BASRA, Iraq -- Dr. Assad Issa, director of the Ibn Ghazwan Pediatrics Hospital here, is not a policeman, but he is being forced to act like one. Looters who want to steal equipment or medicine come regularly to his hospital. Gunmen, demanding treatment for relatives, have threatened his staff. The other day, the hospital's only bus was hijacked
We need security, Issa says. We can't work like this. The doctor spent the first week after Basra fell to coalition forces staying up at night with his colleagues, guarding his patients and the hospital with wooden clubs. This is not our job, Issa says.
His predicament illustrates a major shortcoming in the strategy of the United States and its coalition partners in Iraq, one that was also seen in Afghanistan a year ago: The failure of coalition forces to provide adequate security in a post-conflict power vacuum. For those of us who worked in post-Taliban Afghanistan, these stories bring a sense of deja vu. We have seen what happens when post- conflict security problems are ignored, and it isn't pretty.
In Basra, and in many other cities in Iraq, traffic is flowing more freely, and shops stay open later, but local populations continue to be terrorized by crime and general lawlessness.
Now a new problem is starting to emerge. In An Nasiriyah and other areas, police forces are being re-established at the direction of U.S. and British forces. Many of the police may have participated in the repression under Saddam Hussein's rule. Few have been properly vetted, and some Iraqis although welcoming efforts to stop lawlessness are anxious about the police being rearmed.
In some cities, newly organized militias have started to take security into their own hands. Many of these groups seem to have their own agendas. Some are aiming to seize control of security operations and exert political power.
When the Taliban were forced from power in Afghanistan in late 2001, the United States and its coalition partners opted for a strategy of nation-building lite, entrusting security to militia leaders and warlords with terrible human rights records. America transported some warlords back to their former fiefdoms and rearmed and financed them or simply stood by while warlords seized control of army, police and intelligence facilities.
Almost everywhere in Afghanistan, local populations complained about the strategy, and asked for international peacekeepers to be deployed outside of Kabul. The United States refused.
Human Rights Watch recently completed a research mission in southeastern Afghanistan. Amazingly, we found that many ordinary Afghans are less secure than they were a year ago. In addition to resurgent Taliban activity, we found major problems with Afghanistan's police, army and intelligence forces the same people the United States put in place after defeating the Taliban.
In many areas, police officers are turning into criminals at night raiding homes, stealing valuables and even raping young women and girls. Local warlords are fighting each other in several provinces. In the south of the country, aid programs and demining projects have been stopped because of attacks by Taliban remnants, some of whom secretly enjoy the support of local warlords.
Even in Kabul, warlords are a problem. Some leaders are using heavy-handed tactics to stifle dissent and free expression, threatening journalists while arresting and torturing political dissidents and civic organizers.
One journalist, after he had written an article critical of the powerful Afghan defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, described a visit by his fighters. Look, one of the gunmen told the journalist. We have 30 bullets in our clips. I can shoot all of these 30 bullets into your chest right now, and there is no one who can stop us. Fahim is one of America's closest allies in Afghanistan.
The coalition policy of playing down security problems and relying on local enforcers has failed in Afghanistan, and it will fail again in Iraq. America and its coalition partners urgently need to increase peacekeeping forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Denying security and human rights protections to people of both countries only compounds their misery and creates mistrust of America.
John Sifton and Sam Zia-Zarifi are researchers for Afghanistan and Iraq at Human Rights Watch.
