The Insurgency After Saddam Hussein

The insurgency faced by Coalition forces in Iraq, particularly the persistent resistance in the so-called “Sunni Triangle” from Baghdad to the north and west, is not the only challenge faced by the occupation forces but certainly is the most deadly. The Estimate had been preparing a Dossier on the subject when, on December 13, Coalition forces captured Saddam Hussein near Tikrit. Will the apprehension of the Iraqi leader weaken the insurgency which had widely been attributed to his diehard followers, or has the nature of the resistance already metastasized into something different from a movement to restore the Ba‘ath? No one is entirely sure of the answer, of course, but there is some evidence to support elements of both conclusions.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his initial statement after Saddam’s capture, explicitly appealed to the Sunni population of Iraq, assuring them that they have a role to play in a future democratic Iraq. That certainly reflects the widespread view that the alienation of the Sunni Arab population (the largely Sunni Kurdish population are of course another matter) from the occupation forces. The abolition of the Iraqi Army and the “De-Ba‘athification” measures stripped many in the Sunni Arab community of their incomes, while the assertiveness of the long-disenfranchised majority Shi‘ite community and the assertiveness of the Kurds have left Arab Sunnis with a sense that they will have little role to play in a democratic (or even just communally representative) Iraq. Having long dominated the regime, resistance seemed the one way of maintaining power.

Few believe that Saddam Hussein was directly running the resistance, though he may have been providing the financial resources. Whether his longtime deputy ‘Izzat Ibrahim is really the man running the day-to-day resistance, as has been asserted, is not universally agreed upon. In either event the capture of Saddam is a major setback for the insurgents, since one of the sources of their support has certainly been the impression among some in the so-called Triangle that the occupation forces are transient and the ancien regime may someday return. Since the arrest of Saddam, that must seem a considerably more remote possibility.

This Dossier looks at the insurgency to date and the possibilities after Saddam.

Iraq’s population, as most people know by now, is majority Shi‘ite, and among the 40-45% of the population who are Sunni, Kurds may outnumber Arabs. The Sunni Arab population is therefore probably the third largest community, but since the Kurdish population is divided among itself, the Sunni Arabs (often just called “Sunnis” in media shorthand) have often displayed a cohesion not seen among the other communities. They have also tended to dominate not only since the Ba‘athist coup of 1968, but also under the monarchy, which was itself Sunni Arab, as were many of its strongest supporters.

Unfortunately for those who suggest that Iraq might someday be partitioned among its communities — something rarely heard from non-Kurdish Iraqis, but often from foreign analysts — the Sunni and Shi‘ite Arab populations are not geographically as separated as some seem to believe. It is true that the Shi‘ites clearly dominate in the south, though most major cities have Sunni quarters; similarly the Sunni Arabs dominate in the so-called Triangle, but some of the cities, such as Samarra, have Shi‘ite quarters, while Baghdad, by far the most populous area of the country, is so intermixed that partition would be impossible.

The Sunni Arab population benefited for years from the dominance of the Ba‘ath, though under Saddam not all Sunnis benefited equally: his own tribal and regional allies were favored. But those tribes and regions were so favored that those living there became used to the largesse flowing their way from government patronage, and loyal tribes and townsmen had plenty of that patronage to dispense.

With the occupation, the patronage not only dried up, but many Sunni Arabs felt that they were deliberately cut off from future job opportunities: senior Ba‘athists were barred from office, including some who may have joined the party purely to have a job; the Army was abolished, and military salaries also dried up.

The abolition of the Army followed, of course, the disappearance of many Army units as a whole, especially the Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, and irregular forces such as “Saddam’s Fedayeen” meant that many people with at least some degree of military training, and their weaponry, melted away into the background of the “Sunni Triangle”.

Two or three other elements worked towards creating the infrastructure for the future insurgency. There is some anecdotal evidence that a guerrilla response, rather than a fight to the death in Baghdad, had been Saddam Hussein’s intention all along: a fall back into the Sunni heartland which was his natural redoubt, and where his support was greatest. By this argument, the dissolution of the Army and the disappearance of its weapons was part of a previously articulated plan, one not necessarily known to the regular Army units but involving at least some of the praetorian and elite units.

Added to this was the fact that, because of the inability to operate from Turkish territory, the US was forced to occupy Iraq from the south northward (with some airborne insertions into the Kurdish region to protect it, but with little ability to operate offensively from Kurdistan). That unforeseen development meant that the last area of the country to be occupied was, ironically, the stronghold where Saddam’s support was greatest. Because Samarra and Tikrit and most of the other towns of the upper Tigris essentially fell without major combat because Baghdad had already fallen. Therefore there were few formal surrenders of regular forces, and the elite forces had simply vanished, with their weapons.

A third element which favored the insurgency was the initial emphasis of the Coalition forces on two priorities: finding weapons of mass destruction and protecting the oilfields and refineries. While the Coalition forces were seeking WMD, they often left conventional arsenals in place, and during the period of looting which broke out soon after the fall of Baghdad, many of these arsenals appear to have been looted. In other areas, the military had simply dissolved, taking their weapons with them. The ready availability of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), mortars, mines, and the makings of jury-rigged explosives (now dubbed improvised exposive devices or IEDs) is easily understood when one realizes how many military units simply melted away and how many ammunition storage facilities and other weapons caches were looted (or systematically moved) before Coalition forces could take charge of them.

Who Are the Insurgents?
So the makings of the insurgency were there from the first days after the fall of Baghdad: a dissident region where the population, many of whom had been in the military or in the elite paramilitary forces protecting Saddam, felt themselves shut out by the new rulers of the country, but already possessed considerably weaponry and, possibly, plans prepared ahead of time for just such a battle.

At this point analysis of the insurgency becomes somewhat problematical for several reasons. Clearly, those opposed to the US presence and willing to fight against it include a variety of persons from multiple backgrounds. Any discussion of the effect of Saddam’s capture must be qualified according to which group is being discussed. Among those who certainly seem to make up some of the attackers are:

• Ex-Army and Security Forces. During the twin attacks in Samarra a few weeks ago (See Defense Briefs in the issue for November 28, 2003), some of the attackers were reportedly in the black “ninja” uniforms adopted by the “Saddam’s Fedayeen” militia once headed by ‘Udayy). Certainly the disappearance of the major praetorian formations such as the Special Republican Guard suggest that whole units may have converted themselves inot guerilla operatives. Many of those in the elite units are from towns and tribes of the Sunni Triangle who were so closely linked to the old regime as to have little expectation of acceptance by a new one. The capture of Saddam may undermine their confidence, since his apparent passivity in surrender belies the calls he has made by tape for resistance to the death. Besides the ex-Army and elite units, the old guard of the various intelligence and security services also have little hope of fitting well into a post-Saddam Iraq and are likely a source of fighters.
• Young Iraqi Recruits. Certainly the security elements of the old regime have also recruited young Iraqis from the same sort of background as Saddam’s old guard: Sunnis from the towns along the Tigris, and the tribes aligned with Saddam in the past. Many are o doubt motivated by genuine nationalist opposition to occupation, but others perhaps by a desire for glory, or loot, or a growing Sunni fear of Shi‘ite domination in a democratic system.
• Sunni Islamists. Although Islamists despised the secularist Saddam, they also tend to demonize the United States and to fear domination by the Shi‘ites; these groups will be little affected by the capture of Saddam.
• International Jihadis. Whatever links may have existed between Al-Qa‘ida and Iraq before the war (still a subject of some debate), international Islamist jihadis have certainly appeared there now. Various fighters of non-Iraqi nationality have been reported, ranging from other Arabs (Syrians, North Africans, Saudis etc.) to Chechens and the like. These groups have managed to find their way into Iraq through various borders (Syria and Iran most of all, but also no doubt through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and perhaps Turkey). Efforts to seal the border may reduce this danger but they are certainly a part of the challenge.
• Criminals. Certainly there is a criminal element afoot, some amnestied when Saddam emptied the jails, but they seem mostly to be concentrating on looting, bank robbery, etc. rather than on attacking Coalition forces.

It should be noted perhaps that the jihadis may well be supplying at least some of the manpower for suicide bombings. The old Ba‘athists were not known for suicide.

It is not clear how these groups may be cooperating with each other, or whether there are separate and quite distinct movements. Several names which have issued claims for car bombings or attacks seek to imply a religious element (the Jaysh Muhammad or Army of Muhammad being one that has claimed several attacks), but these names can be deceiving: many are false flags, and sometimes multiple names are used to give the impression of a greater number of organizations in the field than may actually be present.

Certainly there are radical Shi‘ite groups which have in some cases carried out attacks as well, but these do not seem to be cooperating with the Sunni groups.

One should, however, keep in mind that any insurgent group will definitely want to keep its exact identity a secret. The use of multiple names to claim operatons has already been mentioned. Quite a few interviews have already been published in which various insurgents meet with Western journalists and generally say that they have no connection with the old regime, that they wanted to be rid of Saddam, but also that they have extensive support. All these claims should be taken with caution.

When Saddam was captured, it soon was revealed that documents found with him allowed the US to round up a number of key insurgents in nearby towns and in Baghdad. That suggests that these particular insurgent groups, at least, were sufficiently close to the old regime to be in close touch with Saddam and those traveling with him. The deposed regime was certainly a major source of funding for the insurgents, whether secularist or Islamist, and the $750,000 found with Saddam and another $2 million said to have been captured during the search for Saddam would seem to indicate that whatever the ideological content of individual insurgent fighters, Saddam and others of the old regime were footing the bills, or at least some of them.

Organization
Most reports so far have suggested that the various insurgent groups, whatever their ability to cooperate or coordinate, are in fact organized in a classic cell structure, so that most members know no other members’ names other than those in their immediate cell, limiting the number of persons who can be rounded up if one member is captured. This is usually an ideal organization for a guerrilla or insurgent group, but it may actually have some negative aspects for the insurgents in the present case.

In a classic cell structure, the local cell does not know of the identities of other cells, reporting only to a higher level of authority, often at a distance. Local Vietcong cadres in Vietnam might report to a local commander who in turn owed allegiance to a more distant provincial commander and so on, but the real organizing and coordinating officials were either well hidden in remote areas or over the border in Laos or Cambodia. Thus there was no likelihood that counterinsurgent forces would take down the network beginning at the top.

But in Iraq, where the insurgents’s coordinators as well as their attack units are presumably all somewhere in the Sunni Triangle or in the greater Baghdad area, it may become possible to dismantle the networks by capturing the leadership first, leaving the cells perhaps without contact people with whom to coordinate. If indeed the US has used the intelligence captured with Saddam to disrupt key leaders of the insurgency, that may provide an important breakthrough. Some guerrilla insurgencies collapse when a key leader or leaders is killed, captured, or surrenders. (Some obvious examples would be the Philippines insurrection against the United States at the turn of the last century, or the Sendero Luminoso in Peru.) Not much has yet been made known about the leadership figures who have been rounded up.

Prior to the capture of Saddam the US had indicated that it thought Saddam’s old deputy for northern Iraq, ‘Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, was coordinating the insurgency. An old revolutionary and plotter, but no soldier despite his rank of Lieutenant General and title of Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces, not everyone seems convinced that ‘Izzat Ibrahim (Profile, this issue) is really so influential. If he is, then his capture would of course go far towards weakening the insurgency.

Even if the capture of Saddam allows the US to identify key figures in the ex-regime-based insurgency, the other insurgents, the foreigners and local Islamists and perhaps some of the new recruits, could well fight on. And classic counterinsurgency doctrine talks about “winning the hearts and minds” of the people lest, to use the other most-overquoted phrase of counterinsurgency, the guerrillas can swim like Mao’s fish “in the sea of the people”. In the Sunni Triangle, the US has won few hearts and minds; in fact, the use of tanks and barricades and barbed wire fortifications has been compared by many to Israel’s tactics in the occupied territories, and that is not a comparison that wins hearts and minds in the Arab world. (Nor has it worked very well for Israel.)

If the military coordination shown recently by the insurgents in Samarra and elsewhere can be disrupted by the capture of Saddam and perhaps the rooting out of some key organizers elsewhere, the US might be in a position to try to convince the Sunni community more persuasively that, even though they will have to come to terms with the fact that they are a minority, that they too have a stake in a more pluralist Iraq.

That will not be easy to do: when the oppressed are suddenly on top, as the Shi‘ites are perceived to be in Iraq by their former Sunni masters, resistance is the first temptation. Persuading a social group which once dominated that its day is past and that it should cooperate in a new system. One may compare the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, in order to resist the black Reconstruction governments in the post-Civil War American South. One hopes that the Sunnis will not take as long as ex-Confederates did to come to terms with the new era.

But in fact, the Middle East has often seen old guards who would not conform to a new era and had to be destroyed. The Ottomans destroyed the Janissaries and Muhammad ‘Ali of Egypt the Mamluks when neither power could modernize them. Even if some ex-Ba‘athists choose that route, one would hope that Sunni Arab Iraqis as a whole are given some reason to believe that there is a better way.

Home

Current Issue

About Us

Back Issues

Resources

Subscribe