Center for a New American Security

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced an end to the U.S. military mission in Iraq yesterday in Baghdad. As the U.S. military withdraws, U.S. State Department and other civilian officials that remain behind will need to stay cognizant of the water, energy and other resource challenges the country continues to face.

Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The U.S. military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq today. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, speaking in Baghdad, said that Iraq has shown remarkable progress in the past nine years. However, as with many countries transitioning to democracy, “Iraq will be tested in the days ahead — by terrorism, and by those who would seek to divide, by economic and social issues, by the demands of democracy itself,” Secretary Panetta said. Beyond the sectarian violence and a potentially aggressive Iran on its border, the Iraqi government will continue to face many of the perennial challenges it has been grappling with for the last nine years: reliable access to electricity, water and other basic services that the government is working to provide.

Despite U.S. and other government investments in Iraq since 2003, basic services are still largely unreliable. According to Al Jazeera, “Power cuts are routine, and millions of Iraqis lack regular access to clean water, proper hospitals, or basic infrastructure.” These challenges could hamstring Iraq’s economy, especially as the country looks to draw in foreign businesses to promote economic development. “Unemployment officially stands at around 16 per cent,” Al Jazeera reported. “Many Iraqis say the real number is nearly twice that high, especially among young Iraqis. The only reliable employer is the government, which provides jobs for nearly 40 per cent of the workforce.” Bloomberg reports that the government is trying to attract foreign business, including from U.S. hotel operators and developers. However, “A possible lack of fresh water, electricity and communications systems also can be obstacles to doing business in the country.”

As the U.S. military continues its drawdown of troops from Iraq – with the last of those troops to leave by December 31, 2011 – policymakers and analysts are likely to raise concerns over the country’s long-term stability and sustainability given the laundry list of challenges that continue to plague a fledgling and often times beleaguered central government.  The New York Times report this morning on China National Petroleum Corporation’s (CNPC) recent oil operations at Iraq’s Al-Ahdab oil field sheds light on some of those seams, including challenges stemming from access to food and water and other basic social services that are largely not provided evenly by the government in Baghdad:

The [CNPC] deal began drawing intense criticism from residents and officials in Wasit Province, where the [Al Ahdab] field is located, shortly after the contract was signed. Some people demanded that Wasit be granted a royalty of $1 a barrel to improve access to clean water, health services, schools, roads and other public needs in the province, which is among Iraq’s poorest. The Iraqi government rejected the demands.

As Iraq continues to grabble with these challenges, one cannot help but wonder how much ill-access to water, food, shelter and adequate electricity (to name just a few social needs) will continue to exacerbate existing grievances and drive a greater wedge between the Iraqi people and the government. I am reminded especially of the hurdles the country faces with acute water shortages. Last June, I wrote a piece for Tom Ricks’s Best Defense blog on this very issue. Here’s what I found:

Like many, my attention was fixed on the Middle East this weekend as I watched events in Egypt unfold, with demonstrations, it would seem, becoming more intense as the days pass. The United States closed its embassy in Egypt on Sunday and was making arrangements to evacuate American citizens. Meanwhile, many Egyptians are running out of food staples and are unable or afraid to go to the market as political and social unrest has paralyzed regular food shipments. But while I watched the events in Egypt, I was also drawn to this headline from a report published by Agence France Presse on Saturday that I worried would get buried, but has important implications for the Middle East, as well: “Iraq water shortages raising ethnic tensions.”

The nexus of water and security is an issue that I have followed closely for the last few years, with a particular interest in water and security in Iraq. In fact, in a guest post for Tom Ricks’s The Best Defense blog last June, I asked, concernedly, if water could undermine the American game plan there? And here in 2011, we are getting a clearer picture of just how important water is for long-term stability and security in Iraq.

“A worsening water shortage in Iraq is raising tensions in the multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, where Arab farmers accuse the Kurdistan region of ruining them by closing the valves to a dam in winter,” Marwan Ibrahim reported for Agence France Presse on Saturday. “‘We are harmed by the Kurds, and the officials responsible for Baghdad and Kirkuk will not lift a finger,’ said Sheikh Khaled al-Mafraji, a leader of the Arab Political Council that groups mainly Sunni tribal leaders.”

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and General James Mattis, Commander of U.S Central Command, were present for the change of command ceremony in Baghdad, marking the formal end of Operation Iraqi Freedom for U.S. forces after seven years of engagement. With the change of command, the Iraqi military assumed responsibility for Iraq’s security, leaving 50,000 U.S. troops in the country for the next year to conduct stability operations.  

Despite the end of combat operations, it’s important to remember that serious challenges remain in Iraq (see this CNAS experts’ commentary on the end of combat), including acute natural resource challenges. Consider this:

Serious infrastructure challenges abound in Iraq, including that one in four Iraqis do not have access to safe drinking water. Other resource issues such as reliable access to electricity continue to undermine long-term development and exacerbate existing social and political grievances. With an ongoing political stalemate that has left the government in limbo and unable or unwilling to address these issues, much of the work could fall on the shoulders of the thousands of contractors, civilian corps and embassy staff left in the country – and they need to be prepared.

Have a safe, long Labor Day weekend!

Photo: Courtesy of Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley and the U.S. Navy.

News this morning that a suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi Army recruiting center, killing 48 and wounding 129, comes weeks before the U.S. military prepares to drawdown troops from Iraq. By August 31, 2010, the U.S. military will shift from combat missions to training and security assistance, leaving 50,000 U.S. troops in the country – down from a high of 160,000 in 2007 during the military surge that helped improve stability in the Iraqi state. But as U.S. troops prepare to drawdown, I wonder what our long-term commitment will look like in Iraq.

With the U.S. military drawing down, our long-term commitment will undoubtedly rely heavily on our civilian assets. Tens of thousands of private contractors, a large civilian corps and embassy staff will play an increasing important role, perhaps helping the Iraqi government build capacity where it hasn’t otherwise been able to.  

In a guest post I wrote back in June for Tom Ricks’s Best Defense blog, I discussed some of the acute challenges that have been marginalized in the post-war years that could undermine long-term stability, principally around natural resources, such as water and agricultural productivity. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot of confidence that in the near term the Iraqi government will be able to adequately address these enduring challenges, like that one in four Iraqis don’t have access to fresh water; the Iraqi government has been in limbo since March when national elections failed to form a national government. Needless to say, the government still has much to do to strengthen its legitimacy – and the attack this morning suggests that near-term security challenges – direct threats to the state – could be where the Iraqi government’s attention is focused as it begins to completely take over responsibility for state security.

I went to an event last Wednesday morning at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) that included a panel with James Yeager, former advisor to Afghanistan Ministry of Mines, Graciana del Castillo, a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and Scott Worden, Senior Rule of Law Advisor at USIP, and was moderated by Raymond Gilpin, Associate Vice President for Sustainable Economies Centers of Innovation. Strange as it may seem, the event gave me a  feeling of déjà vu.  The event, “High-Value Resource Contracts, Conflict, and Peace in Afghanistan,” didn’t on its face have much in common with an event that I had attended last Monday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “China and the Persian Gulf.” Yet I was hearing an eerily similar refrain:  At the Wilson Center last Monday, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Afshin Molavi, declared that “China has won the Iraq war,” in the sense that its state-owned petroleum and oil companies have acquired lucrative contracts, and have virtually become one of the dominant players in Iraq. 

Then on Wednesday, Yeunger’s very first statement of the session raised the issue of dealing with bids on Afghan mining tenders from Chinese state-owned corporations.  He argued that the current situation, where Western-owned, private corporations must submit bids against Chinese state-owned companies like MCC (China Metallurgical Group Corporation), is inherently unequal because China’s corporations are aiming only to gain access to commodities, and therefore don’t have to be financially profitable; in fact they can even operate at a loss.  Furthermore, bids from these companies are often accompanied by a financial aid package from the government of China that can be hard to turn down, especially if you’re the government of one of the poorest countries in the world, such as in Afghanistan, where a 20-30 million dollar bribe may be more tempting.  Worden also pointed out that there have been (passive) accusations that China’s mineral companies are free-riding off of the security provided by the U.S. military.

Changes in the character of warfare are accelerating the growing reliance on contractors on the battlefield. . . Long-term nation-building efforts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan require an array of functions – from advising and training foreign security forces to constructing and maintaining power plants and waterworks – that the U.S. government is not manned to carry out on its own

This is a passage under the heading “The Changing Nature of Conflict,” in CNAS’s new report, Contracting in Conflicts: The Path to Reform.

Though discussion of Natural Security issues don’t figure prominently in the report, Richard Fontaine and Dr. John Nagl, the report’s authors, have teed up an array of topics to be explored deeper by persons such as myself. In addition to the abovementioned “power plants and water works,” Contracting in Conflict explains that contractors have found themselves filling the position of agricultural technician, energy infrastructure (re)constructionist, supply convoy security and a host of other necessary roles in the modern battlefield, both during and after the actual battle.

• Forbes covers the role of alternative energy in the U.S. military on its Business in the Beltway blog.
• Iraq has plans to fund its national reconstruction by boosting oil production from 2.1million barrels per day to 10-12 million, reports UPI.
• Longtime CNAS friend Andrew Bacevich weighs in on U.S. security priorities, identifying environmental issues such as the Gulf oil spill as a key concern, in today's Boston Globe.
• The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo calls for the removal of all U.N. forces, adding accusations that the U.N. wants to seize the country's mineral deposits, reports The National. 
• Check out Politico for some commentary on food issues and stability.

• The Telegraph features an article on threats made by a Pakistani terrorist organization against India over water rights.
• The European Union looks to pressure Africa and China over access to rare earth minerals, reports Earth Times.
• Cape Cod gets the go ahead for 130 offshore wind turbines, the first project of its kind in America, according to The Guardian.
• A recent article from IRIN reports that Iraq may need to import up to 80% of its wheat in 2010 due to low water levels in Mesopotamia.
• The European Union may secure a new natural gas source, as Turkey and Azerbaijan reach an agreement over an Azeri pipeline through Turkey to Europe, according to UPI.