Part I - Sadr and the Labor Unions

Two and a half years ago, Steven Vincent, author of "In the Red Zone" was killed in Basra for reporting the truth that is still relevant today: Basra is the Sopranos on Steroids.

In his last report in the New York Times, July 31, 2005, Vincent wrote:

As has been widely reported of late, Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Recruited from the same population of undereducated, underemployed men who swell these organizations' ranks, many of Basra's rank-and-file police officers maintain dual loyalties to mosque and state.

In May, the city's police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

[continued in flash traffic]

As the elections approached, Sadr found himself relatively "out gunned" by Iranian backed, advised and financed SCIRI and DAWA parties, particularly in the south. He and his followers threatened to boycott the elections, just as the Sunni did, as a US rigged publicity stunt. In fact, he did boycott the elections, which meant that SCIRI and DAWA took many of the local provincial and city government seats. Sistani put pressure on both the SCIRI/DAWA and Sadr movements to maintain Shia unity to insure their dominance in the elections. SCIRI/DAWA gave Sadr thirty seats in the parliament, several ministries and cabinet positions and some provincial government seats. In exchange, Sadr did not oppose Maliki's selection as Prime Minister.

However, Sadr was not satisfied with this bargain. Down Basra way, the real money and political power lay. Um Qasr is the port, but Basra is the gateway city through which all commerce flows. Huge oil and natural gas fields populate the area along with large refineries and main pipelines. Cargo, imports, exports and every sort of legal and illegal goods came through either the port or through nearby points of entrance from Iran. Huge sums of reconstruction money along with political seats meant unmitigated wealth and power for whoever held the reins. Vincent wrote July 26, 2005:

Not surprisingly, given Basra's dilapidated condition, contracting is big business. Not only for the city's numerous contractors, but also for the crooked politicians, parasitical religious parties and criminal gangs who take their cut from every construction job, creating a business climate that combines the accountability of Tammany Hall with the law and order of 1920s Chicago.[snip]

Not that I didn't know anything about Basra-style corruption. In our travels across the city, Layla and I have fielded ceaseless complaints of extortion, protection rackets, employment featherbedding, nepotism, bid rigging, influence-peddling--it's impossible to talk to Basra businesspeople and not hear such woes. Mention, for example, the province's Governing Council and contractors will grimace, close their eyes and shake their heads. (One GC member oversaw a multi-million project to extend a street in downtown Basra; a year has gone by and so far no extension--meanwhile, the politician now lives in a $5 million home near the British Embassy.)

Then there was the highly-placed official in the Electrical Transmission Directorate who admitted to us that the government pays the notorious Garamsha tribe to protect high-voltage power lines from--well, the Garamsha themselves. A businesswoman complained that if you're not affiliated with a religious party, your low bid--even for projects involving international NGOs--will have difficulty finding acceptance. The owner of a cargo-hauling company described the port of Um Qasr as a veritable On the Waterfront-like scene of smuggling, theft and looting--which, when accused of complicity in the crimes, the former port manager blamed on--who else?--corrupt Americans.

With the Badr/SCIRI taking control of the public offices and doling out contracts to cronies and those who could afford to give some basheesh/kickbacks, Sadr went after the poor, undereducated and unemployed. He took over local mosques in extremely poor areas and took his message directly to the people. The Badr/SCIRI organizations gave him a ready made message where he denounced the corruption and thievery of the politicians, blaming the long and still painful poverty on the central government and the Americans.

Sadr concentrated on the laborers who were only able to get work through tribal or political connections. His followers joined the labor unions and the police, they became gangs of kidnappers, hi-jackers and shake down artists.

The people of Basra were squeezed somewhere in the middle by the two competing "Dons" of Basrah. If the gangs weren't stealing directly from the port, they were using their knowledge of convoys to alert militias for hi-jacking or ambushes, skimming oil and gasoline, extorting protection money (which didn't protect anyone from the gang down the road) and various other schemes to get money to both finance the insurgency and provide services to further recruit followers.

For the Iraq economy and the potential foreign investors, the ganglands of the south are an incapacitating obstacle.