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Local Government

Iraq has a history of a repressive national government under the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein. As a result, the devolution of substantial authority to provincial and district/city governments is a new concept in Iraq.

After the 2003 invasion, Coalition military units across Iraq worked to restore local government. They did so under a loose plan, developed after the invasion started, in which Governorate Support Teams composed of civil affairs personnel and USAID contractors assisted military commanders in forming local councils. The plan, however, reflected an unresolved tension in U.S. policy over how to connect the councils formed in neighborhoods, cities, and provinces to the national government in Baghdad. The United States had begun the war without any notion of how the new councils it was installing - and attempting to empower - at the community level of Iraqi society would integrate with existing institutions at the top. The councils immediately found themselves at odds with the provincial directors general, who reported to national ministries in Baghdad and jealously guarded their prerogative to oversee public services and disburse funding.

The debate over how to make central ministries accountable to local communities, and thereby decentralize the power of a formerly tyrannical regime, played out during the CPA era. As Ambassador Bremer sought to usher Iraq into a democratic era, the extent to which Iraq's central and provincial governments would share power remained contested. The CPA put enormous resources into electing councils across Iraq, envisioning a system in which they held most of the power in each province.

Iraqis were divided over Bremer's plan to radically devolve power from Baghdad to the provinces. The Shi'a in the south and the Kurds in the north wanted an even greater devolution of power, one that maximized local control in regions with Kurdish and Shi'a majorities. Sunnis and many leaders in the national ministries in Baghdad, however, preferred continued concentration of power in the central government. This struggle was at the heart of what the new Iraqi state was to be. Bremer's actions-including enshrining the decentralization of power in the TAL-marked the opening gambit in what became an extended imbroglio over Iraqi federalism.

On January 30, 2005, Iraq held its first open election and chose members of the transitional 275-member National Assembly, establishing its legislature. In the January 2005 election, the people voted for political parties, representatives of which were designated to the Provincial Council (PC). The political parties have a pro-rata share of the seats depending on the election results. Within the PC, 25 percent of the members must be female. Once the PC is elected, it appoints the governor.

After the January 2005 elections, the Shi'a parties took full advantage of the Sunni boycott to consolidate their influence, especially in the capital. A primer on city politics written by the Baghdad PRT chronicles what happened next. "The lopsided nature of political power, with SCIRI/Badr domination, has created a desperate chemistry for the province," it states. A "political Darwinism" prevailed in which the Shi'a party elite centralized authority. The result of the Sunni boycott was that Iraq's capital was ruled by what one official characterized as a "Shi'a dictatorship." During this period, SCIRI deposed Baghdad's mayor and took over the Amanat.

The Shi'a takeover opened rifts between provincial councils, stacked with SCIRI supporters, and many of the 437 neighborhood, 195 sub-district, and 96 district councils that USAID had established across Iraq as part of its LGP.23 Although provincial councils were supposed to represent a province's entire population, the Sunni boycott of the 2005 election yielded Sunni-majority provinces ruled by Shi'a councils. Projects and services came to be distributed along sectarian lines, reflecting the "Shi'a first" mentality that Lieutenant Colonel Busher witnessed at the Amanat. By mid-2006, the party grip was entrenched. "SCIRI/ Badr has worked diligently to maintain and increase their hold on power," the primer continues, "trying to delay new elections or any structural changes that might weaken their position."

One of USAID's local governance advisors took an even bleaker view of the effect of the elections. During 2004, the LGP had worked to "solidify and extend the role of sub-national governmental institutions to prevent, or at least discourage, a recentralization of power." "The party list system sabotaged [the LGP]," the advisor said, laying waste to two years of diligent work fostering authentic local governance in Iraq. USAID had helped create a mechanism in Iraq for local representation that was undermined both by the electoral formula and a disregard for decentralization that dated back to the CPA.

Issues of federalism and provincial government that would directly impact reconstruction were again on the negotiating table when the constitution was drafted during the late spring and summer of 2005. Ambassador Khalilzad pressured the constitutional drafting committee to clearly demarcate federal from provincial responsibilities, but the issue proved too explosive to settle. The draft constitution deferred until a later time the question of provincial powers - and thereby how public administration would be controlled at the local level.

The continuing disagreements between Iraq's Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish populations, over how much power the central government should have nearly caused the constitutional referendum to fail. In the electoral formula governing the referendum process, a simple majority was required for approval, but the constitution could also have been defeated by a "no" vote with a two-thirds majority in three or more governorates. When Iraqis went to vote on October 15, 2005, Kurdish- and Shi'a-dominated provinces supported the constitution by overwhelming margins, while Sunni-dominated provinces voted against it in equal measure. A simple nationwide majority was achieved, but the constitution narrowly missed defeat by the governorate rule. Two predominantly Sunni provinces - Anbar and Salah Al-Din - voted against the constitution by more than the required two-thirds majority. Although a majority of voters in a third province-Ninewa-rejected the constitution, it fell short of the two-thirds majority required to qualify as a "no" vote, allowing the constitution to be passed.

In response to the fragmentation of the Iraqi state, military and civilian officials used USAID soft programs, PRTs, and brigade combat teams to strengthen local administrative capacities and connect provincial governments with national ministries. The sheer logistics of setting up the PRTs and assessing the status of reconstruction and institutional development in each province was difficult. All PRTs were explicitly tasked to bridge the local-national disconnect, but it was often the larger and more powerful brigade combat teams who made the most difference. By 2006, brigade commanders came to see improving local governance as an essential part of their mission. In addition to their primary tasks of securing the battle space, brigades often would provide security for local government facilities and at times for local officials. They also used their CERP funds and civil affairs brigades to support local government initiatives.

Both brigade commanders and PRT leaders found that pushing past Ba'athist practices and transforming the roles and responsibilities of local officials was difficult. One PRT official commented, "It's still 'big man' diplomacy," in which people rather than institutions wield power.35 Provincial council members, not used to discretionary authority, were often reluctant to act independently on behalf of their constituencies. "In a post-authoritarian society, where you have to be told what you are allowed to do (not what you aren't), provincial and local government leaders are not going to be risk takers," a PRT political officer explained. "In the end, if people do not know what they are allowed to do, or what they are supposed to do-they will end up either doing nothing, or they will do what is in their best interest."

In Diyala province, relations deteriorated so badly that the governor resorted to arresting directors general to force them to attend council meetings. Despite the trying conditions, PRTs and brigade commanders helped create legitimacy for the provincial governments and had some success at uniting officials from different sects. One PRT leader said, "Without our presence you would have a full-scale civil war."

Coaxing local officials to work together productively was only half the battle. Relations had to be nurtured between municipal governments and the provinces, and between the provinces and Baghdad. In many places, relationships were so lacking that provincial leaders wanting to meet with ministerial officials transmitted their requests through the embassy. Many also relied on Coalition commanders for transportation to and from Baghdad, a practice that military commanders came to call "helicopter diplomacy." "Making the lack of ground rules even worse," a political officer remarked, "is the incredibly poor communication between and among all levels of the Iraqi government. If, by some stroke of luck or hard work, there are clear and comprehensive rules for something, it is highly likely that they have not been transmitted to all of the appropriate people in an effective or open manner."

The efforts of the PRTs and brigades slowly opened a conversation between provincial and national officials. In the late summer of 2007, five governors from the northern non-Kurdish provinces arrived in Baghdad to attend a conference arranged by the office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It was one of the first meetings of its kind. Governors from some of the most violent provinces of Iraq were allowed to air their concerns. They complained that some ministry directors general were operating in the provinces outside the control of provincial authorities. The governor of Diyala stood up and said that he did not even have the phone numbers for ministry officials in Baghdad.40 It was clear that provincial and local governments were not yet ready to govern, and that focused PRT support to build local and provincial capacity would be necessary for an extended period.

Despite the Coalition's best efforts, the provision of government services became more rather than less politicized in the years following the CPA. By 2006, the U.S. approach to democratizing Iraq, while simultaneously federalizing its government structures, yielded mixed results. The local and district councils created immediately after the invasion had not become formally linked to the directors general who administered services using funding provided by the central government. Soon, ministries were deeply riddled with partisan infighting. The elections that were to be the capstone of a new democracy were based on a formula that only increased the forces driving Iraqis apart. The failure to hold new provincial elections also compromised the legitimacy of provincial councils through with which power was to be shared.

By the end of 2006, U.S. officials agreed that the single most important governance challenge was to strengthen the connection between Iraq's national and provincial institutions, so services could be delivered and government properly administered in the new decentralized framework. "Capacity building"-ensuring the ability of the Iraqi government to handle its own affairs - became the catchword for reconstruction's next phase.