Page 240 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

742 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

violent for the first time. Overall, it was mainly an enemy-centred and authorities-centred
operation.
In all phases of this deployment though, the international forces in the south under British
divisional command kept the consent of the Iraqi people strongly in mind. The ultimate goal
from the beginning was to hand over responsibilities to a new democratic Iraqi authority,
theoretically with broad support of the population. Activities for the benefit of this popula-
tion were not a main objective of the multinational force, but it was an additional means to
achieve trying to win their hearts and minds in support of the mission, and a means to make
them self-sufficient enough to run their own country as soon as possible. Being population-
focused was part of the exit-strategy and was seen as necessary in order to achieve the end-
state goals.
Operational guidelines to the Dutch battle group from divisional headquarters in Basra
and from the American headquarters of the Multi-National Forces (MNF) in Bagdad, always
emphasized that it was important to make perceptible gains in the quality of life of the Iraqi
people. This was needed in order to win their support for the new Iraqi government and to
cause them to withdraw support or resist the insurgents, who de-stabilized the country with
growing success from the summer of 2003 onwards. Population-focused in this case also
meant shaping Iraqi perceptions. The Iraqi population had to be informed about reconstruc-
tion projects and improvements made by the international effort. Such ‘information opera-
tions’ became an important part of the mission.
The British general commanding the international forces in Southern Iraq including the
Dutch battle group made his intentions very clear in an operational order in which he stated:
“Our continued presence and ability to assist the Iraqi Security Forces depends entirely upon
the consent of the Iraqi people. That, in turn, will be largely determined by how their ex-
pectations for a better quality of life are met through economic development and improving
essential services. All this needs to be backed up by the Iraqis developing their own form of
workable democracy.” It was, his guidelines stated, imperative not to behave as occupying
forces, but to allow the Iraqi’s themselves to lead the reconstruction process. 4
In this particular case, a lot of money was available for so-called civil-military coopera-
tion (CIMIC) projects. The Netherlands armed forces battle group spend millions of dollars
on reconstruction and development on the local level. The money was allocated through mili-
tary channels, originating from American taxpayer funds awarded by US Congress through
the Pentagon, from Iraqi oil export earnings controlled by the occupation authority and from
seized accounts of the former Iraqi regime. In general, the effectiveness of these reconstruc-
tion and development efforts by the military contingents, like the Commander’s Emergency
Response Programme (CERP), was considered to be high, with good results on employment,
structural development and winning hearts and minds. 5
Whether this overall approach in the end can be seen as a success or a failure is debatable.
Clearly, the Dutch armed forces left Al Muthanna in time to claim a major success. The prov-
ince fared relatively well, despite the apparent failures of the American-British occupation
authority on both the national en regional levels in the first year, and despite the major opera-

4 Netherlands Institute of Military History, Stabilisation Force Iraq collection.
5 eric Herring and Glen Rangwala, Iraq in fragments. The occupation and its legacy (Londen 2006) 76-81.