What has hindered Iraq from building of an effective intelligence apparatus, despite daily confrontations with terrorist forces in a fight that, by all measures, is sufficiently expansive to induce learning, increase knowledge and prompt reassessment? On May 3, the Security and Defense Committee blamed security lapses on the intelligence services’ lack of aptitude and vigilance, leading to their failure to understand IS' movements and maneuvering. Based on a closer analysis of the conduct of the political forces running the country, however, such a blanket accusation reveals itself to be unjust.
All state institutions, including the security agencies, have fallen victim to the political quota system, enabling the appointment of incompetent individuals to leadership positions on the basis of political loyalties rather than ability and national needs. Shuruq al-Abaji, a Civil Democratic Alliance parliamentarian, warned March 23 of sectarian quotas undermining standards of competence, integrity and the capacity to practice politics.
Since 2003, the political parties and factions have been seeking their own share of the Iraqi intelligence services in addition to their own intelligence. This was reiterated March 9 by the fierce competition among the parties over who should head the intelligence service.
The application of the quota system to the security agencies, which require particular coordinative aptitudes, has rendered them unable to form unified commands and deprived them of the mechanisms required for joint coordination, information gathering and analysis. Having failed to protect its intelligence agencies from a political system predicated on partisan quotas, the Iraqi political establishment has also as a consequence failed to guarantee their independence.
As a result, the intelligence agencies have become fragmented, dominated by cliques of incompetent individuals and infiltrated by political parties and other exploitative factions.
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