensively on the poor state of water and electricity in Iraq. Congress has allotted billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq, but it has taken a long time to get any of the money to be spent. In August 2004, at the height of another wave of violence from both sides, only $600 million had been spent of the $18.1 billion that had been appropriated in the fall of 2003.2 Public services are below pre-war standards. This is much worse than it sounds; Iraq between the two wars was subject to an economic embargo by every other nation on earth, a kind of total war during peacetime. Thus, even though sanctions are gone and Congress has given massive aid to the Coalition Provisional Authority and its "sovereign" Iraqi successors, Saddam Hussein was still a better public servant. Scandals regarding mismanagement and corruption on the part of Paul Bremer and others have multiplied.3
Other, deeper problems of administration go far beyond public services. De-Ba'athification was a key motivation for the Sunni insurgencies of Falluja, Ramadi, and elsewhere. De-Ba'athification is the Iraqi analogue of de-Nazification, where former Nazis throughout Germany were prosecuted or removed from office after the Second World War. The parallels between reconstruction in Germany then and Iraq now dominate American thinking, just as memories of the Second World War are powerful is shaping American policy all over the world. However, on closer inspection, America's social engineering in Iraq is much more radical than its policies in Germany, and de-Ba'athification has been more far-reaching. In Iraq, tens of thousands of skilled professionals who were members of the Ba'ath party were dismissed from government service.4 In particular, all engineers, teachers, and doctors who had been members were fired; this did not happen in Germany. The U.S. has since tried to backtrack. Perhaps the greatest mistake was the dissolution of the Iraqi military. Nearly 350,000 conscripted soldiers were left without work, and officers were barred from receiving pensions.5 Many of the guns from the old military are circulating throughout Iraq; paradoxically, oil is expensive in Iraq, but not guns. There is no defending Saddam's military, but Bremer's policies toward the military, the bureaucracy, and even hospitals alienated the guilty and innocent alike and gave a powerful impetus to the insurgency.
In place of many competent figures who had not fled Saddam, the victorious American forces placed Iraqi exiles close to the Bush administration in most positions of power. Emblematic of these men is Ahmed Chalabi, who became finance minister after the war, even though he is wanted for bank fraud in Jordan to this day. A protégé of Chalabi, Mithal al-Alusi, was in charge of de-Ba'athification in 2004, and al-Alusi was under the influence of his mentor's radical opposition to all who worked with the former regime.6 Chalabi later lost favor with the Americans when it was discovered that he had been providing intelligence to Iran all along. The American regime in Iraq has often consisted of exiles with no popular base, and American soldiers, bureaucrats, and contractors who do not even speak Arabic. The avenues of communication between the people and the America-backed authorities are thus weak or nonexistent. If an American soldier panics and wounds your innocent son, what recourse do you have? Most exiles who took office had no relationships to the communities they were to rule, and Americans have held the real power in any case. Thus, if one is disenchanted with the authorities, it's natural to look to the institutions of Iraq that were not constructed by the Americans: the remnants of the Ba'ath Party, family or "tribal" connections, and the clergy. It is in these circumstances that the uprisings in Najaf and Falluja took place.
Since April 2004, the picture has improved considerably for the American occupation. Significantly, Muqtada al-Sadr was convinced by Ayatollah Ali Sistani to renounce the revolutionary ambitions of his Mahdi Army, after a bloody confrontation in Najaf in August 2004; he later joined Sistani's electoral alliance. Falluja, on the other hand, is no longer a semi-independent region. The U.S. military re-took the city in November 2004. Pictures of an American soldier killing an apparently wounded soldier captured the world's attention, but, perhaps more revealingly, American leaders had ordered their troops to shoot any males, armed or unarmed, if they seemed threatening.7 Despite the capture of Falluja, the Sunni insurgency is still a powerful force. Violence is a constant threat.
Where do elections come into this picture? One should first remember that Bush tried to avoid elections for a constituent (constitutional) assembly altogether. The election that was held on January 31 will create an assembly that will write Iraq's constitution; however, the U.S. had planned to hold national elections only after a constitution was written. The constitution would have been written by members of appointed municipal and provincial councils.8 Paul Bremer even halted local elections in June 2003, since "rejectionists tend to win in these situations."9 Sistani's pressure on the Americans, including religious fatwas, was crucial in forcing elections.
The Americans were hoping to build an influential bloc of secular politicians around Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister. The powers of incumbency and its propaganda are immense, and Allawi has friends in all the American-backed institutions, such as the new bureaucracies and the courts. After all, American protégés had been able to hold onto power in postwar Germany. However, again, the comparison with Germany is not favorable. The American authorities in Germany had used politicians who had gained elected office in pre-Nazi Germany and pre-existing parties, whose politicians had usually not gone into exile. As usual, the Americans in Iraq tried instead to start from scratch. Secularism in Iraq had been associated with the Ba'ath, so Allawi has not been particularly successful, despite his power of incumbency. His parliamentary list of candidates won only 14% of the vote.
Iraq's new American-backed institutions are not trusted by Iraqis. In addition, there is no nostalgia for any sort of Ba'ath rule, Sunni Arabs aside. There is only one powerful institution left, then, for Shi'a Iraqis: the mosque. Ayatollah Sistani, as everyone recognizes, is the major political mover in Iraq, despite his decision not to become personally involved in government. The Najaf clergy ('ulema) were able to survive Saddam's totalitarian regime because of their religious status, and they were never forced to flee. Thus, the Iranian-born Sistani holds more weight than most Iraqi politicians. Still, it would be untrue to deny the role of the exiled parties altogether. Sistani's "United Iraqi Alliance" includes, among others, the Islamic Daawa Party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and allies of al-Sadr. The first two have benefited from Iranian support over the years and Sistani's support now, but they have better organizations than most other post-exile parties; SCIRI's Badr Organization is a 10,000-strong militia, trained by the Iranians.10 It comes as no surprise that the "Sistani List" gained 51% of the parliament in the election.
It looks like a coalition of the Kurdish parties and the "Sistani List" looks like it will dominate the parliament, but how much power will this new configuration have? The power of the new government will certainly be limited. The Americans radically overhauled Iraqi law, staffed the government with those open to American influence, and of course, the occupation continues. Shi'a power, for now, rests on the U.S. military. The "Transitional Administrative Law" of the Coalition Provisional Authority will remain the law of the land until a new constitution is ratified. Two further moves will guarantee American influence. First, the forgiveness of Iraqi debt is conditional upon the acceptance of the IMF "liberalization" plan.11 The IMF will secure the privatization and radical restructuring plans instituted by Bremer which have already caused so much unemployment.12 Second, Bremer installed "inspector-generals" in every Iraqi ministry with terms of five years to ensure "democratization."13 Still, despite these moves, it is difficult to see U.S. policy dominating Shi'a Iraqi governments in the long run. Ayatollah Sistani has completely outmaneuvered Washington electorally and decisively defeated its favored candidate, Iyad Allawi.
The U.S. has ruled by force and driven the Sunni Arabs into rebellion; in time, the Shi'a and the Kurds will have a chance to rule along sectarian and ethnic lines. Saddam ruled along ethnic lines, following the British colonial practice. He had so thoroughly co-opted Sunni society that the American invaders refused to put more than a few Sunnis in positions of real power. Because of this history, there is little chance that Sunni grievances will be addressed.
Sunni Arabs boycotted the recent election, so they are not represented in the parliament. On the eve of the elections, a Zogby poll found that 53% of Sunni Arabs thought that ongoing attacks were "a legitimate form of resistance."14 The U.S. and others will try to involve prominent Sunni Arab organizations in the writing of the constitution, but there is now little chance that it will be seen as legitimate. One of the most important Sunni groups is the Iraqi Islamic Party, an Iraqi form of the Muslim Brotherhood, which literally invented modern political Islam in Egypt in the early 20th century and remains a very popular underground party in Egypt. Another major player is the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Sunni clergy. It often represents the rebels in negotiations between the U.S. military and insurgents and is believed to be the most popular group in Sunni Arab regions of Iraq. The Bush administration is clearly hoping that the high turnout of the election will at least force a group like the Iraqi Islamic party, which has cooperated with the Americans before, to participate in future elections. But this will only happen if the election impressed the party's constituency, rank and file Sunnis. It is hard to see any alteration in the anger and dissatisfaction that Sunnis feel toward the new order in the near future. Unemployment remains high, public services are in disrepair, security is lacking and the community leaders that Sunnis Arabs respect are shut out of the process of trying to solve these problems, because of radical de-Ba'athification and misrule. The election does not change this situation; it legitimizes it. American troops will guarantee America's "vital interests": limited influence of Islam, relations with Iran that are not too friendly and promotion of the economic interests of the U.S.
If nothing else, the legacy of a century of modern sectarian rule will continue to divide a vibrant but deeply troubled country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 "Scale of Falluja Violence Emerges." BBC News: World Edition. 12 April 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3619661.stm
2 "Iraq Reconstruction Fiasco." New York Times. Editorial. 9 August 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/opinion/09mon1.html
3 "Iraq Authority 'mismanaged' $9bn." BBC News: World Edition. 31 January 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4224661.stm
4 Krane, Jim. "Bremer Softens Baath Party Ban." Associated Press. April 23, 2004.
5 Ibid.
6 Anderson, Jon Lee. "The United States' de-Baathification program fuelled the insurgency. Is it too late for Bush to change course?" The New Yorker. 15 November 2004.
7 Assault Still Exacting Heavy Toll on Mental Health of U.S. Marines." Agence France-Presse. 19 December 2004. Veteran's Today. http://www.veteranstoday.com/article194.html
8 Negus, Steve. "Iraq: Sistani Stands Firm on Elections." Middle East International: Online Edition. 3 December 2003. http://meionline.com/newsanalysis/170.shtml
9 Booth, William. "Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq." Washington Post. 28 June 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42905-2003Jun27?
10 Cole, Juan. "The Downside of Democracy." L. A. Times. 24 February 2005. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cole24feb24,0,7677211.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
11 Al-Ali, Zaid. "The IMF and the Future of Iraq." Middle East Report Online. 7 December 2005. Middle East Research and Information Project. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero120704.html
12 Klein, Naomi. "Baghdad Year Zero." Harper's Magazine. September 2004.
13 "U.S. Edicts Curb Power of Iraq's Leadership." Washington Post. 27 June 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8665-2004Jun26?
14 "Survey Finds Deep Divisions in Iraq." Zogby International. 28 January 2005. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=957
The acclaim for the recent Iraqi election has been very widespread in the Western media. President Bush has repeatedly declared elections to be the solution to Iraq's ills, and there is great hope that he is at last correct. This hope has been what passes for intelligent debate over the last few weeks. This is partly natural, since in Bush's "democracy at gunpoint" strategy, we've seen a lot of gunpoint and not a lot of democracy thus far. Still, thorough thinkers on the left should go beyond the idea that the bad of war is not enough to justify the good of elections. The left's critique of the war has often been incoherent, and hardly anyone has attempted to seriously address the major questions. Why does the U.S. face an insurgency in Iraq? What are the legitimate grievances of the insurgency? There is a new question, too: what effect will the elections have on the insurgency and its causes? To answer these questions, it's best to begin with an overview of the insurgency, which usually gets lost in the violence and fog of war.
Flash back to Iraq in April 2004. The key flashpoint in the conflagration of that month was the American decision to shut down Muqtada Al-Sadr's newspaper, Al-Hawza, for "spreading lies." It was widely condemned by the Iraqi press (which is quite lively, even though we rarely hear about it). It also gave al-Sadr an opportunity to exploit the tyranny of the U.S. for his own advantages. His "Mahdi Army" escalated their demonstrations in parts of Sadr City in Baghdad and Najaf to the point where Sadr's followers had become the de facto police and government. On April 5, 2004, Paul Bremer, the chief American representative in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, declared al-Sadr an outlaw based on a long-secret warrant for his arrest.
At the same time, after four American security contractors were brutally murdered and dragged through the streets of Falluja, the U.S. occupying forces staged "Operation Vigilant Resolve" in early April 2004. More than 470 Iraqi civilians were killed, and at least 1200 were wounded.1 However, it was not enough. A truce was signed allowing a former Ba'ath general, Muhammad Latif, to control the city. It was an insurgent victory. The city was out of the reach of the American military and was able to adopt Islamic law as a basis for city government.
Both of these movements in that key month were able to tap into certain very common forms of discontent, such as the wretchedness of Iraq's public services. The mainstream media has reported extensively on the poor state of water and electricity in Iraq. Congress has allotted billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq, but it has taken a long time to get any of the money to be spent. In August 2004, at the height of another wave of violence from both sides, only $600 million had been spent of the $18.1 billion that had been appropriated in the fall of 2003.2 Public services are below pre-war standards. This is much worse than it sounds; Iraq between the two wars was subject to an economic embargo by every other nation on earth, a kind of total war during peacetime. Thus, even though sanctions are gone and Congress has given massive aid to the Coalition Provisional Authority and its "sovereign" Iraqi successors, Saddam Hussein was still a better public servant. Scandals regarding mismanagement and corruption on the part of Paul Bremer and others have multiplied.3
Other, deeper problems of administration go far beyond public services. De-Ba'athification was a key motivation for the Sunni insurgencies of Falluja, Ramadi, and elsewhere. De-Ba'athification is the Iraqi analogue of de-Nazification, where former Nazis throughout Germany were prosecuted or removed from office after the Second World War. The parallels between reconstruction in Germany then and Iraq now dominate American thinking, just as memories of the Second World War are powerful is shaping American policy all over the world. However, on closer inspection, America's social engineering in Iraq is much more radical than its policies in Germany, and de-Ba'athification has been more far-reaching. In Iraq, tens of thousands of skilled professionals who were members of the Ba'ath party were dismissed from government service.4 In particular, all engineers, teachers, and doctors who had been members were fired; this did not happen in Germany. The U.S. has since tried to backtrack. Perhaps the greatest mistake was the dissolution of the Iraqi military. Nearly 350,000 conscripted soldiers were left without work, and officers were barred from receiving pensions.5 Many of the guns from the old military are circulating throughout Iraq; paradoxically, oil is expensive in Iraq, but not guns. There is no defending Saddam's military, but Bremer's policies toward the military, the bureaucracy, and even hospitals alienated the guilty and innocent alike and gave a powerful impetus to the insurgency.
In place of many competent figures who had not fled Saddam, the victorious American forces placed Iraqi exiles close to the Bush administration in most positions of power. Emblematic of these men is Ahmed Chalabi, who became finance minister after the war, even though he is wanted for bank fraud in Jordan to this day. A protégé of Chalabi, Mithal al-Alusi, was in charge of de-Ba'athification in 2004, and al-Alusi was under the influence of his mentor's radical opposition to all who worked with the former regime.6 Chalabi later lost favor with the Americans when it was discovered that he had been providing intelligence to Iran all along. The American regime in Iraq has often consisted of exiles with no popular base, and American soldiers, bureaucrats, and contractors who do not even speak Arabic. The avenues of communication between the people and the America-backed authorities are thus weak or nonexistent. If an American soldier panics and wounds your innocent son, what recourse do you have? Most exiles who took office had no relationships to the communities they were to rule, and Americans have held the real power in any case. Thus, if one is disenchanted with the authorities, it's natural to look to the institutions of Iraq that were not constructed by the Americans: the remnants of the Ba'ath Party, family or "tribal" connections, and the clergy. It is in these circumstances that the uprisings in Najaf and Falluja took place.
Since April 2004, the picture has improved considerably for the American occupation. Significantly, Muqtada al-Sadr was convinced by Ayatollah Ali Sistani to renounce the revolutionary ambitions of his Mahdi Army, after a bloody confrontation in Najaf in August 2004; he later joined Sistani's electoral alliance. Falluja, on the other hand, is no longer a semi-independent region. The U.S. military re-took the city in November 2004. Pictures of an American soldier killing an apparently wounded soldier captured the world's attention, but, perhaps more revealingly, American leaders had ordered their troops to shoot any males, armed or unarmed, if they seemed threatening.7 Despite the capture of Falluja, the Sunni insurgency is still a powerful force. Violence is a constant threat.
Where do elections come into this picture? One should first remember that Bush tried to avoid elections for a constituent (constitutional) assembly altogether. The election that was held on January 31 will create an assembly that will write Iraq's constitution; however, the U.S. had planned to hold national elections only after a constitution was written. The constitution would have been written by members of appointed municipal and provincial councils.8 Paul Bremer even halted local elections in June 2003, since "rejectionists tend to win in these situations."9 Sistani's pressure on the Americans, including religious fatwas, was crucial in forcing elections.
The Americans were hoping to build an influential bloc of secular politicians around Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister. The powers of incumbency and its propaganda are immense, and Allawi has friends in all the American-backed institutions, such as the new bureaucracies and the courts. After all, American protégés had been able to hold onto power in postwar Germany. However, again, the comparison with Germany is not favorable. The American authorities in Germany had used politicians who had gained elected office in pre-Nazi Germany and pre-existing parties, whose politicians had usually not gone into exile. As usual, the Americans in Iraq tried instead to start from scratch. Secularism in Iraq had been associated with the Ba'ath, so Allawi has not been particularly successful, despite his power of incumbency. His parliamentary list of candidates won only 14% of the vote.
Iraq's new American-backed institutions are not trusted by Iraqis. In addition, there is no nostalgia for any sort of Ba'ath rule, Sunni Arabs aside. There is only one powerful institution left, then, for Shi'a Iraqis: the mosque. Ayatollah Sistani, as everyone recognizes, is the major political mover in Iraq, despite his decision not to become personally involved in government. The Najaf clergy ('ulema) were able to survive Saddam's totalitarian regime because of their religious status, and they were never forced to flee. Thus, the Iranian-born Sistani holds more weight than most Iraqi politicians. Still, it would be untrue to deny the role of the exiled parties altogether. Sistani's "United Iraqi Alliance" includes, among others, the Islamic Daawa Party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and allies of al-Sadr. The first two have benefited from Iranian support over the years and Sistani's support now, but they have better organizations than most other post-exile parties; SCIRI's Badr Organization is a 10,000-strong militia, trained by the Iranians.10 It comes as no surprise that the "Sistani List" gained 51% of the parliament in the election.
It looks like a coalition of the Kurdish parties and the "Sistani List" looks like it will dominate the parliament, but how much power will this new configuration have? The power of the new government will certainly be limited. The Americans radically overhauled Iraqi law, staffed the government with those open to American influence, and of course, the occupation continues. Shi'a power, for now, rests on the U.S. military. The "Transitional Administrative Law" of the Coalition Provisional Authority will remain the law of the land until a new constitution is ratified. Two further moves will guarantee American influence. First, the forgiveness of Iraqi debt is conditional upon the acceptance of the IMF "liberalization" plan.11 The IMF will secure the privatization and radical restructuring plans instituted by Bremer which have already caused so much unemployment.12 Second, Bremer installed "inspector-generals" in every Iraqi ministry with terms of five years to ensure "democratization."13 Still, despite these moves, it is difficult to see U.S. policy dominating Shi'a Iraqi governments in the long run. Ayatollah Sistani has completely outmaneuvered Washington electorally and decisively defeated its favored candidate, Iyad Allawi.
The U.S. has ruled by force and driven the Sunni Arabs into rebellion; in time, the Shi'a and the Kurds will have a chance to rule along sectarian and ethnic lines. Saddam ruled along ethnic lines, following the British colonial practice. He had so thoroughly co-opted Sunni society that the American invaders refused to put more than a few Sunnis in positions of real power. Because of this history, there is little chance that Sunni grievances will be addressed.
Sunni Arabs boycotted the recent election, so they are not represented in the parliament. On the eve of the elections, a Zogby poll found that 53% of Sunni Arabs thought that ongoing attacks were "a legitimate form of resistance."14 The U.S. and others will try to involve prominent Sunni Arab organizations in the writing of the constitution, but there is now little chance that it will be seen as legitimate. One of the most important Sunni groups is the Iraqi Islamic Party, an Iraqi form of the Muslim Brotherhood, which literally invented modern political Islam in Egypt in the early 20th century and remains a very popular underground party in Egypt. Another major player is the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Sunni clergy. It often represents the rebels in negotiations between the U.S. military and insurgents and is believed to be the most popular group in Sunni Arab regions of Iraq. The Bush administration is clearly hoping that the high turnout of the election will at least force a group like the Iraqi Islamic party, which has cooperated with the Americans before, to participate in future elections. But this will only happen if the election impressed the party's constituency, rank and file Sunnis. It is hard to see any alteration in the anger and dissatisfaction that Sunnis feel toward the new order in the near future. Unemployment remains high, public services are in disrepair, security is lacking and the community leaders that Sunnis Arabs respect are shut out of the process of trying to solve these problems, because of radical de-Ba'athification and misrule. The election does not change this situation; it legitimizes it. American troops will guarantee America's "vital interests": limited influence of Islam, relations with Iran that are not too friendly and promotion of the economic interests of the U.S.
If nothing else, the legacy of a century of modern sectarian rule will continue to divide a vibrant but deeply troubled country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 "Scale of Falluja Violence Emerges." BBC News: World Edition. 12 April 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3619661.stm
2 "Iraq Reconstruction Fiasco." New York Times. Editorial. 9 August 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/opinion/09mon1.html
3 "Iraq Authority 'mismanaged' $9bn." BBC News: World Edition. 31 January 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4224661.stm
4 Krane, Jim. "Bremer Softens Baath Party Ban." Associated Press. April 23, 2004.
5 Ibid.
6 Anderson, Jon Lee. "The United States' de-Baathification program fuelled the insurgency. Is it too late for Bush to change course?" The New Yorker. 15 November 2004.
7 Assault Still Exacting Heavy Toll on Mental Health of U.S. Marines." Agence France-Presse. 19 December 2004. Veteran's Today. http://www.veteranstoday.com/article194.html
8 Negus, Steve. "Iraq: Sistani Stands Firm on Elections." Middle East International: Online Edition. 3 December 2003. http://meionline.com/newsanalysis/170.shtml
9 Booth, William. "Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq." Washington Post. 28 June 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42905-2003Jun27?
10 Cole, Juan. "The Downside of Democracy." L. A. Times. 24 February 2005. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cole24feb24,0,7677211.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
11 Al-Ali, Zaid. "The IMF and the Future of Iraq." Middle East Report Online. 7 December 2005. Middle East Research and Information Project. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero120704.html
12 Klein, Naomi. "Baghdad Year Zero." Harper's Magazine. September 2004.
13 "U.S. Edicts Curb Power of Iraq's Leadership." Washington Post. 27 June 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8665-2004Jun26?
14 "Survey Finds Deep Divisions in Iraq." Zogby International. 28 January 2005. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=957
posted by The Protest at 3/08/2005
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