For three consecutive nights last week the former commander of the Iraqi security forces in Mosul appeared on a late-night television show to try to clear his name after accusations that he had been responsible for the fall of the strategic city to the Islamic State (IS) terror group in June. While trying to put the blame for the stunning defeat squarely on other top officers, Mahdi Al-Gharawi said that deep sectarianism and infighting within the ranks of the Iraqi army could be the main reason behind the disaster. A parliamentary committee formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the city's fall and the subsequent rise of IS has meanwhile got into trouble after accusations by Sunni lawmakers of a hidden political and sectarian agenda. The revelations and the ensuing row might have startling implications for US efforts to help Iraq rebuild its security forces to battle IS and regain the territories it has occupied. In his three-part interview Al-Gharawi implicated former defence minister Sadoun Al-Dulaimi, Deputy Chief of Staff Aboud Gambar, Commander of Land Forces Ali Ghaidan and Governor of Mosul Atheel Al-Nujaifi in the IS seizure of Mosul. Al-Gharawi was in charge of the Nineveh Province Operations Command which had several army and police brigades under its control and was tasked with defending Mosul and surrounding towns against IS. Various estimates put the number of soldiers in Nineveh before the IS onslaught as 50,000 to 70,000, based on official accounts of the military units under the Nineveh Province Operations Command. Al-Gharawi told the Al-Baghdadiya Television network, however, that there were only about 7,000 soldiers in Nineveh prior to the attack. He said the force was ill-equipped and he had had to supply them with arms and ammunition bought on the black market. “There was not a single piece of artillery or tank in Mosul,” he said. On 10 June the terror group seized control of Iraq's third-largest city in a blitz attack, putting the security forces to flight in a spectacular show of strength against the Shia-led Baghdad government. The capture of Mosul dealt a serious blow to Baghdad's efforts to fight IS, which regained ground and momentum in Iraq in the months following a Sunni uprising against the government of former Shia prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki. As militants overrun the city, the remaining soldiers discarded their uniforms and weapons and fled their posts, leaving behind them huge quantities of weapons and equipment worth millions of dollars. Thousands of families, mostly Christians, Kurds and Shia, also fled Mosul towards nearby Kurdish cities. The militants killed thousands of members of religious minorities and ordered others to convert to Islam, pay “tribute” money, or leave Mosul. At the time soldiers interviewed by the media said they had received orders to quit Mosul after militants captured most of the city including army bases and prisons. The soldiers and the fleeing locals described Mosul as being in “total chaos” after the IS seizure. The Islamist radicals later pushed through and seized vast swathes of territory in four other provinces, forcing troops and police to retreat. The Shia-led government in Baghdad relied heavily on Iran-backed Shia militias to stave off the IS offensive and regain some of the lost territory. The imbroglio stunned most Iraqis, with many of them wondering how a hundreds-of-thousands strong military that costs the treasury nearly half the national budget could have been defeated by a small, poorly equipped and barely funded foe. Many Iraqis have called for bringing those officers who failed to provide leadership in the heavy defeat to account. Al-Maliki, who was also commander-in-chief of the armed force at the time, refused to take responsibility or order an investigation. Unabashed, he fought a bitter battle to stay in power after April's election, despite strong opposition to his bid for a third term. In November, the Iraqi parliament formed a 16-member committee to investigate the fall of Mosul. At the core of its task was to sort out who in the government and the military leadership were behind the strategic follies in Mosul and the subsequent operational deficiencies in the security forces. The committee has thus far interviewed Gambar and Ghaidan, but the proceedings were postponed after complaints of a sectarian agenda by the Shia head of the committee and its Shia members. The country's Sunni-oriented media have accused the panel of trying to implicate Sunni and former Baathist officers and officials in the fall of Mosul. Last week the parliament added three more Sunni members to the committee in a bid to strike a balance in its make-up and decided to summon all civilian and military officials involved in the Mosul conflict and its aftermath to the inquiry. Some Sunni lawmakers who fear a whitewash have demanded that the committee question Al-Maliki who is now vice-president and may use his immunity to skip it. In his version of the story, Al-Gharawi tried to imply that Al-Maliki was a victim of the situation and blamed top military commanders of deceiving the former prime minister. Al-Gharawi was one of Al-Maliki's most trusted generals and his testimony could allow suspicions to accelerate. Accusations against Al-Maliki have come from important sources. Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has repeatedly said that Al-Maliki was responsible for the defeat of the army in Mosul. In several statements and interviews Barzani has said that he warned Al-Maliki about the risk of Nineveh province falling and IS movements to the west of the city. Al-Maliki has denied receiving a phone call from Barzani before the IS attack on the city. He has also accused Barzani of complicity in the IS takeover of Mosul and of harbouring terrorists in Erbil, Kurdistan's provincial capital. The blame game provides a rare insight into the Iraqi military's command, control and communication systems. Though reports about rampant corruption, inefficiency and sectarianism in the Iraqi army have long been rife, the exchange has revealed an entirely dysfunctional and demoralised military. Even before conclusions are drawn by the committee Al-Maliki's successor, Haider Al-Abadi, has begun to purge the security forces of corrupt and incompetent officers. He has fired dozens of officers and announced the discovery and removal of 50,000 “ghost army” soldiers from the pay rolls. Still, the scandalous disclosure about the military's failure is expected to have severe consequences on efforts to rebuild a professional army and plans to retake Mosul and other areas seized by IS, probably in the spring. It could also undermine efforts to launch national reconciliation and ensure a broader participation of Sunnis in the government and security forces, a demand made by Sunni politicians to participate in Al-Abadi's government and to join in fighting IS. As Iraqi officials squabble over responsibility for Mosul's fall, the pressing question for the US Obama administration remains how the chaos inside the Iraqi security forces and the malfunctioning of its command will impact the US engagement in Iraq. The IS advances in Iraq prompted US President Barack Obama earlier to abandon his policy of non-interference in Iraq and re-engage in the war-torn country both militarily and politically. He immediately ordered air strikes against IS and unveiled a strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militant group. According to the Obama plan, the US will help train, equip and advise the Iraqi security forces in order to improve their combat skills. The plan also calls for arming a Sunni force including members of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's army to fight against IS and help stabilise the Sunni-dominated provinces. This approach also entails efforts to allow Sunnis a bigger say in the Baghdad government and some provincial autonomy. If after eleven years the Iraqi military remains fraught with sectarianism, suspicion and distrust, allowing IS to rise and seize nearly one-third of the country, the question is how the United States can help rebuild it to defeat the terrorist organisation without repeating the same rituals as before. In 2003, under US pressure many of the former ruling Baath Party's ex-officers were allowed to join the new Iraqi army, established following the dismantling of Saddam's. Among them were al-Gharawi, Ghaidan and Ganbar, along with hundreds of officers who later took command of the security forces. Though these former Saddam army officers were Shias, like the three generals in question, many Iraqis remained sceptical about their political loyalty. When the Iraqi army collapsed, it was Shia militia backed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards who were called in to defend the Baghdad government.
