In the sheiks' hands (The Power Held by Iraqi Tribal Leaders) [View All]

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/09/1068329422566.html

The tribal leaders of Iraq are pivotal in ending the violence against US forces and securing the nation's peace. But the Americans do not understand their power, writes Paul McGeough in the second part of an investigation.

IT IS evening in Baghdad. In the sitting room of his home, the political scientist Wamidh Nadhmi had quickly traversed the history of the Iraq tribes and now he's demanding an answer: "Why don't the Americans simply demand that the sheiks provide law and order?"

Later, Dr Abdul Hamid Al Rawi, from the College of Political Science at the University of Baghdad, enters the debate on the tribes from a different angle: "As long as a tribe is big and powerful, then its sheik is big and powerful. Despite the efforts of the British and the monarchy it installed, and the renegades who plotted against it and its successor republics, the tribes still exist.

"They have survived the confiscation of much of the sheiks' sprawling land holdings, being stripped of much of their powers, and, when he became desperate, Saddam's appointment of what became known as the 'Swiss sheiks' - ring-ins who were not born into sheik families but who the former president believed would run the tribes according to his will.


"If the US works with the tribes in the right way, they might succeed. The tribes could provide security and protection for local directorates, hospitals, schools and factories. The tribes are able to provide stability and to be a dependable ally for the US in neighbourhood affairs.

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Good investigative piece.

"This is what the British did in the 1920s - they supported Sheik Abdul Razak Ali Sulieman. He was the Sheik of Sheiks of the Dulame tribe and they gave him the authority of a governor over the western region of Iraq."

Important question: could today's sheiks stop the attacks on the US?