Iraq after Saddam Hussein
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Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government collapsed in 2003 following the invasion of Iraq by a small coalition of nations led by the United States and the United Kingdom. After the governmental collapsed, the United States and the United Kingdom, with the assistance of several other nations (including Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Australia and Japan) and United Nations authorization, established a provisional authority whose publicly stated goal is to provide for Iraqis' basic needs and help in the creation of a new democratically elected government following the end of the Ba'ath government.
On January 30, 2005. the transitional parliamentary elections took place. See: Iraqi legislative election, 2005.
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Government structure
The immediate post-Saddam governmental authority in Iraq is the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (OHRA). This body was initially led by U.S. General Jay Garner; however he was rather quickly replaced by civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer. ORHA shares some authority with the Interim Iraq Governing Council (IIGC), an appointed body.
Challenges
ORHA and the IIGC face many immediate challenges as basic as food, water, and electricity. Iraq is a nation recovering from years of totalitarian rule, economic sanctions, and several wars, including the 2003 invasion itself.
Establishing a Civil Society
After years of dictatorship, Iraq has virtually no civil society to serve as a necessary backbone to a democratic process. Any civil society under the Hussein regime was either tightly controlled or eliminated as a threat, or possible threat, to the regime. This is part of nation-building that is perhaps most difficult; examples of the consequences of failure can be seen in Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other nations around the world. Lack of a civil society generally leads to anarchy or back to dictatorship, either of which would be intolerable for a nation's citizens and could conceivably be a threat to global national security.
Violence and instability
There has been violence and instability continually in Iraq since the fall of the Hussein government. Much of this violence has been directed against foreign troops serving in the part of the nation called the "Sunni Triangle"; however there have also been attacks in other parts of the country and against Iraqis seen as as assisting the western military forces. The majority of these attacks seem to be by members of the Sunni branch of Islam who were granted special privileges in the Ba'ath Party and may wish to regain a central role in Iraqi politics. However, there have been a number of violent groups at work in Iraq, and it is not immediately clear whether and to what extent the resistance is organized or united.
Iraqi concerns
The main concerns of those opposing the post-Saddam government, both violently and politically, seem to be (not in order of importance):
Ba'ath Party/Sunni power
While officially secular, the Ba'ath Party was largely made up of Sunni Muslims, while the majority of Iraqis are Shiite. This category is representative of both those formerly high-ranking Sunnis who are seeking to use violence to regain power and the attacks motivated by revenge for the crimes, or perceived crimes, of former members of the Ba'ath Party.
Ethnic & religious freedom
One effect of Hussein's ethnic and religious favoritism and oppression is that the various religious and ethnic groups in Iraq are extremely distrustful of each other. There is concern that any new Iraqi government will again begin opressing the rights of one group or another in order to gain political advantage.
National sovereignty
Some have expressed the belief that the American led government will not truly allow a democratic process to establish itself in Iraq, with the possibility of Iraq electing some sort of fundamentalist regime to power - or indeed any government hostile to the interests of the United States.
International Concerns
Many countries have expressed some of the same concerns that the Iraqis themselves have about the country post Saddam: about Iraqi self-determination and ethnic and religious freedoms. Foreign nations have largely focused on the issue of possible American influence, whether sought or unsought, in the future Iraqi governmental process and economy.
The Iraqi insurgency
Main article: Iraqi insurgency
There have been frequent claims made, by both U.S. government officials and others, that Saddam Hussein had contacts with officials in al-Qaeda, the organization considered by many to be responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. This has since been largely rebuked by US and other intelligence sources.
Historically Saddam did support Palestinian causes; however, this seems to have largely been in the form financial support for the families of suicide bombers. This was part of Hussein's attempts to become a pan-Arab leader.
Western military officials also frequently identify Iraqi militants as "terrorists," although others may consider them to be freedom fighters. As always, the application and use of this label depends on one's point of view and specific circumstances - defining these terms in a neutral way is difficult.