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121. CIAO Iraq Special Section: The Year in Review

Author:
Sean Costigan, Adam Mausner, and Siheun Song
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
One year into the occupation of Iraq the United States and its Coalition partners remain in discussions over the country's fate. The deliberations have generally focused on the involvement of the United Nations, the schedule for handing over sovereignty to a democratic Iraqi government, and ultimately what the Iraqi government should resemble. The terms of the debate have regularly been sidelined by unforeseen events, including the recent rebellion in Fallujah, Shiite opposition in the south, grandstanding by local politicians, demagoguery, defection of Iraqi police and security forces and the wavering of Coalition partners, to name but a few. While progress is clearly being made in some areas, there are numerous signs that Iraq may not be ready for the June 30 transition of power. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, has suggested that by June 30 Iraqi security forces simply will not be up to the task of defending against insurgents. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is more optimistic and remains committed to the June 30 deadline.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Arabia, and United Nations

122. Challenges of Security Sector Governance in Kuwait

Author:
Ghanim Al-Najjar
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
The security apparatus in Kuwait is divided into three main institutions, namely the Army, the Police, and the National Guard. The division of labour amongst the three institutions is clear. While the army is re sponsible for external defence duties (since offensive war is prohibited by the Constitution), the police are responsible for internal security, and the National Guard is responsible for providing emergency and supporting duties. According to the Constitution, the army is headed by the Amir (the Head of State) being the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, while in reality the army is headed by the Minister of De fence who is currently Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Alsabah, and operationally headed by the Chief-of-Staff Fahad Alamir. Although the military side of the army is run on a daily basis by the military staff, the Ministry of Defence that is basically civilian in its composition has a major impact on any work and decision-making that affects army affairs. The police on the other hand are completely administered through the Ministry of the Interior; the current Minister of the Interior is Sheikh Nawwaf Alahmad Alsabah. The currently Under-Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior is Nasser Alothman and he is assisted by seven Assistant Under-Secretary's for administering the daily operations of the police. Six out of the seven Under-Secretaries are police officers. Almost 90% of the top management of the Ministry of the Interior is made up of police officers, and this situation differs greatly from the state of affairs that is to be found in the Ministry of Defence. The National Guard is an independent institution of the Armed Forces, which reports directly to the Supreme Council of Defence, which is headed by a senior sheikh (currently Sheikh Salim Alali Alsabah and his deputy Sheikh Mishal Alahmad Alsabah).
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, and Governance
Political Geography:
Middle East and Kuwait

123. Democratic Decision-Making and Deployments:The Case of the Netherland's Peacekeepers in Srebenica and Iraq

Author:
René Moelker
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
The question posed in this paper is whether the lessons learned from Srebrenica and the experiences of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) have led to a cultural change in civil-military relations. To demonstrate evidence of cultural change the decision-making process during this period was studied. The decision-making process at the time of UNPROFOR is exemplary of a clash between military and civilian cultures. After a parliamentary inquiry into Srebrenica, decision-making procedures regarding deployments were improved by use of a set of criteria called the 'Toetsingskader'. Parliamentarians use these criteria to question the government about many important issues regarding deployment. The criteria were adequately applied to the deployment in Ethiopia and Eritrea, however, Ethiopia and Eritrea was a 'classical' first generation peacekeeping situation, which perhaps made it easier to apply the criteria for decisionmaking. The criteria in the 'Toetsingskader' were put to a more severe test in the decision-making process regarding participation in the Stabilisation Force Iraq (SFIR) in 2003. On the one hand, the 'Toetsingskader' proved to be a useful tool for parliamentary control, being able to bridge the gap between military and civilian political culture. On the other hand, the risk of teleological reasoning remains. The criteria can easily be used to justify participation by rationalising goals of the deployment and/or ignoring critical questions.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Netherlands

124. Iraq Reconstruction Update #5: Retaking Fallujah

Author:
Michael Donovan
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
The insurgency in Iraq has grown in size and effectiveness in the months since a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country. By the summer of 2004, Pentagon officials were revising their initial estimates of the size of the insurgency by a factor of four. Baghdad and Mosul remained open cities to insurgents, and coalition casualty figures were rising steadily. Even as coalition authorities and the Iraqi interim government began to consider preparations for elections to be held in 2005, 20-30 towns in northeastern Iraq remained outside of coalition control. In an effort to pacify these predominantly Sunni areas, coalition officials devised a plan to retake key towns, and, it was hoped, strike at the heart of the insurgency. As a centerpiece to this plan, on Nov. 8, 2004, U.S. Marine and Army units, complemented by some Iraqi troops, embarked on Operation Phantom Fury, the retaking of the town of Fallujah.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arab Countries

125. After Victory Toward a New Military Posture in the Persian Gulf

Author:
Christopher Preble
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Donald Rumsfeld's announcement that U.S. troops will be removed from Saudi Arabia represents a significant and welcome change in U.S. policy toward the Persian Gulf. This wise decision to shift U.S. forces out of the kingdom should be only the first of several steps to substantially reduce the American military presence in the region. In addition to the removal of troops from Saudi Arabia, U.S. forces should be withdrawn from other Gulf states, including Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq, and the U.S. Navy should terminate its long-standing policy of deploying a carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf.
Topic:
Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia

126. A Grand Façade: How the Grand Jury Was Captured by Government

Author:
W. Thomas Dillard, Stephen R. Johnson, and Timothy Lynch
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The grand jury is perhaps the most mysterious institution in the American criminal justice system. While most people are generally familiar with the function of the police officer, the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, the judge, and the trial jury, few have any idea about what the grand jury is supposed to do and its day-to-day operation. That ignorance largely explains how some over-reaching prosecutors have been able to pervert the grand jury, whose original purpose was to check prosecutorial power, into an inquisitorial bulldozer that enhances the power of government and now runs roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens.
Topic:
Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Middle East

127. Armament and Disarmament in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Author:
Zdzislaw Lachowski, Björn Hagelin, Sam Perlo-Freeman, Petter Stålenheim, Dmitri Trofimov, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
The international attention paid to the nations of the South Caucasus region and Central Asia—a group of post-Soviet states beyond Europe's conventional frontiers but included in the Conference on/Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE)—has been fitful at best over the past decade. During the last years of the 20th and at the start of the 21st century, after the conflicts in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh became (at least partly) 'frozen', security concerns about the regions tended to decline and to become overshadowed both by 'oil diplomacy' and by concern about developments within Russia itself, in Chechnya and Dagestan. In 2002–2003 a constellation of changes in the outside world has started to reverse this pattern. Chechnya is no longer a regular topic of high-level political debate between Russia and the West, and President Vladimir Putin has played the anti-terrorist card with some success to secure his freedom to deal with it as an internal security matter. The factors prompting greater international attention to Russia's south-western and southern neighbours, by contrast, have the potential to undermine—perhaps for good—any Russian pretension to decisive influence or an exclusive droit de regard in these regions. At the time of writing, however, this latest shift could again be called in question by a new diversion of focus to the 'greater Middle East' following hostilities in Iraq.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Russia, Iraq, Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, Middle East, Chechnya, and Georgia

128. Considering the Options: U.S. Policy toward Iran's Nuclear Program

Author:
Rose Gottemoeller, Ray Takeyh, Danielle Pletka, Patrick Clawson, Michael Eisenstadt, Dennis Ross, Geoffrey Kemp, Henry Sokolski, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Ladan Boroumand, and Thomas McInerney
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
I'm Patrick Clawson, the Deputy Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I would like to thank all of our guests for attending this event today. If I could just take a couple of minutes to explain what our intention is in organizing this event, and then we can plunge right in, after we go around the table and everyone introduces themselves.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

129. Intended Consequences of an Expanded U.S. Military Presence in the Muslim World

Author:
Paul G. Frost
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
The Schlesinger Working Group on Strategic Surprises in Spring 2003 took on the topic, "The Unintended Consequences of an Expanded U.S. Military Presence in the Muslim World", holding its first meeting March 18, literally on the eve of war against Iraq. Its second meeting was held May 27, after the war ended, and as the difficulties of post-war reconstruction were becoming clearer. Core members and area/subject experts met to examine benefits and drawbacks, as well as scenarios that could stem from an expanded American military presence in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa.
Topic:
Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, South Asia, Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

130. Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
This report analyzes an important aspect of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF): the interdiction of Iraqi ground units by coalition air forces. Based on air campaign statistics, observations from the field, and the experience of past air campaigns, the report assesses the likely impact (in terms of combatant casualties) of coalition air attacks on the Iraqi army in the field. Our approach is a comparative one that views the OIF air interdiction campaign in light of the experience of the 1991 Gulf War. Among the issues we explore is the contribution of coalition air power to the catastrophic collapse of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular army.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East