Dep PM: "I was Mistaken" in Joining Govt

Al-Monitor: Do you have a vision for a way out of the crisis Iraq is experiencing? You stress a political solution, but can a terrorist group like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [ISIS, now calling itself the Islamic State] be confronted through politics alone?

Mutlaq: A political solution can unite the positions of Shiites and Sunni tribes. This will provide a chance to first isolate armed groups and then fight them and expel them easily, as happened in previous years when the authentic Iraqi tribes came together and expelled al-Qaeda overnight. Moreover, a political solution can contribute to lifting the injustice from large segments of Iraqi society and restoring their rights, which they lost as a result of unjust decisions and laws put in place during the days of the occupation.

[These decisions and laws] became a sword hanging on the necks of the people, and canceling these laws will necessarily lead to unifying Iraqi society and strengthening national unity again.

Al-Monitor: In your opinion, how did Mosul fall? You are the deputy prime minister, and you have adequate information on the security situation in Iraq. How could the army collapse in this way?

Mutlaq:  The truth is we did not participate or offer advice for a single day in managing the security file or any issue relating to this file. These issues were confined at all times to the commander in chief of the armed forces and the office of the commander in chief alone. We believe that the fall of Mosul into the hands of terrorist groups was a natural result of the policies of faulty structuring of the Iraqi armed forces, which led to a clear malfunction in the military doctrine and known defense mechanisms.

Furthermore, a soldier must arm himself first and foremost out of love for the nation, loyalty to the people and faith in nationalist issues, rather than thinking about joining the ranks of the army as merely a means to provide him material resources. Thus, we stress that the malfunction was clear and we had warned about it many times.