Tag: Baghdad

U.S. occupation of Iraq

The following blog is 100% true. I did meet with Erik Prince in his Tyson’s Corner office and the U.S. Army’s killing of an old Iraqi man in Baghdad and the related events are 100% true. Unfortunately, my confrontation of Prince with his security teams damaging behavior in Iraq only occurred in my dreams last night.

In the late 2000s (probably 07 or 08) I met with Erik Prince in his Blackwater headquarters at Tyson’s Corner Virginia to discuss a prospective project in Jordan. At the end of our meeting I confronting him with the bad reputation of his Blackwater team in Bagdad (sadly this was only in my dream but the events are 100% true).

Following the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, Blackwater provided security in Bagdad to US Embassy staff and foreign contractors such as me. While reporting to the U.S. Treasury, I was paid by USAID and housed and protected as part of the BearingPoint team under the USAID contract. Because of Blackwater’s reputation for a high profile, roughshod approach to security (driving their armored cars wherever—including sidewalks and wrong way streets), BearingPoint had hired a British security firm.

Even when countries are “liberated” their citizens never like the invading army to hang around long. Iraq was no exception. And the U.S. has proved no better (to say the least) than other colonial powers at administering the lands they conquered. The following story from early 2004 of an illustrative incident in Bagdad was told to me by a US Embassy friend, Michael Cole, who was in the middle of it:

“On a residential street between the Green Zone and our destination in Kadhimiya – possibly Mansour, Karkh, or Hurriyah – I heard the young soldier in the gun turret above me yell extremely loudly at someone in the street. I often spent rides like this reading notes or emails I’d printed to prepare for meetings, glancing up frequently to become familiar with routes and landmarks in case I needed to return to the Green Zone alone. I saw the old man the soldier was yelling at as he walked directly into the road. The Humvee was going extremely fast, driving in formation with 2 or 3 others, swerving across the road in formation to prevent civilian vehicles from riding alongside us where they could block our route or gain a clear line of fire to assassinate me. The driver never could have stopped once the man walked into the road. Just as I saw him and realized why the soldier was yelling, I heard and felt each tire on the passenger side where I sat roll over him. I’ve never run over a deer, but I expect the sound is similar. The vehicle was too fast, loud, and heavy for me to hear a scream or bones break, but I heard a crowd behind us scream, and cars honk. I looked around for landmarks so I could file a report and return to the site someday to make amends. The man appeared to have left a small yellow house with a date palm beside a four-lane road.

“I remember the soldiers cussed loudly when we hit the man. Most had Southern accents and sunburned faces. They started the mornings clean except for their gloves, but ended every day covered in dust, with black outlines left by tinted blast goggles. We talked about the incident when we arrived in Kadhimiya and were safe in a walled parking lot. Most of the soldiers were as distressed as I was. We all knew the man was dead, and we believed it was too dangerous to stop and try to help.

“One of the soldiers, possibly a young lieutenant who was my liaison with the security details, explained that the local Forward Operating Base had a process to compensate families of civilians killed by Coalition Forces. He explained that Iraqi tradition permitted compensation in lieu of prosecution even among local persons, and that this was an accepted form of justice. My later study of Arab tribal culture led me to believe Baghdadis could follow the same practice. I submitted my own brief statement to a local colonel or lieutenant colonel, who knew the case and assured me the family was well-compensated for the man’s death. I remember doubting anyone could be satisfied by this, but I was pleased I was not the only person who had submitted a statement. The soldiers did so before me. I tried to estimate what the man’s life could be worth between a Shiite Baghdadi family and the US military, but the normal actuarial items never equaled what I imagined anyone could call justice. 

“I asked Iraqi colleagues what to do. They shared my grief. Some shared my anger. Others were dismissive – possibly because I described the man as poor. Most advised me not to go back because there was nothing I could do to help. One lady said I could help in a small way by visiting the family, and that was the advice I decided to accept. 

“My interpreter thought it was a terrible, dangerous idea to visit the old man’s family. He said they would kill me. However, he drove me to the site I described to him. He parked a block away, and I walked to the yellow house. One of the man’s relatives spoke English and translated for me. They knew why I was there, and they invited me to sit at a table in their front yard where they drank tea and watched the traffic pass. I told them I did not drive the humvee, but I was a passenger, and that I saw their grandfather, and that I was sorry. One man yelled at me in Arabic about his anger about the conditions in the city during the occupation, of which his relative’s death was just one event among many injustices. I listened, and I agreed. I asked for the man’s name, and they told me. Maybe I wrote it in a notebook that’s now in a box somewhere. I apologized again and held the hands of two men for a moment. The lady who translated told me the man was old, and his death was quick, and it was good of me to come. She said “the officer” had already visited, and her gesture suggested everything was resolved. I was glad they didn’t kill me, but I didn’t believe everything was resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. However, I thanked them for talking to me, and I walked back to my interpreter’s car. I walked up a block and he followed me until we were out of the family’s eyesight from their yard.

“That was that. It was another week in Baghdad, and I didn’t think much of it until I returned home that summer. Sometimes I remember that day when I see a thin, old Arab man, or a man in a grey dishdash, or a deer eyeing the road, or a sandbag beside the road, or plaid cotton with yellow in it, or olive-colored hands, or the shade of a palm over a blacktop, or smell hot tar or dust caked in sweat, which is to say, I think of it often and at unexpected moments. I’m no longer consumed by rage and sadness like I was in 2005, the year following my return home, which I barely remember. Now I remember it as an example of what happens in war, which should be avoided at almost all costs, and with an exhalation of sadness few who I’ve ever met might understand. We all have instances and threads of sadness woven through our memories and consciousnesses, and this is one of mine.”

You can read more of my own experiences there in “Iraq-An American Tragedy-My Travels to Baghdad”

More on constructive competition

In contrasting our treatment of others as competitors or enemies in my blog on “What to do About China”  I am reminded of the 120 days I spent in Baghdad as an advisor to the Central Bank of Iraq paid for by the USAID and supervised by the US Treasury. Our occupation of Iraq included staff from the US Treasury, USAID, Commerce Dept, State Department, and, of course, the Dept. of Defense. Competition by each of them to do a better job than the others would clearly be win-win making our overall occupation more successful. But too often one agency treated the others as enemies diminishing and undermining their efforts rather than supporting them. My biggest fear with my dual association with USAID and Treasury was that each would see me as on the other side, which would have undermined my effectiveness. Luckily the each saw me as on their own side.  “Iraq-An American Tragedy-My Travels to Baghdad”

My Travels to Baghdad

Iraq: An American Tragedy, My Travels to Baghdad

Warren Coats (2020)

Kindle and paperback versions available at: Iraq-American-Tragedy-My-Travels-Baghdad

From the corkscrew landing at Saddam International Airport (now the Baghdad International Airport) to adventures in the Green Zone and beyond, this recounting of my experiences helping the Central Bank of Iraq develop modern market tools of monetary policy exposes the disfunction of the U.S. lead Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in its attempt to govern and rebuild post Saddam Iraq, following one of America’s more foolish and damaging military adventures. The existence of weapons of mass destruction was a lie. American skill at imperial rule–from disbanding the Iraqi Army to De-Ba’athification of the Iraqi bureaucracy– was a myth. 

Regime changes usually don’t involve changes in the monetary system. However, the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government and the occupation of Iraq and the takeover of its government by the United States and a few allies in the name of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was accompanied by the replacement of the so-called Saddam dinar and modernization of Iraq’s monetary and financial system. The Iraq war was launched with “shock and awe” on March 20, 2003 and President George W Bush declared “mission accomplished” on May 1 a month and a half later. But when I retired from the International Monetary Fund and took up residence in Baghdad to advise the Central Bank of Iraq on developing Iraq’s financial markets and managing its new currency, the fighting was not over on many fronts. I lived in Baghdad the last two months of the CPA (May-June 2004) and made four two-week visits between then and December 2005

In this book, much of it written in diary form at the time, I share the challenges of advising the staff and management of the Central Bank of Iraq from my office in the central bank and of navigating the U.S. interagency rivalry from my office in Saddam’s Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone.  Security was always a challenge, producing many adventures. But the wisest advice I received was from a colleague in the CPA, who told me to “be careful who you talk to here (CPA headquarters in the Republican Palace), your worst enemies are in this building.” Over my 26 years in the International Monetary Fund and the technical assistance missions I lead to some 20 countries, many of them post conflict countries, I have never encountered the disfunction and resulting ineptitude of the U.S. led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Previous Books

One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina

by Warren Coats (2007)    Hard cover: One Currency for Bosnia

FSU: Building Market Economy Monetary Systems–My Travels in the Former Soviet Union

By Warren L Coats (2020)  Kindle and paperback versions available at: FSU-Building-Economy-Monetary-Systems

Afghanistan: Rebuilding the Central Bank after 9/11 — My Travels to Kabul

By Warren Coats (2020)  Kindle Edition:  “Afghanistan-Rebuilding the Central Bank after 9/11”

Zimbabwe: Challenges and Policy Options after Hyperinflation

by Warren L. Coats (Author), Geneviève Verdier (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition

Zimbabwe-Challenges and Policy Options after Hyperinflation-ebook

Money and Monetary Policy in Less Developed Countries: A Survey of Issues and Evidence

by Warren L. Coats (Author, Editor), Deena R. Khatkhate (Author, Editor)  Format: Kindle Edition

Money and Monetary Policy in LDCs-ebook

The Basis of American World Leadership

Since the end of World War II, the United States has played a disproportionately large role in guiding world affairs. It has unquestionably been the most powerful nation on earth. Its dominance reflects a number of factors including economic and military strength. But in addition to these, most countries have been happy, or at least willing, to accept American leadership because it was largely seen as guided by broad principles of fair play and the rule of law.  American leadership was the least of evils. The United States has benefited a great deal from this good will.

But as the old saying goes: power tends to corrupt, etc.  Being able often to bend other countries to our will (as long as others still saw us as driven by widely shared principles of fair play), the U.S. increasingly exploited this influence to encompass policies or actions others were not so happy to comply with.  To take a fairly recent example, the wisdom of President Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or the Iran Deal) to stop Iran’s development of its nuclear capabilities for at least ten years was not shared by the other parties to the agreement (the P5+1–the permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China, plus Germany–and the European Union).  All signers of the agreement except the United States continued to abide by it. But the U.S. dollar is the primary currency used for international payments and the U.S. threatened to punish (cut off from the use of the dollar and trade with the U.S.) any country that did not observe its unilateral trade sanctions on Iran. The non-U.S. signers attempted to set up alternative ways for paying for trade with Iran that did not use the dollar but found the reach of American threats hard to avoid. On January 5, 2020 Iran announced that it would stop complying with the agreement and resume its nuclear development program. It is not clear why Trump considers this better for American security than the (at least) ten-year suspension in the Iran Deal he tore up.  See: Economic-Sanction

President Trump has also used up a lot of “good will capital” with his Trade wars. He began by withdrawing the U.S. from the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States). The TPP further reduced tariff and non-tariff restrictions on trade, while expanding and modernizing coverage for the digital world. As, or perhaps more, importantly, the TPP provided a model and positive encouragement to China to adopt Western trading rules as a condition of joining the TPP in the future.  The remaining signatories went forward with a Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which went into effect a year ago with the U.S.

But Trump’s counterproductive trade strategies didn’t stop there by a long shot. In addition to economically harmful tariff protection of inefficient American industries (e.g. steel, washing machines, etc.), Trump has angered many of our friends in Europe, Japan and elsewhere by threatening tariffs in situations that do not seem to be justified by the World Trade Organization’s rules. In the process he is ignoring and weakening the WTO, which has played such an important role in the gradual trade liberalization that has dramatically lifted living standards around the world following WWII. He even tore up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and replaced with a new agreement that is not unambiguously better.  See: The-shriveling-of-US-influence

But once bullies taste their power, their appetites tend to grow. While elected with promises to end our forever wars and reduce our military commitments around the world, Trump has done neither.  This is not the occasion for exploring why (I don’t doubt Trump’s sincere desire to achieve both of those goals, but his ignorance of history seems to have made him vulnerable to flipflopping in the face of pressure from the neocons, such as Secretary of State Pompeo, he has surrounded himself with). Rather it is to review his rapid descent into a major bully, to the detriment of American influence and security.

On January 3, President Trump ordered the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force in retaliation for an attack a week earlier on an Iraqi air base in Kirkuk that killed a U.S. civilian contractor and injured four U.S. soldiers and two Iraqis.

The drone that launched two missiles that killed Gen. Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport also killed the Iraqi leader of the PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a close Soleimani associate, and eight other Iraqis.  According to the Pentagon, “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,”  According to Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Prime Minister of Iraq, Soleimani was on his way to see the PM in order to discuss moves being made to ease the confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

The White House stressed that Soleimani’s planned attack was “imminent” thus justifying it without having to first inform Congress. Bruce Ackerman argues that Trump’s failure to obtain Congressional authorization for the attack justifies a third article of impeachment.  See: Trump-war-against-Iran-impeachable-offense  Iraqi PM Mahdi claimed that the attack on Iraqi soil was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of the agreement between the U.S. and Iraq for stationing American forces in Iraq. Though Congress was not informed in advance, the Israeli government was told of the planned attack, according to some reports. In these circumstances, it is very difficult to know which reports are authentic and which are deliberate (or sometimes inadvertent) fake news.

In order to assess the likely impact of all this on our standing and support in the rest of the world, I like to evaluate American actions from how they might seem standing in someone else’s shoes. How would Americans react, for example, if our government had invited, say, French troops for training in the U.S., and the French Army blew up a Russian general on his way to meetings at the UN (or reverse the roles between the French and the Russians) without our permission?

But this note is not about whether this assassination was legal or good policy. For that see the following article from The Economist: Was-Americas-assassination-of-Qassem-Suleimani-justified?  It’s about the rise of American bullying in the world and its impact on our standing and ability to influence friends and enemies in ways that serve our national interest. What followed in the days after Soleimani’s assassination is mind boggling.

Keep in mind that following America’s invasion of Iraq that started on March 20, 2003, the U.S. and its coalition partners returned sovereignty to the Iraqi government at the end of June 2004. I was there as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority (I was the Senior Monetary Policy Advisor to the Central Bank of Iraq reporting to the U.S. Treasury). As we boarded helicopters to waiting planes at the Baghdad International Airport (of recent fame) many of us recalled images of the last American helicopter lifting off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon when the U.S. ended its participation in the Vietnam War. Over the next seven years American and coalition troops remained in Iraq under terms agreed to in a Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqi government.  Following the ups and downs of troop surges and draw downs American forces were kicked out after Blackwater security contractors killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square in 2010.

With the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) American troops were invited back under new, less formal terms. “Instead, the current military presence is based on an arrangement dating from 2014 that’s less formal and ultimately based on the consent of the Iraqi government, which asked the parliament on Sunday to pass urgent measures to usher out foreign troops…. ‘If the prime minister rescinds the invitation, the U.S. military must leave, unless it wants to maintain what would be an illegal occupation in a hostile environment,’” said Ramzy Mardini, an Iraq scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.  Getting-us-troops-out-of-iraq-might-not-be-that-hard-say-experts

And how did POTUS, the great negotiator, respond to the Iraqi Parliament’s vote: “President Donald Trump threatened to impose deep sanctions on Iraq if it moves to expel U.S. troops…. ‘We’ve spent a lot of money in Iraq,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington after spending the holidays at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. ‘We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. … We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.’” Trump-threatens-iraq-sanctions-expel-us-troops

However, the Pentagon promptly announced that it was repositioning its troops in preparation for withdrawing them. Reuters released a copy of a letter on US Department of Defense letterhead addressed to the Iraqi Defense Ministry by US Marine Corps Brigadier General William H. Seely III, the commanding general of Task Force Iraq, which read in relevant part: “In deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CITF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement…. We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”  reuters.com/article/

Within hours, the Pentagon stated that no decisions had been taken and that the letter had been sent by mistake. “U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday that a leaked letter from the U.S. military to Iraq that created impressions of an imminent U.S. withdrawal was a poorly worded draft document meant only to underscore an increased movement of forces.”  Iraq-security-pm  Or maybe they forgot to consult POTUS or maybe he changed his mind.  Are you confused yet? See: Amid-confusion-and-contradictions-Trump-white-house-stumbles-in-initial-public-response-to-Soleimanis-killing

In response to Iran’s threat to retaliate for killing General Soleimani “Trump tweeted on Saturday that the United States has targeted 52 sites for possible retaliation, including “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture.” The outcry over this clear war crime was immediate. “Secretary of Defense Mark Esper… put himself at odds with President Trump on Monday night by definitively telling reporters that the U.S. military will not target cultural sites inside Iran on his watch, even if hostilities continue to escalate in the wake of the U.S. drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani at the Baghdad airport last week. ‘We will follow the laws of armed conflict….’” See: Esper’s-split-with-trump-over-targeting-iranian-cultural-sites-is-a-nod-to-the-laws-of-armed-conflict  Trump quickly backed down. Perhaps discussing these decisions with his staff before twitting them would be a good idea.

These are but a few examples of a bully on the loose. “Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told NPR that he was scheduled to deliver an address when the U.N. Security Council meets Thursday [Jan 9] but that he was told the State Department had informed the U.N. that there was not enough time to process his request for a visa, which he said he first submitted 25 days ago.” Iran-foreign-minster-javad-zarif-denied-visa   Under the 1947 U.N. headquarters agreement, “the United States is generally required to allow access to the United Nations for foreign diplomats.”  Once again, we are violating our commitments. Iran is demanding that all future meetings of international bodies be held outside the US.  The IMF and World Bank are also headquartered in the U.S.

The American and coalition partners now in Iraq are there to support its fight against ISIS. This benefits us, our partners, and Iraq. The traditional tools of diplomacy (persuasion), rather than the threats of a bully, would ultimately be more effective.  The respectful consideration traditionally given to the views and positions of the United States in international bodies –such as global satellite spectrum allocation–global warming agreements–security agreements–or any other multilateral agreement in which we have an interest, is rapidly vanishing.  Assuming that the Trump administration can de-escalate the current tensions with Iran, something quite possible with sufficient diplomatic skill–see: The-soleimani-killing-could-draw-the-us-deeper-into-the-mideast-but-it-doesnt-have-to–our general loss of good will is the real cost of excessive bullying and it will hurt us considerably.

 

My country

Those of us who attend events at the Kennedy Center rather than Wrigley Field or other such palaces of sport are not used to starting off the evening singing the Star Spangled Banner. Thus it is always a bit of a surprise when an evening with an orchestra visiting from abroad starts off that way followed by its own national anthem. The other evening it was the Israel Philharmonic—The Star Spangled Banner followed by Hatikva. We rose a bit awkwardly to our feet. The fact that two nations joined in friendship to salute their national identities, ideals and aspirations added a great deal to the emotions of that moment. I was reminded once again of the great respect and pride I have for my country.

I say this not because my government or fellow citizens always do the right thing—far from it. But because we pretty much agree on what the right things are at the level of general principles and because we try to adhere to them as much as possible and return to them when we don’t. The United States was founded on great and honorable principles. We established institutions and developed attitudes—which include checks and balances on the exercise of power—that deserve our respect and defense. Thus I am encouraged that the abuses of government power following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, which reflected a frightened public’s desire for security, are beginning to be reversed. I am encouraged that our misuse of our military and political power to impose our views on others (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.), which we have never been very good at, seems to be on the wane.

Our freedom of speech and free press and our critical mind-set play important roles in the never-ending fight to keep leviathan at bay. The trauma of 9/11 brought out the best and worst in my country. The dangerous excesses of the NSA have received a lot of badly needed attention in recent months but now another area of government lying to us in the name of security is back in the spot light. If you take yourself back twelve years or so, and try to remember what you thought about torturing terrorists for information that might prevent another terrorist attack, you might remember that some argued that it was OK if it really saved lives. We all knew that torture violated our values (not to mention international treaty commitments), i.e. that it was wrong, but if it really saved lives….. It turns out that it didn’t and the government lied to us about the useful information it allegedly produced. It was wrong AND didn’t save any lives. Congressional oversight and our free press are to be thanked in this case for disclosing these government misconducts: “CIA misled on interrogation program”/2014/03/31/.

Were these bad things done by bad people? These latest disclosure were made the same day as General Motor’s failure to disclose a faulty auto part for ten years and the causes of the failures are similar (human nature in the face of weak incentives to behave properly). Most people I encounter (not just Americans of course) want to do good with their lives even when the result of their activities are sometimes not good. There are, of course, also bad (just plain mean) people in the world. Most of us have encountered one or two of them in school (bullies). In adult life they can easily be attracted to position that give outlets to their meanness (the police, prisons, military provide such opportunities). We are fortunate that as the result of hard efforts by many people, our police, military etc. are generally very professional and keep the bullies among them in check. There are exceptions, of course. The disgusting mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by a few Americans in Abu Ghraib prison was exposed just as I took up a two-month residency in Baghdad. I was embarrassed that my countrymen and women could have behaved so badly (and concerned with its possible impact on my safety). But my point here is that in the United States such things are almost always revealed and disclosed eventually and thus kept in check. This is why I can remain proud of my country. Though we never live up to our high ideas, we take them seriously and are always trying. Excesses usually get corrected until the next one comes along. It is an important and never-ending battle, but as long as we keep fighting it, I will remain proud of my country.