3/12/2015

A Balancing Act as Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit - NYTimes.com

http://nyti.ms/1C8uCDO

MIDDLE EAST

A alancing Act a Iraq Claim Gain in Tikrit

ANN ARNARD

MARCH 12, 2015

BAGHDAD Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared Thursday that victory

in Tikrit was near and achieved totally by Iraqi hands as his troops sought to
root out Islamic State militants from their last few footholds in the city.
Islamic State militants still held a sprawling palace complex built by
Saddam Hussein and pockets of the city center. But military officials said they
were confident that in a few days they would control the entire area, all
without direct assistance from American airstrikes.
That would be the most significant defeat for the Islamic State, also
known as ISIS or ISIL, since it swept into northern Iraq last June, carving a
swath through the country that put the militants a short drive away from
Baghdad and, within weeks, brought American forces back into Iraq after they
had seemingly marched out for good in 2011.
But that major step for the Iraqi government has come with an emphasis
on Shiite militias and Iranian military officials in a leading role. American
officials have expressed concerns that the presence of those forces in the Iraqi
Sunni heartland could risk the same kind of sectarian alienation that left the
country vulnerable to ISIS in the first place.
As the next set of challenges for the Iraqi government came into focus
keeping the sectarian peace around Tikrit and pursuing the Islamic State
farther north toward its self-declared capital in Mosul Mr. Abadi, fresh from
visiting troops near Tikrit, fiercely staked claim on Thursday to what he called
a great, cooperative victory. In a speech in Baghdad that seemed carefully
balanced to please both of Iraqs rival allies, Iran and the United States, he

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A Balancing Act as Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit - NYTimes.com

rejected the notion that Iran, in its increasingly overt aid on the battlefield,
was unduly encroaching on Iraq.
Today the world is with us and helping us out because the world is
feeling the danger of ISIS, he said, in an apparent reference to Iranian,
American and other foreign advisers.
We welcome the support from the whole world and the neighboring
countries, of assistants and trainers and advisers to help us in our war against
terrorism, he said. But on the other hand, we dont want anyone to interfere
in our internal affairs or our sovereignty, which is a red line for us.
He insisted that the Shiite militias that made up the bulk of the Tikrit
offensive were not a sectarian force but a legitimate arm of the government,
established during a national emergency when ISIS appeared poised to march
on Baghdad and the regular army and the police collapsed. New volunteers
flocked to the mobilization forces, but those forces have retained much of the
structure and leadership of pre-existing Shiite militias.
The difficulty of Mr. Abadis political hand was highlighted on Wednesday
night, when his rival and predecessor, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, accompanied him
to the front lines to share some of the glory of the progress in Tikrit.
In the weeks and months ahead, analysts said, Mr. Abadi must offer the
Shiite militias that played the pivotal role in the Tikrit offensive enough
support to please them and Iran, while preventing his Shiite political rivals
from outflanking him.
But he must also avoid alienating the United States, which has continued
to provide air support and training against ISIS elsewhere. American officials
would prefer to see Iraqi national forces take the military lead, but that is a
tough order to fill, given that the army and police forces that the United States
spent billions on training after the invasion in 2003 largely evaporated when
ISIS attacked.
Even more challenging for Mr. Abadi, he must stay on the right side of the
militias enthusiastic supporters within his Shiite political base, a community
galvanized by the Islamic States massacres of Shiites. Yet adding to their
power and legitimacy, analysts said, could keep him from establishing the

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A Balancing Act as Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit - NYTimes.com

strong Iraqi institutions that would give him real power as prime minister.
Hes in a very paradoxical position, said Maria Fantappie, the Iraq
analyst at the International Crisis Group. He has to please them to keep
public opinion and the Revolutionary Guards on his side. But if these Shiite
militias stay as the backbone of the Iraqi security forces, while keeping their
leadership structure intact, which is the way were going right now, there will
by no means be a powerful Abadi. There will always be other actors, like Maliki
and others, interfering.
As leading clerics and militia figures declared that the Americans were not
serious about the war against ISIS, Mr. Abadi said that any suggestion that the
militias, referred to here as popular mobilization forces, were sectarian or
extragovernmental came from those who hate us.
The popular mobilization is an Iraqi institute within the Iraqi national
security system, he said. It expresses the unity between the Iraqi citizens and
our armed forces.
Mr. Abadi also called for security forces to facilitate the return of
displaced civilians from Tikrit and surrounding areas.
Bringing civilians back without continuing conflict will be a critical
measure of government control, especially given the extra emotional
resonance of the fight for Tikrit. It was there that Islamic State fighters
massacred more than 1,000 Shiite soldiers from Camp Speicher last year, and
many Shiites accuse some local Sunnis of taking part.
Raw emotions were on display in Baghdad on Thursday morning, where
several dozen parents of the dead soldiers gathered at the busy Tahrir Square,
holding photographs of their sons and calling for an international
investigation into the deaths because they did not trust Iraqi officials to arrive
at the truth.
They said they were happy to see the Islamic State falling in Tikrit, but
their anger and grief were not assuaged. They blamed not only the militants
for the massacre but also, in apparently equal measure, what they said was the
cooperation of Sunni tribal leaders and the negligence and corruption of Iraqi
officials and their sons commanders.

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A Balancing Act as Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit - NYTimes.com

We want a legal trial to bring justice for our sons, said one father, Mahdi
Saleh, clutching a picture of his 22-year-old son Nahum. Standing beside Mr.
Saleh, another man who lost a son, Ali Shadhan Shahrar, demanded that those
responsible be executed in front of the victims families.
We have no problem with the Sunnis, and we will have unity, Mr. Saleh
added. But peace with those criminals? Never.
As Mr. Abadi proclaimed a united front against ISIS, Iraqs Parliament
discussed allegations that United States aircraft had possibly killed Iraqi
soldiers in two separate episodes. In one, a parliamentary report said, eight
soldiers were killed in an American airstrike on Dec. 24.
Military officials also said they were investigating whether a warplane
from the American-led coalition against ISIS bombed troops in Anbar
Province on Wednesday evening. But one representative of the Defense
Ministry said that the troops had been killed by an ISIS bomb.
United States military officials said that while there had been American
airstrikes in the area, they were not aware that any had gone astray, and that
they were looking into the reports.
The government advances in Tikrit came as Iraqi officials said they would
investigate reports of atrocities, filmed and posted in recent months on social
media, and committed by armed men in uniforms with the insignia of a special
forces unit and other regular government forces.
The images were compiled and presented to Iraqi and United States
officials by ABC News. The images raised the question of whether Iraqi forces
might have run afoul of a measure that requires the United States to halt aid to
foreign militaries that commit human rights abuses.
Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper from Washington; Falih Hassan,
Ahmed Salah and Omar Al-Jawoshy from Baghdad; and an employee of The New
York Times from Salahuddin Province, Iraq.
A version of this article appears in print on March 13, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with
the headline: A Balancing Act As Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit .

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A Balancing Act as Iraq Claims Gains in Tikrit - NYTimes.com

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