US embassy cable - 04AMMAN6726

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 006726 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EINV, PREL, JO, IZ 
SUBJECT: NONVIOLENT IRAQI OPPOSITION FIGURES AIR FAMILIAR 
GRIEVANCES AT AMMAN MEETING WITH U.S. BUSINESSMEN 
 
 
1. SUMMARY: A two-day meeting held in Amman in late July 
offered an opportunity for prominent, nonviolent members of 
the Iraqi opposition to the coalition forces (CF) and Iraqi 
interim government (IIG) to meet with prominent, but 
predominantly non-official, Americans.  The meeting produced 
a few concrete proposals that the USG may be able to act on, 
and provided a sense of positive momentum and goodwill among 
the Iraqi participants that may already be paying dividends. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
2. The July 19-20 meeting was made up, on the Iraqi side, of 
a wide range of opposition figures - tribal sheikhs, former 
generals and directors general of ministries in the previous 
regime, university professors, businessmen, and other 
prominent citizens from places ranging from Mosul to 
Nassiriya.  However, it was an entirely Arab, and 
predominantly Sunni, group, and people from Al-Anbar province 
and with roots there made up the majority of the group.  The 
group was assembled by a Western-educated mid-40s sheikh and 
businessman named Talal Al-Gaood, originally from Western 
Iraq but living and with business interests in Jordan. 
 
3. The U.S. participation had, at its core, four private U.S. 
businessmen.  Other U.S. guests included SECDEFREPEUR Evan 
Galbraith, the American provost of the European College of 
Liberal Arts - Berlin, two visiting OPIC officials, and three 
officers representing the First Marine Expeditionary Force 
(1MEF).  Also present was Tadashi Maeda, a Deputy DG of the 
Japan Bank for International Cooperation. 
 
4. Under the direction of Al-Gaood, attendees of the meeting 
formed into four committees, focusing on political, security, 
tribal, and economic issues, to present to the U.S. delegates 
their grievances and advice on how to proceed. 
 
-------------------- 
POLITICAL COMPLAINTS 
-------------------- 
 
5. The political committee, composed of professors, 
ex-generals, and other notables, opened the conference with a 
wide range of complaints about perceived mistakes and 
breaches of faith made by the former CPA and the current 
American advisors and supporters of the Iraqi interim 
government (IIG).  Committee members, with strong support 
from the audience, worried that the USG planned to weaken the 
unity of Iraq and said that the upcoming National Assembly 
was undemocratically chosen and unfairly weighted in favor of 
the members of the former Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). 
They denounced the supposed excesses of the occupation and 
the waste caused by de-Baathification, and they accused the 
USG of profiting from Iraq,s institutional collapse 
following the U.S. entry to Baghdad and questioned its true 
willingness to withdraw from Iraq if asked. 
 
6. The Americans on the panel, in response to the criticism 
of the National Assembly selection process, suggested that 
Anbar province look into conducting its own province-wide 
election to choose its National Assembly representatives. 
Members of the political committee and of the audience felt 
that this plan was unworkable. 
 
----------------- 
SECURITY CONCERNS 
----------------- 
 
7. The security committee, composed primarily of former 
generals in the Iraqi army, denounced the decision by the CPA 
to dissolve the former Iraqi army, criticized the level of 
professionalism of the New Iraqi Army (NIA) that is being 
built as a replacement, and called for the old army to be 
reconstituted under Iraqi command as soon as possible.  They 
expressed their concern that promotion in the NIA depended 
more on officers, and NCOs, performance in NIA training 
than it did on military experience.  They also pointed out 
that many NIA officers, who they claimed were eligible for 
such a post because they had been dismissed by Saddam, were 
dismissed for reasons of incompetence rather than disloyalty. 
 Conversely, not all officers who had remained in the old 
army were strong Saddam loyalists.  The committee expressed 
its opinion that the NIA soldiers and officers were primarily 
loyal to their religion, party, or ethnicity, rather than to 
Iraq, and noted its visceral dislike of NIA uniforms and 
doctrine, which they judged to be too much like that of the 
U.S. Army. 
 
8. A committee member accused the U.S. of deliberately 
inciting criminal activity while diminishing the ability of 
the police to respond.  The committee complained that Iraqi 
police were undermanned and underequipped, and that 
de-Baathification had left them deprived of their best and 
most experienced members.  The Iraqi police forces had also 
received very little ammunition. 
 
9. One Kirkuk-based sheikh on the committee presented his 
views on the unfolding security situation in Kirkuk, to 
general approbation from the audience.  He accused the KDP 
and PUK of attempting ethnic cleansing, harassing Arabs and 
kidnapping all those who hindered their work, while 
simultaneously falsely recording Kurdish babies born 
elsewhere as having Kirkuk as birthplace.  He called for a 
return in Kirkuk to the status quo ante bellum. 
 
10. The committee and the audience voiced their discontent 
with the inadequacy of reparations paid to families who had 
had members killed or injured or had had property damaged in 
the course of coalition operations. They expressed their 
frustration with allegedly baseless coalition actions such as 
the exile of Ramadi-based Sheikh Abdulrazzak Al Kherbith 
(phonetic) from Al-Anbar by the 1MEF at the instigation of 
the supposedly corrupt Anbar provincial governor.  (According 
to 1MEF LNO, the desicion was made and enforced by the 
governor without 1MEF involvement.)  Finally, they expressed 
their satisfaction that the USG was finally reacting against 
Iranian infiltration. 
 
-------------- 
TRIBAL DEMANDS 
-------------- 
 
11. The tribal committee, composed entirely of tribal sheikhs 
from central and western Iraqi tribes, proposed a ten-point 
program including coalition recognition of the tribal nature 
of Iraqi society, the end of de-Baathification and 
reinstitution of the old Iraqi army and Interior Ministry 
personnel, a referendum on the form of government (monarchy 
vs. republic) that Iraq should have in the future, and an 
eventual full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.  In return for these 
concessions and an allocation of one fifth of all Iraqi 
government revenues to the primary tribal sheikhs, these 
sheikhs would undertake to help restore security. 
 
--------------- 
ECONOMIC ADVICE 
--------------- 
 
12. The economic committee, composed primarily of economic 
policymakers within the GOI under the previous regime, had as 
its primary concern the privatization of Iraq,s industrial 
sector.  The committee opposed rapid privatization of Iraq,s 
state-owned enterprises (SOEs), for several reasons.  Members 
noted the lack of a proper regulatory and security 
environment for private enterprise, and expressed their fears 
that many of the 200,000 employees of SOEs would lose their 
jobs. 
 
13. More revealing concerns included the worry that the lack 
of Iraqis with capital sufficient to invest in buying SOEs 
would allow foreign investors - or, even worse, members of 
the IIG and their associates - to buy the companies at 
fire-sale rates.  Closely related to this latter concern was 
an ill-defined proposal by the committee that a law be passed 
providing for full transparency on all dealings of the 
government, so that IIG members would remain "politicians, 
not businessmen."  Committee members, with agreement from the 
audience, excoriated the undemocratic manner in which Bremer 
had made decisions on the economy and the supposed negative 
effects of, among other things, his unilateral lifting of 
tariffs, but left the impression that their primary worry was 
that the IIG would follow Bremer,s example - and use their 
economic decision-making powers to enrich themselves. 
 
14. The committee did not oppose all privatization.  Instead, 
it took a more nuanced approach, calling for a phased 
privatization to follow the return of prices to more rational 
levels.  Committee members noted the artificially low prices 
of oil products in comparison with other commodities such as 
water, and implied that no privatization could happen while 
such distortions remained in the economy.  The committee also 
put forward an scheme in which foreign investors would be 
allowed to invest in privatized companies by putting money in 
Iraqi banks, which would be allowed to purchase shares in 
such companies. 
 
15. The committee showed some flexibility regarding the oil 
and gas sector.  While they noted that foreign ownership of 
oil rights was "a red line for Iraqis," they admitted that 
proper oil and gas exploration and exploitation could not be 
done with the resources available to Iraqis.  The committee 
proposed that the downstream oil sector be opened to foreign 
companies, and that foreign companies be given contracts 
(supposedly like those arranged with Saddam by French and 
Russian companies before the war) in which they could earn 
back invested capital with a fixed, pre-arranged profit, 
before turning over their rights to Iraq. 
 
16. Other complaints by the conference participants - mostly 
from outside the committee - included predictable indignation 
over the relative lack of contracts and subcontracts awarded 
to their own businesses and those of their friends, 
allegations that neighbors were taking more than their fair 
share of Iraq,s water, and worries about lack of supplies 
for the agriculture sector.  Participants also complained 
that the U.S.-led campaign to get Iraq,s creditors to write 
down Iraqi debt was actually increasing it, as the U.S. 
allegedly took inflated claims by foreign countries at face 
value and tried to negotiate down from those levels; Iraqis 
should be in charge of these negotiations instead, they said. 
 
17. Aftermath: In response to some of the concerns expressed 
at the conference and at side meetings, 1MEF has decided to 
form a Tiger Team to address problems brought to it in the 
future by the Iraqis of Al-Anbar province.  On the Iraqi 
side, there is substantial interest in follow-up meetings, 
and a committee has been formed, with permanent 
responsibility for advocacy of the views expressed by the 
Iraqi side of the meeting and for interfacing with 1MEF.  A 
July 27-29 Al-Anbar business conference held in Amman, 
sponsored primarily by 1MEF and organized by the 
Jordan-American Business Association, drew a large contingent 
of Iraqis from Al-Anbar province, many of whom had made 
initial contact with the 1MEF through the July 19-20 meetings. 
 
18. Baghdad minimize considered. 
HALE