Iraq military and security dilemma

First, I need to remind you, who is Ra’ad Al-Hamadani.

A retired Iraqi Repub­li­can Guard com­man­der from the for­mer army, employed by the Amer­i­can forces about a year ago to write a study about the future of the Iraqi forces.

The old report is pub­lished here a year ago, but this time I am not allowed to pub­lish his new study called “Iraq Mil­i­tary and Secu­rity Dilemma”.

The ele­ments of fail­ure of the cur­rent Iraqi army:

1– All the sides par­tic­i­pated in the polit­i­cal process couldn’t agree on one national goal, which means there is no one supreme national strategy.

2– There is no real under­stand­ing of the Iraqi national secu­rity, and the dif­fer­ences among the polit­i­cal sides to iden­tify and to name the inter­nal and exter­nal threats.

3– Lack of mil­i­tary and secu­rity capa­bil­i­ties to pro­vide the national inter­ests requirement.

4– The absence of the national val­ues and the stan­dards, which rep­re­sent an impor­tant com­po­nents of the Iraqi culture.

5– The con­tin­ues eth­nic, polit­i­cal, and sec­tar­ian threats face the Iraqi cit­i­zen, such as indis­crim­i­nate arrest, unem­ploy­ment and the weak­ness of the Iraqi juridi­cal system.

6– Sep­a­ratists agen­das adopted by some polit­i­cal blocs.

7– Lack of com­mon secu­rity coor­di­na­tion with neigh­bor­ing countries.

8– Lack of bal­ance and coor­di­na­tion between the the Iraqi and the Amer­i­can secu­rity plans, and absence of trust between the two sides.

Raad Al-Hamadani shows here, why Maliki’s deci­sion to allow the return of the for­mer Iraqi army mem­bers to their for­mer unites is unrealistic:

The biggest prob­lem fac­ing the secu­rity forces, which is regarded as a nucleus for the new army, is that its mil­i­tary units orga­nized on sec­tar­ian and eth­nic divi­sions unites.

Many Iraqi politi­cians are pes­simistic about the process of rebuild­ing the Iraqi army by rehire the ele­ments of the for­mer Iraqi army, for the fol­low­ing reasons:

- The pres­ence of the U.S. occu­pa­tion forces, who will observe the prepa­ra­tion, train­ing and equip­ping the army, which will make the Iraqi army as an agent for the U.S. Army’s mil­i­tary in the region.

- The struc­ture of the for­mer Iraqi army, is linked to the for­mer regime ide­ol­ogy, and thus, the impo­si­tion of a new mil­i­tary com­bat ide­ol­ogy would be very uncer­tain in its success.

- With the pres­ence of U.S. forces, it is dif­fi­cult to con­trol the neu­tral­ity of the new army, espe­cially since the Iraqi national sen­ti­ment will push many of the army ele­ments to sym­pa­thy with the armed resis­tance against the Amer­i­can forces.

Points, in which he shows how to solve the problem:

1– Amend the arti­cles in the con­sti­tu­tion, which gives the Prime Min­is­ter the Author­ity on the Iraq’s mil­i­tary forces, since the Prime Min­is­ter post in the Gov. is a mem­ber of a polit­i­cal party com­petes with other polit­i­cal parties.

2– Gen­eral ref­or­ma­tion of all mil­i­tary and secu­rity insti­tu­tions, to clear all these insti­tu­tions from the dom­i­na­tion of the polit­i­cal parties.

3– To put an accu­rate descrip­tions and func­tions of each mil­i­tary posts and ranks.

4– Review the cur­rent army vol­un­tary sys­tem, which is used by polit­i­cal pow­ers to infil­trate the national secu­rity system.

5– estab­lish a com­mon mil­i­tary and secu­rity ide­ol­ogy for the army.

6– Accu­rate analy­sis of the inter­nal and exter­nal threats and dan­ger sources.

7– To and more author­ity for the army’s cen­tral command.

8– To close the inter­nal secu­rity gaps, and more con­trol on the bor­ders with neigh­bor­ing countries.