VZCZCXRO6635
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #2933/01 2451412
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 021412Z SEP 07
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3141
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 002933 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/31/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PINS PINR PREF PTER PHUM ECON IZ
SUBJECT: WHERE IS BAGHDAD HEADED? 
 
REF: A. BAGHDAD 2834 
     ¶B. BAGHDAD 2835 
     ¶C. BAGHDAD 2317 
     ¶D. BAGHDAD 2318 
     ¶E. BAGHDAD 1302 
     ¶F. BAGHDAD 1866 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Matt Tueller for reasons 1.4 (b,d). 
 
¶1.  (C) SUMMARY: Baghdad at the end of the summer of 2007 
remains a divided city.  Since January, the troop surge has 
helped to create islands of safety and contributed to a 
reduction in sectarian violence in some areas.  However, 
militant leaders and their cadres who profit from conflict 
have largely divided the city and immobilized its population 
inside sectarian enclaves.  Most residents cannot safely 
leave their neighborhoods, including for work or school.  Nor 
can the city's government enter most neighborhoods to deliver 
basic services, which militant groups often step in to 
provide (Refs A and B).  At the same time, Baghdad's fate 
remains inextricably linked to national politics -- the 
inability of local officials to secure their city at the 
street level often stems from the failure of political 
leaders to achieve meaningful reconciliation at the national 
level.  This connection is seen most clearly in the Iraqi 
Security Forces (ISF), which reflect and reinforce, on the 
ground in Baghdad, divisions among the sect-based political 
parties that command them.  Other government institutions in 
Baghdad also often serve the interests of the actors that 
control them, not the needs of the people and the 
preservation of the state.  Despite the eight-month-long 
troop surge, Iraq's sectarian factions, in the capital 
buildings and on the capital's streets, continue to eschew 
conciliation in favor of confrontation.  Most residents blame 
national leaders for the enduring conflict in Baghdad -- 
indeed, the fates of Baghdad and the country as a whole are 
inextricably linked.  END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
STREET SOUNDINGS: RESIDENTS FEEL SAFER WITH U.S. 
TROOP PRESENCE 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶2.  (C) Local leaders and average residents have confirmed to 
the Embassy and PRTs that the military surge in Baghdad has 
dampened violence in some areas over the past eight months. 
The increased presence of Coalition Forces (CF) has created 
isolated pockets of safety around the city in which economic 
activity has re-emerged, including central areas along Haifa 
Street and Palestine Street.  Markets and stores in Karada, 
Kadhamiya, Rusafa, Sadr City and even a few hotly contested 
neighborhoods, including Dora, have re-opened.  Local 
contractors and implementing partners of USAID report that 
they have experienced a significant reduction in attacks 
against them since January.  Contacts report that people feel 
safer walking through streets and markets in some 
neighborhoods, like the Yarmouk and Ghazaliya neighborhoods 
of Mansour district, the Kadhamiya neighborhood of Kadhamiya 
district, the Karada and Zafaraniya neighborhoods of Karada. 
Consumers are buying durable goods, and local merchants 
report profits on home appliances and furnishings.  Some 
employers in Baghdad report lower absentee rates at work over 
the past eight months.  At the same time, USAID programs have 
employed a significantly higher number of people for day 
labor than they did in January, throughout the province. 
 
¶3.  (C) Locals also report the positive impact of several 
security-related developments on their lives, particularly 
the clearing by Coalition and Iraqi forces of extremists from 
some neighborhoods.  Contacts convey that neighborhood 
outposts run by CF have also provided a local address and a 
human face for Iraqis seeking support in their fight against 
radicals.  Some Sunnis have joined this fight, notably in 
Ameriya and Abu Ghraib.  A few locals have observed as well 
that CF- and Iraqi Army-patrolled areas of Baghdad contain 
fewer illegal checkpoints run by militants than it did eight 
months ago.  Many have also noted, more recently, the fact 
that the annual mass pilgrimage to the Imam Al-Khadim shrine 
took place on August 9 almost without incident.  (NOTE: 
During the same event in 2005, over 1,000 pilgrims died and a 
bridge was damaged that has not yet been repaired. END NOTE.) 
 Other contacts express hope that Baghdad's famed city life 
may be resurfacing, pointing out boys playing soccer in 
streets and fields, coffee shops slowly re-filling with men 
smoking huka pipes, the growing bustle of certain major roads 
and intersections, and the brief celebration that filled the 
streets of Baghdad after the Iraqi soccer team won the Asia 
Cup. 
¶4.  (C) In addition to noting these improvements to the 
economy and security of their neighborhoods, local contacts 
in areas largely cleared of militants have increasingly 
engaged with legitimate government offices.  Most notably, 
the Baghdad Governor's office has launched a new initiative 
 
BAGHDAD 00002933  002 OF 004 
 
 
to bring former insurgents to the meeting table with 
provincial politicians and leaders of the Iraqi Security 
Forces (ISF), a process greatly facilitated by Brigade Combat 
Teams and EPRTs that arrived with the troop surge.  A number 
of Sunni tribal leaders hitherto outside the political 
process have also joined this initiative.  At the same time, 
several key Shia leaders have recently defied extremists in 
their midst by reaching out to provincial leaders.  In large 
part due to the security the troop surge has provided their 
neighborhoods, a modest number of local council members, 
provincial leaders, ministry officials and tribal sheikhs 
have similarly met with former insurgents to discuss and 
negotiate priorities for improving government services to 
Baghdad's communities. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
...BUT SECTARIAN VIOLENCE, DISPLACEMENT CONTINUE 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶5.  (C) Despite the clearing of militants from some areas, 
Baghdad residents continue to experience high levels of 
sectarian and criminal violence, leading to large-scale 
population displacement.  This displacement has in turn 
caused significant demographic shifts (Refs C and D).  Before 
February 2006, few areas in Baghdad contained a clear Sunni 
or Shia majority; more than half of Baghdad neighborhoods 
contained a mixed population.  As of September 2007, only 
about 20 percent of Baghdad neighborhoods remain mixed, 
nearly all of them in central Baghdad along the Tigris River. 
 More than half of all Baghdad neighborhoods now contain a 
clear Shia majority.  Sunnis have largely fled to outlying 
areas or have been concentrated into small enclaves 
surrounded by Shia neighborhoods.  This demographic shift has 
made it easier for Shia militias to push toward a 
near-complete "cleansing" of the city's Sunnis.  Some of our 
local interlocutors have also argued that this change may 
have contributed to muted levels of violence, given that few 
mixed neighborhoods remain.  Importantly, contacts also say 
that, without the troop surge, sectarian displacements in 
Baghdad would have occurred at a far higher rate. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
ISLANDS OF SAFETY SEPARATED BY A SEA OF FEAR 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Lack of security has limited the mobility of Baghdad 
residents by presenting both physical and psychological 
barriers to movement outside their own neighborhoods. 
Damaged bridges, countless checkpoints (both legal and 
illegal), and road closures due to suspected bombs contribute 
to traffic jams that discourage intra-city movement.  Curfews 
regularly ban vehicular movement for security reasons. 
Chronic fuel shortages due to corruption and extortion 
further undermine mobility.  Even when these impediments do 
not hinder their movement, residents generally consider areas 
dominated by another sect too dangerous to enter.  Pockets of 
safety are often surrounded by or adjacent to areas 
controlled by rival sects.  These areas include the 
predominantly Sunni Ghazaliya neighborhood of Mansour, 
adjacent to the JAM-dominated neighborhood of Shula; or the 
Shia-majority neighborhood of Zubaida in east Rashid, which 
is buried in an Al Qaeda-dominated area.  Travel is also 
limited in Baghdad's outlying areas.  Sunni farmers in the 
rural Yusefiya district (qada) cannot bring their produce to 
the most important nearby markets, in Mahmudiya qada, because 
they fear the Shia groups in control there.  Movement between 
neighborhoods has become so unusual that residents, security 
forces and militiamen alike automatically suspect the 
intentions of strangers -- particularly those they believe to 
be from a different sect.  When they do travel outside their 
neighborhoods, many Baghdad residents carry both Sunni and 
Shia identification cards in order to prevent militant 
attacks, and dress in tattered clothing in order to 
discourage kidnappers. 
 
----------------------------------- 
DESTROYING BRIDGES, BUILDING WALLS 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Few acts better illustrate Baghdad's division than 
the destruction of bridges and the construction of walls. 
Since January, the city has seen much of both phenomena. 
Terrorists detonated on April 12 a massive truck bomb on a 
key passage across the Tigris River, the Sarafiya Bridge. 
Almost exactly one month later, a well-coordinated attack 
caused the near-simultaneous ruin of key bridges along major 
routes into and out of Baghdad.  These acts damaged more than 
infrastructure; they also physically and symbolically widened 
the rift between Baghdad's Shia and Sunni populations (Reftel 
E).  In addition to achieving their strategic goal -- 
dividing the city -- terrorists accomplished through these 
devastating attacks their tactical aim of disrupting normal 
life in Baghdad.  They diminished the flow of goods and 
 
BAGHDAD 00002933  003 OF 004 
 
 
services, which in turn slowed economic reconstruction.  They 
hampered freedom of movement, which considerably exacerbated 
the traffic problems that already plague commuters in Baghdad. 
 
¶8.  (C) Miles of concrete T-walls snake along Baghdad's 
streets, border its thoroughfares, and divide its 
neighborhoods.  Erected as part of the Baghdad Security Plan 
to provide the city with safe neighborhoods and markets, 
these security barriers have in many places achieved their 
purpose.  They have limited the ability of terrorists to 
detonate car bombs in shopping areas; prevented militias from 
transporting kidnap victims and weapons into neighborhoods; 
and diminished the capacity of militants to maraud into 
adjacent areas.  In some neighborhoods, such as Ameriya, 
these structures appear to have played an important role in 
precipitating popular revolts against local militants (Reftel 
F). 
 
¶9.  (C) The same barriers that offer protection create 
division.  T-walls limit the natural human exchange that 
builds neighborhoods into communities, and communities into 
cities.  In many areas, they also inhibit the transportation 
and communication necessary for economic vitality.  Most 
importantly, they signal for many Iraqis a resignation to the 
reality of concrete division.  Iraqi politicians have 
demonstrated a full understanding of the symbolic resonance 
of walls.  On April 22, while attending a conference in 
Cairo, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ignited controversy 
when he made comments interpreted as critical of the building 
of a security barrier in Adhamiya.  Notwithstanding the 
political points their leaders seek to score, most local 
contacts describe, at present, a preference for the secure 
division that barriers provide rather than the return to 
vulnerable exposure that their removal would create.  Locals 
in Baghdad acknowledge, however, that security barriers come 
with a cost, as described above.  They pay it every day. 
 
------------------------------------ 
DIVISION COMES FROM FEAR, NOT HATRED 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶10.  (C) Behind closed doors, local contacts from all sects 
and professions, who are willing to speak to Poloffs and 
PRToffs, express non-sectarian views.  Embassy and PRToffs 
who have witnessed the opposite phenomenon in other countries 
in the region (public expressions of unity, private 
professions of sectarian disdain) note that the division 
currently characterizing Baghdad seems almost entirely driven 
by extremists.  Fear, not hatred, has forced the people of 
Baghdad into segregated cantons.  Locals often share 
apocryphal stories that illustrate a popular devotion to 
tolerance in the face of deliberate attempts to foment 
hatred.  In one such report, a local contact said that 
members of the Jaish Al-Mahdi (JAM) militia broke into the 
home of a Shia man in a Shia-majority district of Baghdad. 
The man's Sunni wife was also present during the break-in. 
The militia members told the man that they would kill him if 
he did not divorce his wife immediately.  In a show of 
courage that has entered local folklore, he refused to do so. 
 The militants broke his arms and legs.  He still refused. 
The militiamen left him to die from his injuries. 
Reportedly, he is now crippled, but still alive. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
BAGHDAD CANNOT BE SECURED BY SECTARIAN NATIONAL 
LEADERS 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶11.  (C) The majority of Baghdad residents report, in surveys 
and in meetings with Emboffs and PRToffs, that the quality of 
life in Baghdad has stayed the same since January; it has 
neither improved nor worsened.  While there remain many 
contributors to Baghdad's enduring problems, local contacts 
continuously point to sectarianism -- and a lack of 
responsiveness by political parties at the national level -- 
as the primary factor behind the city's failure.  One 
resident of the Karhk district stated matter-of-factly, "our 
streets aren't secure because of the parties, not because of 
us."  In interviews, surveys, and focus groups, the majority 
of Baghdad's citizens characterize their political leaders as 
representing, first, their personal interests; second, their 
party's needs; third, their militia's agenda; and, fourth, 
their sect's perspective.  This popular perception reflects 
not only disappointed expectations, but also an underlying 
reality of the troop surge in Baghdad: it created a political 
space that Iraq's leaders have not yet filled. 
 
--------------------------------- 
NATIONAL DIVISIONS, LOCAL FAILURE 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (C) Due to the failure of national leaders to achieve 
meaningful reconciliation, residents of Baghdad's 
 
BAGHDAD 00002933  004 OF 004 
 
 
neighborhoods believe they continue to suffer.  Instead of a 
politics based on ideas or issues, Iraq -- and hence Baghdad 
-- remains mired in a politics of sectarian identity.  The 
elected leaders of Iraq's Council of Representatives and 
Baghdad's Provincial Council (PC) do not owe their positions 
to a particular constituency.  Instead, they remain beholden 
to their political party's leadership.  Of the 51 members of 
the Baghdad PC, 46 belong to national religious Shia parties. 
 If a citizen in Baghdad seeks to voice concerns to an 
elected official at the provincial level, he must appeal to a 
member of these parties.  For a large portion of Baghdad's 
population, that simply is not an option, as many do not 
identify with the highly sectarian approach of the 
established parties.  Hence Iraq's sect-based parties stand 
aloof from the streets of Baghdad, and the people living on 
those streets report that their leaders seem unconcerned and 
uninformed. 
 
¶13.  (C) Participatory democracy flourishes at the district 
and sub-district levels, but local councils lack the power to 
change Baghdad.  That power resides with the national 
political parties, and they have repeatedly flexed their 
muscles in the capital.  In 2005, the party-dominated Baghdad 
PC dissolved the Baghdad City Council, a body made up of 
representatives of the city's neighborhoods -) not its 
sectarian factions.  Despite a decision by the Administrative 
Court of Iraq to disallow the PC's action, the PC flatly 
refused to reinstate the City Council.  This refusal sent a 
clear message to Baghdad's political actors.  It demonstrated 
that national political leadership will permit sectarian 
actors to behave according to their narrow interests, and not 
according to the law. 
 
¶14.  (C) An uneven commitment to the rule of law at the 
highest levels, as the case of the disbanded City Council 
illustrates, reverberates on the streets of Baghdad. 
Currently, government institutions in Baghdad continue to 
serve the interests of the actors that control them, not the 
needs of the people and the preservation of the state.  For 
instance, the sectarian nature of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) 
in Baghdad both reflects and reinforces national divisions. 
In the absence of a unified state, members of the ISF 
routinely use their positions to serve a particular sectarian 
or political community, rather than the national interest or 
the rule of law.  The absence of reliable law enforcement 
accentuates communal divisions because residents are 
compelled to rely on militants, tribes and political parties 
for protection, services, and conflict resolution. 
 
¶15.  (C) Without competent, impartial security forces, groups 
with a monopoly on coercion in Baghdad's neighborhoods 
remain, in effect, above the law.  Militants routinely 
administer bloody "justice" in the backstreets of Baghdad. 
Moreover, militants intimidate government officials and steal 
state resources.  Sometimes in collusion with the national 
parties, they often undermine Baghdad's legitimate government 
by providing essential services such as health care, social 
welfare, electricity, water, sanitation and, most critical of 
all, security. 
 
¶16.  (C) If Iraq's national leaders can make the compromises 
necessary to forge a national consensus, then there is hope 
that this shared commitment will filter into Baghdad, 
facilitating a return to its multi-sectarian past.  If the 
Shia-dominated parties, religious groups and militias can 
negotiate their own peace, with each other and with USG 
assistance, then there is hope that, once united, they may 
confidently engage minorities without fearing them.  These 
national challenges make it clear that the fate of Baghdad 
and the future of Iraq as a nation are inextricably linked. 
As long as Iraq's national leaders fall short in their 
efforts toward national reconciliation, sectarian groups will 
continue to plague the streets of Baghdad.  And if the center 
cannot hold, there is little prospect that steps towards 
reconciliation at the provincial level can be sustained. 
CROCKER