VZCZCXRO4029
OO RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK RUEHMOS
DE RUEHBC #0036/01 0771230
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 181230Z MAR 06
FM REO BASRAH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0274
INFO RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHBC/REO BASRAH 0292

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BASRAH 000036 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/18/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: SOUTHERN SHIA PERCEPTIONS OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT POLITICS 
 
REF: A) BASRAH 35, B) BASRAH 32 
 
BASRAH 00000036  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Ken Gross, REGIONAL COORDINATOR, REO BASRAH, 
DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  On March 15, the Basrah Regional Coordinator 
(RC) and Deputy Regional Coordinator (DRC) met with Dr. Wathib 
Salman Al Gamud, a senior political figure in the Da'awa party 
in Basrah and member of the Basrah Provincial Council (BPC). 
Dr. Wathib said that the Shia population in the south would 
never be able to accept a non-Shia Prime Minister and that moves 
to replace Ibrahim Jafari were viewed as a Sunni ploy to gain 
more control in the national government.  Dr. Wathib said having 
a Sunni Vice President or Sunni co-Deputy Prime Minister was a 
tolerable compromise, but that the southern Shia could not 
"swallow" having Saleh Mutlak in a high ranking position. The 
Shia in southern Iraq, he said, interpreted U.S. Ambassador 
Khalilzad's statement on "non-sectarianism" as an expression of 
bias toward Sunnis, and they believe that the Sunnis are 
attempting to manipulate the United States into supporting a 
greater role for Sunnis in the national government than their 
minority population merits.  End Summary. 
 
Shia Deserve to Rule 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) On March 15, the Basrah RC and DRC met with Dr. Wathib 
Salman Al Gamud.  Dr. Wathib explained that the Shia in southern 
Iraq realized that Shia make up more than 50 percent of the 
population of Iraq, and that because they were the majority, 
this gave them the right to have a Shia Prime Minister.  No 
matter what his weaknesses, Dr. Wathib said, Jafari was 
infinitely more acceptable as Prime Minister to the southern 
Shia than any possible non-Shia alternative. The RC stressed 
that the goal of the U.S. government was to establish a national 
unity government.  Dr. Wathib pointed out that public reaction 
to the nomination of Jafari as Prime Minister had not been 
strongly negative; if the public were strongly opposed to 
Jafari, they would have made their views known through 
demonstrations.  The absence of demonstrations against Jafari, 
he said, indicated that there was a high degree of tolerance for 
Jafari as Prime Minister.  Dr. Wathib sidestepped the issue of 
Jafari's negative press coverage. 
 
¶3.  (C) Representing 20-30 percent of the total population, Dr. 
Wathib said, Sunnis could not expect to take on leadership of 
the country.  Sunnis had a sense of entitlement developed over 
the past twenty years of over-representation in the national 
government and were trying to manipulate the outcome of the 
election to secure a greater role than their numbers merited. 
As an example of "Sunni manipulation," Dr. Wathib described how 
the borders of Anbar province had been drawn so that it 
represented 30 percent of Iraq's territory, even though its 
predominantly Sunni population made up only a tiny fraction of 
the nation.  This "gerrymandering," he said, showed the extent 
to which Sunnis were willing to manipulate facts to serve their 
interests. 
 
¶4.  (C) Dr. Wathib said that Shia in the south could accept 
Sunnis holding about 44 seats in the Parliament and about 3 or 4 
Ministries because it is proportionately fair.  He said that 
southern Shia accepted having a Sunni Vice President.  He 
described a power-sharing arrangement of two Deputy Prime 
Ministers, a Sunni and a Kurd, with a Shia as Prime Minister, as 
being the most acceptable solution to the current impasse on the 
position of Prime Minister.  This way, each of the three major 
groups in Iraq would be represented at the highest level.  Under 
no circumstance, he said, would southern Shia be able to 
"swallow" having Saleh Mutlak in a position of power.  Mutlak is 
viewed by southern Shia as a close supporter and collaborator 
with Saddam.  He named Ayad Allawi as a much more acceptable 
alternative. (Comment:  Dr. Wathib also mentioned that Allawi 
was one of his distant cousins.  This may be his personal bias. 
End Comment) 
 
What the Shia Want From Us 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C) Dr. Wathib said that Shia in the south want the United 
States to convince Sunnis to accept their minority position and 
not harbor unreasonable expectations for representation in the 
new government.  There is a misperception, he said, of how many 
Sunnis are actually left in the country.  Sunnis believe there 
are many more of them than there actually are, and this leads 
them to the conviction that they deserve more control of the 
government than they are democratically entitled to.  Before the 
Iran-Iraq war, he said, Sunnis made up 30-40 percent of Basrah 
province.  During the Iran-Iraq war and during the 1991 
uprising, however, many Sunnis left.  The last municipal 
 
BASRAH 00000036  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
election revealed that only about eight percent of the 
population was Sunni.  Dr. Wathib said that most of the Sunnis 
who left Basrah went to other countries, not other places in 
Iraq.  (Comment:  We find Dr. Wathib's estimation of the Sunni 
population in Basrah province at eight percent plausible.  The 
estimation of Sunnis at five to ten percent of the population 
has been reported to the REO by election officials and media 
polls.  Moreover, we believe that Sunnis continue to flee the 
area.  End Comment) 
 
¶6.  (C) U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad's February 20 remarks on 
"non-sectarianism" sparked a backlash of anti-Americanism among 
the southern Shia population because these remarks were 
interpreted as criticism of the Shia, and therefore as support 
for the Sunni, Dr. Wathib explained.  (Comment: Dr. Wathib was 
careful to explain that these were not his opinions, but that he 
could understand how the "Shia on the street" would see it this 
way.  End Comment.) By drawing attention to the deepening 
sectarian divide, this was seen as public criticism of how the 
Shia government handles its responsibilities, implying that 
Sunnis would be able to do a better job.  These remarks "gave a 
green light" to Sunnis to attack the Shia, both physically 
through terrorism and politically by aspiring to more and higher 
positions in the government. 
 
No Viable Solutions to Ending the British Boycott 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Dr. Wathib commented that the current suspension of 
cooperation with the British forces by the BPC arose because the 
British had unilaterally acted to raid houses and make arrests 
in Basrah without consulting the BPC.  This boycott would last, 
he said, until the British began consulting with the BPC on a 
regular basis and working in concert with them.  He suggested 
that if the British had a Basrah police escort with them when it 
conducted its arrests on January 23, there would have been no 
public sentiment backlash.  The presence of the Basrah police 
would have reassured the public that the raids were being 
conducted with local government approval. 
 
¶8.  (C) Dr. Wathib clarified remarks that he had made at a 
recent Reconstruction and Development Meeting in which he 
suggested that the BPC boycott include the United States because 
of Ambassador Khalilzad's February 20th remarks on 
non-sectarianism.  He said that what he had meant was that the 
BPC should have a universal policy toward all Coalition 
partners.  If they were going to boycott one partner, they 
should boycott them all.  He said that personally, he believed 
that the BPC decision to boycott the British was becoming more 
of a hindrance for the council than helping win support for 
their agenda.  Dr. Wathib stated that he believed that the 
Coalition Forces were in Iraq to help, not as occupiers. 
 
 
In Sync But Out of Touch 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (C) Comment:  Dr. Wathib's willingness to spend nearly two 
hours with REO personnel demonstrates that he is open to 
communication with Coalition partners and does not personally 
support the boycott.  His bi-cultural, bilingual background was 
invaluable in providing insight into how the southern Shia 
population interprets national politics and what their trigger 
points might be for even greater sectarian strife. 
 
¶10.  (C) Comment continued:  In sync with the Shia on the 
street, Dr. Wathib was a useful contact for gauging Shia public 
opinion, but less reliable on nearly all other matters.  His 
suggestion of having the British military conduct joint raids 
with the Basrah police was simply out-of-touch with reality.  He 
was unwilling to accept that militias had infiltrated the Basrah 
police and were implicated in attacks on the British military. 
While he was credible in his assessment that the Sunni 
population of Basrah had greatly diminished over the past twenty 
years, he also asserted that Sunnis were no longer leaving the 
region because they were trying to "increase their numbers" in 
Basrah and take more political control.   On the contrary, REO 
contacts report that Sunni emigration has increased in the past 
few months because of sectarian violence (reftel A).  Dr. 
Wathib's ineffectual suggestions and inaccurate assessments 
coincide with reports that the Da'awa party is losing political 
significance in Basrah (reftel B).  Its senior politicians may 
understand their electorate's concerns, but they are incapable 
of effective political leadership.  End Comment. 
 
¶11.  (C) BIONOTE:  Dr. Wathib is a neurophysiologist who was 
educated in the United Kingdom and in Sudan.  He left Iraq in 
1981 for the United Kingdom, where he taught in medical school 
for twenty-three years.  He holds dual citizenship with Great 
Britain, and his wife and children reside in Bristol.  An active 
humanitarian, he helped found an orphanage in Basrah that 
 
BASRAH 00000036  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
currently houses 70 children aged 2-16 and teaches skills 
courses for homeless teenagers. 
GROSS