Last week, EPIC Director Erik Gustafson and I joined our NGO colleagues on Capitol Hill to meet with the staff of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The meeting was one of more than a dozen that our friends at NETWORK (a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby) scheduled with Congressional leaders as part of the Iraq Peace and Development Working Group (IPDWG).
IPDWG is a new effort to gain support in Washington for peacebuilding through emergency relief and development in Iraq. The NGOs first came together in an emergency meeting in early December to respond to the world's fastest growing refugee crisis and (except possibly Darfur) deadliest conflict. By early February, the NGOs formed a working group and began meeting regularly to coordinate advocacy. With an emergency appropriations process for FY 2007 underway in Congress, and FY 2008 appropriations coming thereafter, the top priority was clear: reverse cuts in U.S. aid to Iraq.
By March, IPDWG had grown to more than 40 national organizations, and more join every month. EPIC co-chairs the working group with NETWORK. I was at the February meeting, and it is encouraging to be part of a community of NGOs sharing EPIC's mission and supporting responsible and constructive U.S. action to help civilian Iraqis.
With so many different kinds of groups and mandates, IPDWG covers a lot of ground. There are groups working to: (1) help Iraq’s war refugees and internally displaced persons, especially those who are most vulnerable; (2) better protect Iraqi civilians and assist families harmed by U.S. military operations; (3) increase U.S. support for peacebuilding through development; and (4) promote responsible global engagement to end the Iraq crisis and prevent the conflict from escalating beyond Iraq’s borders into a full scale regional war. Since EPIC is one of the only Iraq-specific organizations in Washington, we're finding ways to add value to the efforts of many of our fellow IPDWG members.
Our meeting with Speaker Pelosi's office included (from left to right in the photo): EPIC Director Erik Gustafson, Raad Jarrar with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Zahir JanMohamed and Sarnata Reynolds with Amnesty International USA; Sister Simone Campbell with NETWORK; and Jerrold Keilson with America's Development Foundation (ADF). In the meeting, Jerrold explained how ADF, funded by USAID, is strengthening the role of Iraqi civil society in the country’s economic, political and social development, serving 1,900 Iraqi civil society organizations (CSOs). He made an appeal for U.S. funding so ADF can continue supporting programs vital to the international community's mission in Iraq.
Erik, a Gulf War veteran, made it clear that Gen. Petreaus and the officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines with whom he corresponds all say the same thing: what the U.S. military can achieve in Iraq is limited. At best, they can buy time for an economic and political solution. He passed on EPIC's Ground Truth Interviews with Professor Eric Davis, who advocates an economic plan for stabilizing Iraq; Professor Lisa Schirch, who champions a 3D (Development, Diplomacy, Defense) approach; and Khaldoon Ali, an Iraqi peacebuilder who directs a Baghdad-based humanitarian organization.
NETWORK Lobby’s Executive Director, Simone Campbell, brought to the forefront how important it is that Americans be seen as peacebuilders. She also appealed to Congress to restore full funding for successful relief and development programs reducing suffering and creating stability. Jerrold provided examples of successful projects operating throughout Iraq. Without continued funding, ADF's civil society program will run out of funds in June.
Amnesty International’s Sarnata Reynolds and Zahir Janmohamed took a different approach in support of a surge in humanitarian, peacebuilding assistance. They talked about the people of Iraq and their displacement due to escalating violence. Sarnata discussed the desperate measures refugees must take to survive and avoid returning to Iraq, where they fear persecution and death. In some cases, women have even been forced into prostitution. These individuals are in desperate need of humanitarian relief which the Emergency Supplemental can provide.
The meetings on Capitol Hill continue in the coming weeks, as the peace and development NGO community fights for the funding that aid agencies -- both government and non-government -- need to help meet the humanitarian, development and protection needs of Iraq's citizens and war refugees.
Yesterday the Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion on the way forward in Iraq. The panel consisted of Kenneth Pollack (Brookings Institution), Frederick Kagan (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research), and Anthony Cordesman (Center for Strategic and International Studies). The main subject of discussion was whether or not the troop surge would succeed in securing Iraq. Though their opinions differed on this matter, each speaker agreed, that either way, this surge is the last possible option for success in Iraq.
Kagan was the most enthusiastic about the success of the surge. He considered the cooperation of the Maliki government and news that insurgent groups have gone underground as signs that the surge is already working in some parts of the country. Pollack used the later example, instead, to highlight the uncertainty of the outcome of the surge. He explained that it's too soon to know if insurgent groups will wait out the surge, or if they will loose strength and diminish.
Pollack went on to argue that it is difficult to determine whether or not it is too late in the conflict for the surge to work, explaining that we should have adopted this strategy much earlier. Kagan disagreed and explained that the Maliki government and the Iraqi army were not capable for this type of surge in 2004 and 2005, but that they are now. Cordesman, on the other hand, believes that the government, the army, and the police are still not capable enough to handle the military surge.
There were three themes that all of the speakers agreed on: the need for bolstering the civilian side of the surge, the importance of the political, economic, and social aspects of a civilian follow through, and the responsibility the U.S. has to not abandon Iraq regardless of the outcome of the surge. Pollack explained that:
"The replacement of Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, as well as the succession of Lt. General David Petraeus to the command of all Coalition forces in Iraq does offer some hope...However, as is frequently intoned but rarely acted upon, the military cannot possibly win the struggle for Iraq by itself. Even if Gates and Petraeus deliver a brilliant performance (and they may well), without a commensurate civilian effort to deliver the political, economic, diplomatic, and social components, the plan will still fail."
Cordesman argued it would be irresponsible for the U.S. to walk out of Iraq without doing everything possible to secure the country, and prevent conflict from spilling over into neighboring countries. The panel agreed that it was not realistic, or responsible for lawmakers to urge for a withdrawal if success is the objective, from both a political and military standpoint. Cordesman closed by stating that "the price of success is 2015, not 2008, and that it is not a matter of containment, but constant damage control."
Last week, in his first press conference since the "surge" began, Gen. Petraeus warned that (1) it’s still too early to tell whether the military surge is working, and (2) regardless how successful the U.S. military may be, the military’s role will always be limited in what it can achieve – i.e. there has to be more progress in the Iraqi economic and political arenas and at best, current U.S. military forces can only buy Iraq more time, they are not the solution.
EPIC has heard from returning soldiers over and over again that the ongoing failure to create jobs is a major contributing factor to violence, including attacks against U.S. forces. According to a recent classified study conducted by the U.S. Defense Department’s Joint Warfare Analysis Center, improving the quality of life of Iraqi citizens reduces the level of violence in Baghdad. Citing military sources, the New York Times reports: “…the study found that a 2% increase in job satisfaction among Iraqis in Baghdad correlated to a 30% decline in attacks on allied forces and a 17% decrease in civilian deaths from sectarian violence.”
Although an economic surge may require a modest increase in U.S. spending this year and the next, it will save the U.S. billions of dollars over the longer term by effectively reducing conflict which will in turn reduce Iraq’s dependence on U.S. combat forces. For an estimated $100 million, we can support the reactivation of most of Iraq’s 193 state-owned factories and put more than 150,000 Iraqis back to work. Imagine what that can do for the quality of life in communities that largely depend on those factories for their livelihood, and how that in turn can reduce conflict and save American lives. Tackling soaring unemployment and stimulating local economies can do far more to stem violence than military operations and at a fraction of the cost. This past weekend, President Bush sent a letter redirecting $3.2 billion in funds in support of U.S. troops in Iraq. While a considerable portion of these funds are for the military, Bush did include $100 million for restarting state-owned factories that will employ Iraqis. This is a huge step. Once a factory is back up and running, creating jobs and benefiting the community, the need for continued U.S. military involvement and protection diminishes. Why? Because it shifts the community against anyone who might bomb the factory or otherwise take away the jobs and income that their community needs. In short, the community becomes less likely to cooperate with illegal armed groups and more likely to cooperate with local authorities working to secure the area. And community members who directly benefit from the factory’s reopening are more likely to even take things a step further by voluntarily participating in the protection of the factory and community.
Our meeting with Speaker Pelosi's office included (from left to right in the photo): EPIC Director Erik Gustafson, Raad Jarrar with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Zahir JanMohamed and Sarnata Reynolds with Amnesty International USA; Sister Simone Campbell with NETWORK; and Jerrold Keilson with America's Development Foundation (ADF). 
