War on Iraq

On June 28, 2004, two days ahead of schedule, sovereignty was handed from the CPA to a provisional government headed by the former dissident Iyad Allawi. Under the agreement enshrined in United Nations Resolution 1546 passed earlier that month, the new Iraqi government was given control of oil revenues and the Iraqi police and military forces; it was not given operational control of the overseas troops that remained in the country. Symbolic of its new authority, Saddam Hussein and other prisoners of the former leadership were handed over to an Iraqi court—Hussein was subsequently put on trial and executed. In the face of continued violence, elections were held in January 2005. They were won by the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, who controlled 140 of the 275 seats in the new parliament. Ibrahim al-Jaafari finally assumed office as prime minister in April. Under the auspices of this government a draft constitution was approved in a referendum in October. Elections under this constitution were held in February 2006—Nouri Al-Maliki from the victorious Shiite coalition was eventually chosen as prime minister and he formed a government of national unity in May. Beginning in July responsibility for security in a number of the country’s provinces were gradually returned to the Iraqi government and their police and armed forces.

Despite the killing by coalition troops of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the self-proclaimed leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the creation of a government did not have the desired effect of dampening the insurgency. Continuing violence, especially in the “Sunni Triangle” area around Baghdad, and increasingly around the British-controlled area centred on Basra, led to calls for a timetable for withdrawal. These discussions were joined in October 2006 by the British general Sir Richard Dannatt, the newly appointed chief of the general staff, who feared the overstretching of the British Army and that the troops’ presence was, in fact, detrimental to the security situation. Furthermore, the report of the Iraq Study Group (established by the United States Institute for Peace, funded by the US Congress) led by former US Secretary of State James Baker noted in December that the situation in Iraq was “grave and deteriorating” and advocated a re-focusing of US forces so that they could be withdrawn “responsibly”.

In a heralded policy shift the US administration launched a “surge”, an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 further US troops deployed to Iraq, in addition to about 130,000 already in the country. The purpose of the surge was a belated attempt to impose order in the hope that a reduction in the number of killings between Iraq’s rival militias could sustain the government and its security forces until they were both on a sounder footing. However, the withdrawal from government in April 2007 of ministers loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr over the failure of Nouri al-Maliki’s government to set a date for the end of the occupation threatened further instability. In May, President Bush, using a veto for only the second time during his administration, rejected a Congressional attempt to link further funding for the war to a withdrawal date. In August the British forces remaining in Iraq withdrew from the centre of Basra to a base at the airport, officially handing over control of the province to Iraqi administrators that December. The withdrawal led to a reduction in attacks on British forces.

According to US general David Petraeus in a report to Congress in September, the “surge” and its accompanying tactics appeared to have had some success in quelling the violence and improving security in Baghdad, although there was little change to the political stalemate. Evidence suggested that attacks in December 2007 were reduced tenfold on the numbers one year earlier, although still high compared with the period immediately following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. By supporting local Sunni tribal leaders and imams in some of the most violent areas the surge, and a ceasefire by al-Sadr’s Shiite militias, had hugely reduced the effectiveness of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq against fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) did not appear to threaten the stability of the hitherto most peaceful area of the country.