What are Iraq’s Benchmarks?

What are Iraq’s Benchmarks?
Author:
Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer
May 15, 2007
From the Council on Foreign Relations website

Introduction
Thus far Iraqi leaders have rejected calls from Washington for a timetable to achieve certain benchmarks as a precondition for U.S. military and financial support. President Bush, too, had shied away from attaching strings—or political benchmarks in Baghdad—to the U.S. funding of his surge plan to secure central Iraq. But earlier this month, the president admitted “it makes sense to have benchmarks as a part of our discussion on how to go forward.” These benchmarks include national reconciliation in Iraq, a reversal of a de-Baathification plan, and the passage of an oil law that equitably distributes revenues among the country’s warring factions. A progress report is expected by September from General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, at which point lawmakers in Washington will reassess whether to curb additional emergency war funding or push for phased troop withdrawals.
What exactly is meant by ‘benchmarks’?
Sometimes referred to as “milestones,” benchmarks refer to specific objectives—or rather quantifiable measures of progress toward a future goal—for the Iraqi government to meet with regards to national reconciliation, security, economic performance, and governance. The goal of these benchmarks is to pressure Iraq’s leaders to make political progress and start taking over responsibility for security from American troops. “The purpose is to infuse a sense of urgency into the political process in Baghdad,” says Andrew Exum of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This has been found lacking, he adds, as evidenced by Iraqi lawmakers’ recent push for a two-month summer vacation.
How does one define progress?
“I want to see life starting to come back,” Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) tells the New York Times. “I want to see people in markets.” But others lawmakers are pressing for more specific metrics to gauge whether or not the surge is working. “The key question is: What have we won?” asks Exum. “Have we set the Iraqi government on a path toward stabilization or reconciliation? Or have we just won the right to stay in the country for another six months?” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dismisses specific metrics and points instead to one specific question: “[D]o the people in Baghdad feel more secure today?” he asked reporters last month. “If not, then all the other metrics may be of interest but aren’t as compelling as that one is to me.” One problem, argues W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is that Iraqi and American lawmakers hold different interpretations of what progress means. “[Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki] thinks he is doing the right thing by consolidating Shiite Arab power in Iraq,” he says.
What are the specific benchmarks laid out?
Experts say benchmarks range in specificity and achievability. They include reaching an agreement on the status of Kirkuk, meeting certain economic criteria like a targeted annual growth of 10 percent (last year growth was just 4 percent), and reducing subsidies on energy and food, which cost Iraq’s economy roughly $11 billion per year, according to the Iraq Study Group. But the most-discussed benchmarks, as outlined in President Bush’s January 2007 speech, include:
Holding provincial elections. Because Sunnis mostly boycotted December 2005 provincial elections, local governments are primarily dominated by Shiites in the south and center and Kurds in the north. The Bush administration is pushing the Shiite-led government to hold fresh elections at the local level to reverse this imbalance, allow a Sunni buy-in, and pave the way toward greater reconciliation. But CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali R. Nasr warns that provincial elections alone will not solve Iraq’s political woes. “The idea that elections will produce leaders you want to work with applies if you are working in a peaceful environment,” he says. “Unless the insurgents are running for office and come to the polls, it doesn’t matter.”
Passage of oil revenue-sharing law. An oil law drafted in February, as this Backgrounder outlines, has left Iraq’s leaders bitterly divided. It has drawn criticisms from Iraq’s Sunnis, who prefer a stronger role for the central government, and from Kurds, who prefer a stronger role for the regional authorities. The majority Shiites have sought to mollify the Sunnis by keeping control of Iraq’s oil sector in Baghdad, not the provinces. Most of Iraq’s oil rests in the Kurdish north or Shiite south, not in the Sunni heartland. The role of outside investors, as well as the classification of old versus new oil fields, also remains unsettled.The oil issue has sparked some disagreement in the U.S. Congress. Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) says the benchmark as stated in the bill before Congress calls primarily for the privatization of Iraq’s oil, not the equal redistribution of revenues. But others say the oil law, despite its flaws, is necessary for Iraqis to develop their untapped oil reserves and reap the profits.
Reversal of de-Baathification laws. White House officials have pressed the Maliki government to reverse laws that bar tens of thousands of low-to-mid-ranking ex-Baath Party officers from government posts. This move is part of a larger effort to make constitutional concessions to minority groups like Sunni Arabs. But it faces intense opposition from more conservative and religious Shiite members of Iraq’s parliament.
Amending Iraq’s constitution. The Sunnis favor an amendment to stanch the formal breakup of Iraq into regional states divided along sectarian lines. They fear the Shiites will seek a federal state in the south modeled along the lines of Iraqi Kurdistan, which would cut into the Sunnis’ share of political power and revenue. But the amendment process is purposefully difficult, says Nathan Brown, an Islamic legal scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. To change the document, the Iraqi parliament must first form a committee, which then proposes a package of amendments. Next, the parliament votes on the amendments as a package, not individually, and this requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of amendments must then win approval from the public in a nationwide referendum, requiring two-thirds approval from at least three of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. “[The system’s] structured so that the constitution will not develop significant changes,” Brown says.
Spending of reconstruction funds. One benchmark is the fair distribution across the country’s provinces and various ethnic groups of $10 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds, as allocated in the Iraqi government’s budget. The monies are aimed at building infrastructure, improving services, and creating jobs for all Iraqis, but parliament cannot agree on how to equitably disperse the funds.
What happens if Baghdad fails to meet these benchmarks?
The consequences of failure remain unclear. Some Democratic lawmakers have pushed for a freezing of aid funds to Iraq, while others have sought a more rapid withdrawal, or redeployment, of troops. White House officials say performance benchmarks should not be linked to troop deployments and reconstruction aid disbursements—that is, the consequences of Iraqi inaction should not include imposing limits on the ability of U.S. military leaders or the president to carry out the war. But as Exum points out, “Having benchmarks is worthless unless you have consequences.” The trouble, says Lang, is that Iraqis do not believe there will be serious consequences if they fail to achieve these benchmarks. “Iraqis are every bit as smart as we are,” he says. “Realistically they can figure out that the chances we would pull the plug and leave is just about zero.” Similar U.S.-imposed benchmarks set for the South Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War achieved little, he adds.