"I was against the war, but now I'm against a precipitous withdrawal of American forces."

Joost Hiltermann

NPR Morning Edition, July 11, 2007

In the NPR interview at the cited link, Joost Hiltermann suggests that the most important benchmarks for progress in Iraq should involve the success of the Iraqi government in delivering essential services to Iraqis in order to gain their support.  Without popular support there will be no government.

Hiltermann is suggesting that our primary goal in Iraq should be the success of the Iraqi government, and that benchmarks of that success should be those markers that indicate such success. 

In previous years President Bush has generally been content to insist that our primary goals are to defeat terrorism and to promote democracy.  But as the war has gone on without apparent success, he has been called into account.

The following are the 18 benchmarks agreed to by the President and Congress for measuring progress in Iraq, as defined in the Iraq Supplemental Appropriations bill and reported on NPR, except that I have grouped them under arbitrary and somewhat debatable topical headings to enhance this discussion, and have highlighted parts for emphasis:

POLITICAL & LEGAL ISSUES

1. Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.

2. Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.

4. Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions.

5. Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections.

6. Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.

16. Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.

ECONOMIC MATTERS

3. Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.

17. Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.

SECURITY MATTERS

7. Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the Constitution of Iraq.

8. Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.

9. Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.

10. Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions, in consultation with U.S commanders, without political intervention, to include the authority to pursue all extremists, including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

11. Ensuring that the Iraqi Security Forces are providing even handed enforcement of the law.

12. Ensuring that, according to President Bush, Prime Minister Maliki said "the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation".

13. Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.

14. Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad.

15. Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently.

18. Ensuring that Iraq's political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the Iraqi Security Forces.

The most basic question about these benchmarks is what is their guiding principle?  Are they primarily a yardstick to justify our exit, or are they a means of ensuring that Iraqis have achieved a level of independence? 

Most of the benchmarks simply measure what the Iraqi government will do from a leadership perspective, not what it will accomplish from the Iraqi peoples' perspective.  They are activities to be performed, not results to be achieved.  #17 requires that they will spend $10 billion on reconstruction projects and essential services. But will they make the greatest possible impact on peoples' lives, or are they pork barrel projects?  There are no measurable objectives for improving the lives of Iraqi citizens.  It is simply assumed that if money is spent and a successful security plan is put into place, then everything else will fall into its proper place as well.  That's a faulty assumption.  It makes you think of the faulty assumptions that began with the invasion of Iraq in the first place, that if we just got rid of Saddam, then the Iraqis would welcome us and soon take over governing their own country.

President Bush has reported that some progress has been made on these benchmarks; but most commentators recognize that it is quite limited.

The following excerpts from the President's full report highlight the limited extent of the achievement of benchmark #17, the only one that directly addresses reconstruction and essential services.

True success lies not only in the percentage of the capital budget actually spent in 2007, but in the effects of spending, as the Iraqi Government seeks to establish its credibility with citizens though improved delivery of public services and tangible economic development. Moreover, adherence to and improved familiarity with the decentralized and accountable fiduciary structures introduced since the fall of Saddam will give Iraqi citizens added confidence in and a reason to support their local, regional, and national governments. The effects of this new emphasis and these new procedures are already being felt, albeit unevenly, across the country. Some ministries have developed and are implementing aggressive spending plans (such as the Ministry of Education), and several provinces (Anbar, in particular) are demonstrating their empowerment through their new spending programs. Should these successes spread across Iraq, this would mark the beginning of a new relationship between citizens and their government.

These changes have nearly tripled the ministries' rates of allocation when compared to last year at this time, though efforts must continue accelerating to make sufficient progress on this benchmark. Ministerial spending is moving ahead. The Ministry of  Finance has moved more than 21 percent of the overall ministerial capital budget to the individual ministries' capital investment accounts, which enables them to award contracts and request additional releases based on contract schedules. With respect to provinces, a majority of the 2006 budget funding was released late in December. Provinces continue to apply those funds to improving services and advancing local reconstruction priorities, while at the same time processing their 2007 budgets. Most provinces are making significant progress in capital spending, but those with security challenges are lagging. Importantly, provincial budget allocations were calculated based on population statistics, which supports the constitution's concerns with equality. [emphasis added]

Joost Hiltermann is the Middle East Project Director of the International Crisis Group.  In the interview that began this post, he suggests that little meaningful progress has been made on most of the U.S. benchmarks, and he highlights what he sees as more important emphases that seem to be missing from these benchmarks.  The interview focuses on what everyday Iraqi citizens would consider progress, that which makes a difference in the daily life of people.

What about electricity production?  Oil production?  Law enforcement?  Jobs?

We might well ask ourselves: should not achievement of prewar levels in each of these areas be benchmarks of adequate progress?  

Hiltermann says...

For Iraqi people these are critical and they were critical from day one... these issues have only been aggravated in the past three years, four years.  And so, if a government wants to show that it is capable of governing Iraq it would start providing these essential services to people and they might actually get some support.

If there is to be a successful government in Iraq, then it must gain the support of its people. To do that it must provide for the essential services of its citizens.  It does not make sense to ignore these matters.

Hiltermann adds...

I was against the war, but now I'm against a precipitous withdrawal of American forces.  This may sound contradictory; but I think it is utterly consistent with the fact that the arrival of American forces created a huge security vacuum, and you have to fill it lest the country and the region descend into chaos.

The stated U.S. benchmarks seem to assume that if security can be attained then peace will be attained; but that is a false assumption because the "security vacuum" is not resolved simply by defeating some "enemy" - it is filled by providing essential services that meet peoples' needs so they will stand together against threats to those services.

But religious and ethnic hostilities will continue since local group solidarity will be seen as the best source of security and will prevent a democratic government from developing if nothing more successful in meeting their needs is forthcoming.  As an NPR interview with a warrant officer recently returning from Iraq so vividly illustrates, the military so often are serving as a buffer between these groups and are helping to keep the peace that the Iraqis are not able to maintain for themselves.  Those in the military know they are needed; but their role is at the ground level because that is where they were placed.

Leaders have set up these situations and are accountable for the overall plans and strategies.  American leaders never have made Iraqi welfare their top priority.  Instead, they have made assumptions that have generally gone against the welfare of Iraqis.  From invading without enough support of the world community; to not sending in enough troops to secure Iraq's resources; to summarily dismissing Iraq's most well organized and well trained military leaders without capitalizing on what they could get out of them; and so on through the years.   

Now it looks like America's leaders are preparing for a major drawdown without much more than legal paperwork to show for all this effort.  Goals have become pipedreams and benchmarks seem mainly intended to help us mark time. The only thing we can be sure of is that the Middle East will be changing more rapidly in the future than it did in the past.