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RR RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDH RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #0535/01 0591541
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FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6887
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RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 000535 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR USAID OFDA 
DEPT FOR NSC SAMANTHA POWER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID PREF PGOV PHUM PREL IZ
SUBJECT: LESSONS LEARNED FROM IDP RETURNS TO 
BAGHDAD'S SAYDIYA NEIGHBORHOOD 
 
REFERENCE:  Statistical Source for Returnee Data 
for the period: summer of 2008 - January 2010, was 
the Saydiya Support Council. 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Community leaders from south 
Baghdad's Saydiya neighborhood report that 
approximately 7,200 displaced families have 
returned since early 2008 and that around 1,400 
families have not returned but rent out their 
homes.  (NOTE: Baghdad ePRT tracking data from 
police statistics showed 2266 families returned to 
Saydiyah during the period 14 March 2007 - 18 
February 2009 END NOTE.)  Returns to Saydiya 
illustrate important points about IDP returns in 
Iraq: 1) the necessity of engaging the support of 
local community leaders, as opposed to working 
through government institutions exclusively in 
facilitating returns, 2) the stabilizing impact of 
the use of concrete walls in potential areas of 
return, and 3) the willingness of some returnees 
to accept higher security risks and poorer basic 
services than the international community might 
assume.  Some elements of the Saydiya experience 
cannot be repeated such as the robust presence of 
U.S. troops in the area of return and the 
expenditure of Commanders Emergency Response 
Program (CERP) funds to help fill assistance gaps. 
Elements like the ability of local leaders to 
encourage and sustain returns despite precarious 
security and difficult living conditions offer 
hope for returns after the U.S. drawdown.  End 
Summary. 
 
Background 
---------- 
 
¶2. (U)  Saydiya, a south-Baghdad neighborhood in 
the Rashid District has many upscale houses and is 
home to people of some affluence; in south 
Baghdad's Rashid district, it was a mixed Sunni and 
Shia area, located along what became a 
sectarian fault line in late 2006.  Just south of 
Bayaa, a Shia area then dominated by the Jaysh Al- 
Mahdi Militia, and just east of Risala, a 
predominantly Sunni area then dominated by Al- 
Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, Saydiya 
was the scene of a turf war between Sunni and Shia 
militants and daily anti-U.S. attacks. It was one 
of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad.  Most 
residents were educated professionals including 
former regime military officers, university 
professors, and doctors, a demographic that could 
afford to flee and would not form militias for 
self-defense.  More than 8,000 families, over half 
of the area's residential population, fled between 
late 2006 and mid 2007.  Several hundred Shia 
families as well as families with members working 
with the U.S. Government fled in 2005 as Al-Qaeda 
and other Sunni militants consolidated influence 
in the area. 
 
 
¶3. (SBU)  In late 2007, United States and Iraqi 
forces cleared Saydiya house by house.  In early 
2008, concrete walls were erected around the 
neighborhood controlling access through two 
checkpoints.  The walled area included about 
12,500 houses that accommodated an original 
population of about 60,000.  In late 2007, the 
Prime Minister's Implementation and Follow-Up 
Committee for National Reconciliation (IFCNR) 
appointed a Support Council, a group of 26 Sunni 
and Shia community leaders, to fill the role of 
the elected but inactive Neighborhood Council. 
The members of the Neighborhood Council had been 
displaced, killed or jailed.  In early 2008, IFCNR 
and the Support Council began reaching out to 
Saydiya's displaced through the media to try to 
facilitate returns.  After potential returnees 
proved ownership of homes, Iraqi Security Forces 
(ISF) with U.S. support, evicted squatters and 
cleared weapons caches and booby traps, ISF also 
Qcleared weapons caches and booby traps, ISF also 
facilitated movement through checkpoints, which 
had been established in the area.  U.S. troops 
conducted foot patrols day and night.  In the 
spring of 2008, displaced families were returning 
at a rate of about 20 families per day.  As of 
 
BAGHDAD 00000535  002 OF 004 
 
 
July 2008, about 1,800 families had returned.  The 
Support Council told Office of Foreign Disaster 
Assistance (OFDA) representatives that 
about 7,200 families had returned as of January 
¶2010. 
 
Lessons Learned: Unelected Bodies Drove Returns 
Process, Not GoI Ministries: 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶4. (SBU)  IFCNR and its Support Council 
facilitated the returns process in Saydiya with 
robust support from U.S. forces and ISF.  Support 
Council members fielded inquiries from potential 
returnees, verified returnee property ownership 
with the Land Deed Registry, checked the 
conditions of potential returnee homes to 
determine if they were habitable, and arbitrated 
disputes among residents.  MoDM stipends required 
lengthy bureaucratic procedures and many returnees 
were not registered as IDPs leaving them 
ineligible for MoDM stipends.  Because of this, 
IFCNR used funds from the Prime Minister's Office 
to give small stipends for the first groups to 
return.  IFCNR also provided stipends to Support 
Council members since their efforts required a 
full-time commitment and they incurred incidental 
expenses. 
 
¶5. (U) U.S. forces used CERP funds to rent a villa 
for the Support Council, distribute micro-grants to 
small business owners, and rehabilitate local 
infrastructure.  For a time, Saydiya's 
Neighborhood Council met in the Support Council's 
structure.  In contrast, the MoDM, Baghdad 
Provincial Government, the Rashid District 
Council, and service ministries did little to 
facilitate returns to Saydiya.  Support Council 
members report that fewer than half of Saydiya's 
returnees are registered with MoDM and have 
received their one million dinar stipend and that 
the Baghdad Governorate has provided property 
compensation to 107 homeowners in a neighborhood 
that experienced considerable property damage. 
Residents report that line ministries did not do 
much to improve services.  At the height of 
returns to Saydiya in the summer of 2008, pools of 
sewage flooded main roads, access to running water 
was sporadic, and residents received two hours of 
electricity per day from the state grid. 
 
Sunni/Shia polarity in the Support Council 
remained vivid through early 2009. Mixed returns 
continued despite the change of Support Council 
leadership from Sunni to Shia, with a majority of 
one, in a telephonic vote conducted in early 2008. 
Although there were allegations that the Shia 
Chairman of the Support Council, Abu Marwan, 
was manipulating returns, police statistics 
provided to the former ePRT for the Rashids 
showed 227 Sunni families returning vice 399 
Shia families during mid-March 2007 through 
mid-February 2009. 
 
Lessons Learned: T-Walls Prove Essential in 
Providing Security: 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
¶6. (SBU)  Saydiya residents and Support Council 
members told OFDA that concrete walls proved 
decisive in facilitating returns.  They allowed 
security forces to prevent most militia and 
weapons from re-entering the area after it had 
been cleared.  Some residents reported that they 
would consider leaving Saydiya if the walls were 
removed because they would anticipate an 
immediate deterioration in security conditions. 
Residents also said the visible presence of large 
amounts of U.S. and Iraqi forces created 
confidence and deterred violence.  There has been 
a trade-off however, as T-walls have created 
security but held back economic recovery in some 
of the neighborhoods closest to them. 
Redevelopment of the Saydiya Fish Market was in an 
QRedevelopment of the Saydiya Fish Market was in an 
advanced stage when it was halted by the placement 
of T-walls in March 2009. 
 
BAGHDAD 00000535  003 OF 004 
 
 
 
Sustainable Returns Occurred Despite Precarious 
Security: 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Support Council members told OFDA that 
despite steady but low levels of attacks in the 
area, few returnees fled.  Support Council members 
said a number of families received threatening 
letters with bullets in them and that perhaps ten 
returnees were killed in 2008. However, they said 
most attacks targeted U.S. and Iraqi security 
forces and Support Council members.  In 2008 two 
Support Council members, including the resettlement 
committee chairman, were killed by car bombs, three 
were wounded in shooting attacks (the brother of 
one of the chairmen was fatally wounded), and one 
was targeted by a bomb planted outside his house. 
Police and one of the victims suspected Shia-Sunni 
tension within the Support Council as a motive 
behind one of the 2008 shooting attacks.  Children 
of several Support Council members were killed or 
wounded in attacks in 2009. 
 
¶8. (SBU) In addition to the estimated 1,400 
families renting out their homes in Saydiya, 
Support Council members say others remain 
displaced, their homes are vacant.  One 
family squatting in a cinderblock room in the 
International Zone displaced from their 
four-bedroom villa in Saydiya, told OFDA Reps: 
"We feel safe enough to visit, but we aren't 
ready to move back. People know we used to 
work at the Embassy and they've threatened 
to kill us before.  How can we 
be sure they aren't still out there?" 
 
Lessons Learned: This is Not Darfur 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. (SBU)  When OFDA asked Support Council members 
what more could have been done to support returns, 
they reported that not all assistance reflected an 
understanding of the neighborhood's needs.  The 
Support Council Chairman emphasized that educated, 
urban residents have different needs than most 
donors anticipated. The chairman's comments 
reflect a challenge humanitarians have struggled 
within Iraq, the fact that as a middle-income 
country, beneficiary expectations are higher than 
in many humanitarian responses.  He complained 
that some NGOs, in their apparent effort to 
balance assistance among sects, alienated the 
populace. "Needy families were told, 'sorry, we've 
provided assistance to Sunnis and now we need to 
find some Shia.' This is unacceptable." 
 
There's No Place Like Home, Even with Sewage in 
the Yard: 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) When the first waves of returns to 
Saydiya began in 2008, several areas were 
flooded with sewage from burst pipes.  The girls' 
school had no functioning bathrooms, running water 
in most homes was erratic with low water pressure, 
and the neighborhood had an hour or two of 
electricity per day from the state grid 
(consistent with other Baghdad neighborhoods).  In 
June 2008, OFDA asked returnees what had prompted 
them to come home despite the lack of services and 
precarious security.  One family that had been 
staying with relatives in Karada (east Baghdad) 
replied, "The yard might be covered in sewage 
right now, but we will fix it.  This is our home. 
We don't want to impose on our daughter anymore." 
 
¶11. (SBU) NOTE:  Many of the conditions that 
facilitated returns to Saydiya cannot be repeated 
in light of the bilateral Security Agreement, 
including the robust presence of U.S. combat 
troops and the rapid expenditure of CERP funds. 
Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) do not have the budget 
or logistical capacity to erect large quantities 
Qor logistical capacity to erect large quantities 
of concrete walls and Iraqi officials might find 
it politically unfeasible to wall off new areas 
 
BAGHDAD 00000535  004 OF 004 
 
 
while claiming credit for having improved 
security.  ISF have proven generally reluctant 
to conduct the kind of visible foot patrols that 
created confidence and deterred violence among 
tense residents in Saydiya, favoring instead 
static checkpoints that can fail to improve 
security off the main roads.  However, ISF 
may prove less reluctant than U.S. troops to 
detain those suspected of carrying out attacks or 
inciting violence against returnees.  With 
decreasing U.S. scrutiny and political leverage, 
it might be easier for Iraqi leaders to use 
returns to demographically engineer neighborhoods 
for political or strategic gains, which could 
undermine stability and hinder returns.  End NOTE. 
 
 
HILL