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OO RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK RUEHMOS
DE RUEHBC #0070/01 1271400
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 071400Z MAY 06
FM REO BASRAH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0331
INFO RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHBC/REO BASRAH 0350

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BASRAH 000070 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  5/7/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PINR ECON EAID ELAB KDEM KISL
SOCI, SMIG, IZ 
SUBJECT: SNAPSHOT OF DHI QAR: PROVINCE AT A CROSSROADS 
 
REF: A) BASRAH 55 B) BASRAH 149 
 
BASRAH 00000070  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Ken Gross, Regional Coordinator, REO Basrah, 
Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  The province of Dhi Qar is located about 200 
miles southeast of Baghdad and has an estimated population of 
1.85 million.  More politically moderate and secular than the 
other Shia-dominated southern provinces, the influence of Shia 
religious political parties has grown in past months.  An 
economically significant region, with rich agricultural land, 
marshes, and both an oil refinery and an important electric 
power plant, Dhi Qar enjoys considerable international donor 
investment for key infrastructure projects.  Until recently one 
of the more secure and stable provinces, Dhi Qar has seen a 
disturbing downward trend in both political infighting and 
worsening security since the February 22 attacks on the Golden 
Mosque of Samarra.  An estimated 700 Shia families fleeing 
sectarian violence have settled in Dhi Qar since the Samarra 
attack, straining public services.  Dhi Qar province is at a 
crossroads-- conditions will continue to deteriorate unless 
substantial efforts are made by the local and national 
governments, Iraqi security forces, and international 
organizations to get the province back on its previous track of 
political tolerance and economic growth.  End Summary. 
 
Overview 
-------- 
 
¶2.  (U) The province of Dhi Qar is located about 200 miles 
southeast of Baghdad and has an estimated population of 1.85 
million.  It is landlocked and has no international borders. 
Its capital, Nasiriyah, is located on the Euphrates River and 
has a population of about 600,000.  It is surrounded by the 
provinces of Basrah, Muthanna, Maysan, Wasit and Qadisiyah, 
although it is most closely affiliated politically and 
economically with Basrah and Maysan.  A significant portion of 
the province is marshland.  Principal industries are electricity 
generation, oil refining, tar production for road paving, and 
agriculture, including date palm farming.  A number of 
archaeological sites are located in Dhi Qar, including the 
ancient Sumerian ruins of Ur and Eridu. 
 
¶3.  (U) The population of Dhi Qar province is majority Shia; 
Sunnis are estimated to be less than ten percent of the 
population, and Christians and Sabeans make up an estimated two 
percent of the population.  The population of Dhi Qar province 
is increasing.  Not only have many Shia returned to the province 
from abroad following the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, but 
there has been rapid population growth in the province due to 
internal displacement since the February 22 Samarra mosque 
attacks, when Shia in the north began fleeing sectarian 
violence.  The annual median household income in Dhi Qar is 
2,156,080 Iraqi dinars, approximately $1487. (Note:  These 
figures are from UNDP and the 2004 Ministry of Planning Survey 
published May 2005. End Note.) 
 
Politics 
--------- 
 
¶4.  (C) The current local government is made up of eleven 
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) party 
members, eleven Fadhila members, ten Da'wa members, two Iraqi 
Communist Party (ICP) members, two 15th Shabaan Party members, 
two Iraqi National Accord (INA) members, two independents, and 
one Independent League for Democratic Custody member.  Although 
Dhi Qar is considered more politically moderate and secular than 
either Basrah or Maysan, its government is dominated 
nevertheless by Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC) - 555 List - 
parties. 
 
¶5.  (C) In the December 15 elections, the UIC - 555 List - won 
eleven of Dhi Qar's twelve seats in the National Assembly, with 
the remaining seat going to the INA - 731 List  - coalition. 
UIC expected to have a strong showing in Dhi Qar due to its 
large Shia population, but its overwhelming success was a 
surprise. 
 
¶6.  (C) The Iraqi Communist Party has maintained its national 
headquarters in Nasiriyah since 1938 and sustains an active 
political presence in Dhi Qar.  The ICP developed a reputation 
as an anti-Ba'athist party; its members are mostly educated Shia 
and Kurdish who were specifically targeted by Saddam's regime. 
In Dhi Qar province, the ICP draws its support mainly from the 
educated and secular Shia population.  Now, the ICP is 
considered to be one of the secular opposition parties to the 
UIC - 555 List - and does not actively promote a communist 
economic platform.  With religious Shia parties in control of 
 
BASRAH 00000070  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
Dhi Qar's local government, the ICP maintains its identity as a 
resistance and opposition party by pitting its secular values 
over religious government.  Ironically, this makes members of 
the Communist Party open and interested in maintaining contact 
with Western coalition forces, while at the same time drawing 
the ire of religious Shia parties that also developed, as did 
the ICP, in opposition to Saddam's regime. 
 
¶7.  (C) The Dhi Qar provincial council had a reputation of 
efficiency and political tolerance until the period following 
the February 22 Samarra mosque attack.  Since then, open 
hostility between Fadhila and SCIRI party members has broken 
out.  Members of these two political parties reportedly refuse 
to speak or work together in council meetings.  The trigger of 
the hostility between Fadhila and SCIRI allegedly was fighting 
over the use of a public building.  The building in question had 
been used by the Fadhila party for religious education; SCIRI 
party members took over the building during the Ashura religious 
holidays in March, when the classes were suspended and the 
building was empty.  The issue sparked heated discussions that 
devolved into council members' taking sides with Fadhila or 
SCIRI, not just on the issue of the building, but on all local 
government matters.  As a result, the Dhi Qar provincial council 
has not been able to deal effectively with governance issues and 
has not been able to take steps to counter the growing security 
concerns in the province. 
 
Economics 
--------- 
 
¶8.  (U) Reconstruction and development issues take precedence in 
Dhi Qar, along with the security issues related to protecting 
infrastructure and development projects.  Marshland restoration, 
in particular, is a topic of primary concern for many Dhi Qar 
residents, as a good portion of the province is made up of 
marshlands.  Tar (used in making road asphalt), oil, and 
electricity are main sources of income for Dhi Qar province. 
Agricultural products include livestock and marshland crops such 
as cane and papyrus.  USAID has spent over $680,000 in 
agricultural development programs in Dhi Qar, specifically 
aiming to rejuvenate the critical date palm industry in the 
area.  Dhi Qar province has an estimated unemployment rate of 27 
percent. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Over $413 million in Iraqi Reconstruction and Relief 
Funds (IRRF) were allocated for projects in Dhi Qar province. 
Among the most notable of these projects are: a $48.8 million 
state-of-the-art prison that will house 1,200 prisoners in 
conditions that meet human rights expectations; a $9 million 
maternity and children's hospital that will provide prenatal, 
natal, and pediatric care to Nasiriyah's population; and a $244 
million water treatment facility that will provide clean 
drinking water and carry away waste water for the 250,000 homes 
and businesses in Nasiriyah.  Dhi Qar has more school renovation 
projects than any other province in Iraq: 137 renovated schools 
at a cost of $7 million.  All of these projects are managed by 
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and are slated for completion 
by 2007. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) The largest power plant in the south is located in 
Nasiriyah.  The surrounding provinces of Basrah, Muthanna, and 
Maysan all receive a substantial amount of electricity from this 
power plant, a major contributer to the national grid.  Power 
shortages still occur in Dhi Qar due to the need for repairs and 
maintenance of the plant as well as high demand for power during 
the hot summer months.  Residents of Dhi Qar still enjoy, 
however, a slightly higher number of hours of electricity than 
most of the rest of Iraq. 
 
Security 
-------- 
 
¶11.  (C) Until recently, security in Dhi Qar province had not 
been a significant concern.  The October 15, 2005 constitutional 
referendum took place in an atmosphere of calm with no 
significant security incidents.  The December 15, 2005 
parliamentarian election saw slightly more activity.  ALthough 
intimidation campaigns in Basrah and Maysan provinces against 
the 731 Coalition occurred during the lead-up to the election 
(Ref A), Dhi Qar saw almost no intimidation of non-religious 
parties.  However, an Al Jazeera media report that made 
allegedly derogatory remarks against Ayatollah Sistani and the 
Shia faith sparked an attack on the ICP and the INA headquarters 
in Nasiriyah on December 14, 2005 (Ref A). 
 
¶12.  (C) The approximately 2,000 Italian troops located in Camp 
Mittica conduct security patrols and police training programs, 
in cooperation with other coalition partners, and have 
established excellent rapport with local government and 
community leaders in Dhi Qar.  There had been no significant 
 
BASRAH 00000070  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
attacks on coalition forces for over a year, until an April 27 
IED attack killed one Romanian and three Italian soldiers.  In 
the month prior to this attack, the security situation in Dhi 
Qar had degraded noticeably, with numerous IED finds and the 
detention of several private security teams by 
militia-infiltrated Iraqi police.  For the first time in several 
years, areas of Dhi Qar became "out of bounds," most notably the 
rough town of Suk As Shuyk, located 20 miles southeast of 
Nasiriyah, as well as city roads in Nasiriyah itself.  The 
problem of militias infiltrating the local police plagues Dhi 
Qar as it does all the other southernmost provinces (Ref B). 
Until recently, however, militias in Dhi Qar did not have a 
pattern of directing lethal attacks against multi-national 
forces. 
 
¶13.  (C) Security in the marshlands, with the difficulty of 
navigation and the lack of necessary equipment and boats to 
police the area, is also an issue of primary concern for Dhi 
Qar's security forces.  Dhi Qar province enjoys one of the 
largest amounts of reconstruction and development investments by 
international donors in the country, and securing reconstruction 
sites challenges both donor organizations and Iraqi security 
forces.  Threats to reconstruction sites in Dhi Qar range from 
personal security convoys en route to monitor sites being 
attacked with rocks to IEDs specifically designed to disable 
monitoring teams.  These threats hamper progress on 
reconstruction projects, and therefore on economic development, 
in the province. 
 
Shia Displacement to Dhi Qar 
---------------------------- 
 
¶14.  (C) Following the February 22 attack on the Golden Mosque 
of Samarra, Dhi Qar province became the destination of Shia 
families fleeing increased sectarian violence in Baghdad and 
surrounding areas.  Current Ministry of Displacement and 
Migration (MODM) figures estimate that between 400 and 700 
families have moved into Dhi Qar province, settling in Suk As 
Shuyk and Ashatra.  A camp has been set up for displaced 
families in Al Fajr, about 100 miles north of Nasiriyah near the 
provincial border with Wassit. (Note: These figures are from an 
April 15 Dhi Qar Humanitarian Sector Working Group meeting.  End 
Note.)  Many displaced families have moved in with relatives, 
occupied abandoned buildings, or are living in informal camps in 
rural areas.  Major necessities are food items, as families are 
not able to collect Public Distribution System (PDS) items 
outside their normal places of residence.  Displaced families 
are receiving assistance in the form of tents, food, electric 
generators and portable toilets from the Iraqi Red Crescent 
Society (ICRS), Shia religious parties, and the Italian forces 
at Camp Mittica.  The displaced families in Dhi Qar are 
straining the ability of local government to meet their needs 
for public services, such as health, PDS, and education for 
children, but so far there is no indication that the situation 
is unmanageable.  The local government views displaced families 
as a short-term problem, since most of the families in Dhi Qar 
have indicated that they do not wish to settle in the area and 
seek to return to their own homes when the violence dies down. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶15.  (C) Long assumed to be on the path to economic development 
and political stability, Dhi Qar province has demonstrated that 
underlying tensions within the Shia coalition parties and 
militia infiltration into the police have the potential to 
provoke a crisis on short notice.  In the space of two months, 
the province has gone from being a place where security patrols 
and reconstruction monitoring teams could travel with relative 
ease, to a place where most of Nasiriyah and its surrounding 
area are out of bounds.  In the same period of time, the 
provincial council went from being one of the most diverse, 
politically tolerant, and efficient, to one mired in political 
infighting.  Dhi Qar province is at a crossroads, and the next 
few months will be critical in determining if its stakeholders 
will be able to pull things back on track.  End comment. 
 
Bionotes on Key Individuals in Dhi Qar 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶16.  (C) Governor Azeez Kahdum Alwan al-Ogheli - The governor 
was elected on May 23, 2005.  He is a SCIRI party member and a 
former Badr colonel.  He was not elected to the Dhi Qar 
Provincial Council.  He has a reputation as a charismatic leader 
who maintains a political balance between Badr Organization and 
the Jaysh Al Madi militia in Dhi Qar.  He is open and positive 
to working with multi-national forces.  He attended Baghdad 
University and graduated with a B.A. in Education in 1987.  He 
also attended military college and received an officer's degree 
in 1982.  During the Saddam regime, he fled to the northern 
 
BASRAH 00000070  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
region of Kurdistan, where he worked with Iraqi president Jalal 
al-Talabani.  He was present during the 1990 chemical attack on 
Halabja and still suffers from a lung infection as a result. 
Following the attack, he moved to the Koot marshes near Aumara 
and Nasiriyah.  From 1996 to 2000, he worked with the current 
governor of Muthanna.  In 2003, he moved to Baghdad and started 
working as a teacher.  He was born in 1954 and is married with 
four children. 
 
¶17.  (C) Chief of Police General Abdul Hussein Hassan Thamir - 
The CoP was elected on August 18, 2005 and is linked to the 
Da'wa Party.  He attended the Baghdad military college and 
obtained the rank of colonel in the former Iraqi army.  His 
position and party affiliation enable the governor to maintain a 
balance within Shia political parties for positions of power. 
He is the former Chief of the IPS Operations Department. 
 
¶18.  (C) Provincial Council Chairman Ashan Talab Salah - He is a 
Fadhila party member, although until 2005 he was a member of the 
Da'wa party.  He has an M.A. in Arabic and a degree in computer 
technology.  He has a background in press and media, and has 
published several articles on current Iraqi politics.  He speaks 
some English.  He has a reputation as a weak and "absentee" 
leader who travels frequently, neglecting work at home. 
 
¶19.  (C) Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee Engineer 
Thajeel Kareem Ubeed - A political independent, Engineer Thajeel 
has been a member of the Dhi Qar Provincial Council and Chairman 
of the Reconstruction Committee since May 2005.  He is 
politically engaged and vocal about the need for reconstruction 
of Dhi Qar's infrastructure.  He enjoys a close working 
relationship with the Italians at Camp Mittica.  He obtained a 
B.S. in Civil Engineering from the former Soviet Union and a 
M.S. in Civil Engineering from Denmark.  He speaks English, 
Danish, and Russian.  He was born in March 1950 and is married 
with five children. 
 
¶20.  (C) Former Governor Sheikh Sabri Hamid al Rumaidh - A 
political independent, Sheikh Sabri leads one of the largest, 
most well-known and influential tribes in Dhi Qar (the other 
influential tribe is the Al Gazi tribe).  Sheikh Sabri is still 
politically active, although his support base is primarily 
tribal.  He is in opposition to the Jaysh Al Mahdi militia.  His 
father, Hamid Bader al Rumaidh, now deceased, was also a very 
prominent tribal figure.  During the first Gulf War, Sheikh 
Sabri fled to Kuwait.  He graduated from the Political Science 
and Law college.  He maintains open and friendly relations with 
the multi-national forces. 
 
¶21.  (C) Sheikh Ali Mohammed Al Manshed al Gazi - Leader of the 
Al Gazi tribe in Dhi Qar, which inhabits the area between 
Nasiriyah and Batha and is located closest to most of the 
multi-national forces' bases in Dhi Qar.  Although not 
politically successful in Nasiriyah, the tribe wields 
considerable influence over the city council of Batha.  Sheikh 
Ali has maintained open and friendly relations with 
multi-national forces since 2003.  During the Saddam regime, he 
was arrested and tortured and subsequently fled the country. 
His brothers were active in fighting against Saddam.  He 
maintains many interests outside of Iraq: one of his brothers 
works in the Iraqi Embassy in Cairo, and Sheikh Ali maintains 
business interests in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.  He 
speaks English well. 
 
¶22.  (C) Imam and Cleric Sayed Mohammed Bakr al Nasiri - As the 
imam of the Al Beit Mosque and leader of the Da'wa party in Dhi 
Qar, Sayed Mohammed is the most influential religious leader in 
Nasiriyah.  Because of his age, Mohammed Bakr is often 
represented by his son, Sheikh Mohammed Mahdi Bakr al Nassiri. 
In 1995, Mohammed Bakr sought political asylum in Great Britain. 
 He returned to Iraq in 2003.  He was elected the leader of the 
Jamaat Ulemma in 1982 in Iran, against Muhammed Bakr al-Hakim. 
His rivalry with al-Hakim led Mohammed Bakr to leave SCIRI.  He 
maintains open and friendly relations with multi-national 
forces.  His brother is Abbas al-Nasiri, the Deputy Governor. 
Mohammed Bakr controls a very large charitable foundation for 
the poor. 
GROSS