Iraq's former PM Abadi criticizes Dawa Party, defends Kirkuk actions

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in an interview with Rudaw published on July 29, 2019  he would remain a member of his Dawa Party to improve its standing, despite his grievances with and resignation from the party, saying he will not give up on decades of history. He also criticized his party for its failure to adapt and its lack of necessary outreach with people.

He chided the current Iraqi government for its large expenses and failure to rebuild the country’s security forces. These criticisms aside, he warned against any efforts to sabotage Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s government.

Abadi also spoke about the disputed territories, and said Kirkuk is in a better state now than it was before being retaken by federal forces from the Peshmerga. He touched on recent crop field fires in disputed areas as well, labeling it as a crime.

He said his forces could have advanced further into Kurdistan Region territory following the referendum for independence from Iraq, but didn’t because they didn’t want bloodshed. Abadi said he supports Kurdish rights and that it pains him to see Kurds suffer or having no salaries.

In other remarks he made, Abadi said he imposed a ban on foreign flights in and out of the Kurdistan Region’s two airports in 2017 in order to restore federal authority to them. He said he remained in contact with the Kurdish leadership even during the referendum so as to prevent any untoward implications.

Hiwa Jamal, Rudaw: You resigned from the Dawa Party recently. How can the Dawa Party under its current leadership live up to your expectations? How can the party regain power?

Haider Abadi: The Dawa Party is an old party and has sacrificed a lot fighting dictatorship. It has also given much to the Iraqi nation. Here, we are speaking about individuals and actions. People working in any party are subject to make mistakes. That is why we should improve any path we work on, namely the path a party or a country takes. In order to be able to improve the work and make reforms, you need to criticize and refer to mistakes. No path is without mistakes. That is why we are referring to these mistakes. 

My opinion is different from yours. I don’t think the Dawa party took power this way. The prime minister belonged to them for three to four terms, but the government in Iraq is a shared one, in which several entities are taking part. That is why all of them are responsible for its success and failures.

What were the worst mistakes of the Dawa party after 2003?

I think it is to do with renewal. Every party should revive. The Dawa party faced a fierce attack by the Baath party, including

Can the new leadership of the Dawa party renew the party and take it back to the landscape?

I wished for that. That is why I resigned from the party leadership and called on my brothers to resign, too. But some of them don't want this and want to continue in their positions. Let’s wait and see. I currently have no leadership posts in the Dawa party.

Have you resigned from the party leadership alone? Or are you still a member of the party?

Membership in the Dawa party is open in the sense you cannot give up on your history. Although I have resigned from this post, I cannot abandon 50 years of struggle. I have strived and I cannot just delete this like this. That is why I continue this path of sacrifice and kindness.

Do you want to improve the Dawa party or form a new party?

No, I will not form another party. I think we don’t need ideological parties at this time. Ideological parties might have another place

Are you in the Dawa party as opposition? You are seen as an opponent to Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s government. Do you want to form an opposition front with the Hikma Front against Abdul Mahdi’s government?

The Hikma Front is close to us. We were in one alliance – the Reform Alliance. There was also a coalition in the previous government. They are close to us in ideas and actions in general, although we both have our own characteristics. We have our own opinion in the opposition and we named it the opposition to strengthen and we clearly explained it. 

We don’t consider ourselves being against the current government and we don’t want to make it fail or undermine it. Rather, we want to strengthen it. The way to strengthen it is to refer to its problems so they are resolved and refer to its strengths so they are increased. This is our current direction and we want to improve the situation. But if this government is incapable of making reforms, we will work differently.

What is your biggest criticism of this government?

It might be to do with three things. First, the question of security. The government inherited good security situations. From the

beginning, the government should have completed previous work, notably rebuilding security forces. We can see there is retreat from this matter. Second, government expenses. We reduced government expenses during our term.

We can, unfortunately, see the government increasing its expenses to a dangerous level. They have now submitted the 2020 budget draft, which is a dangerous one. There are big shortages and unacceptable and unnatural expenses in the draft. Third, prioritizing Iraqi interests over other things. In our dealing with neighboring countries, we shouldn’t respond to everything they ask us. We should prioritize the interests of Iraq in dealing with neighbors.

Apparently, there are efforts underway to make Abdul Mahdi’s government collapse. Do you know anything about this?

I warn against efforts to make any government collapse. The government should be allowed to have its four years. We should allow the government to work for four years and deliver what it can. Sabotaging a working government undermines the country because it will set a precedent to sabotage governments during their functioning terms. And this will undermine the state, except when the government is unable to continue. In general, I am against sabotaging a government during its term if the government is able to continue.

In 2017, you started a process called ‘the imposition of the law’. But the situation has now become unstable and peoples’ crop fields in Kirkuk are being burnt. Do you think a mistake was made then, hence the current situation?

Kirkuk has a particular status in the Iraqi constitution. According to the constitution, Kirkuk should remain under the control of the federal authority. This balance was upset at the advent of terror and when the Islamic State (ISIS) emerged. I think one of the mistakes was that ISIS was enabled to enter. ISIS invaded Hawija and reached the surrounding areas of Kirkuk. Thank God, we were able to defeat ISIS and liberate these areas. And Kirkuk should have returned to normal. This is what we did.

Coexistence among different communities in Kirkuk is better than before. There was a strong order during my term to treat people in Kirkuk as citizens without taking into account their nationality. Thank God, security forces were successful in their treatment with the people of Kirkuk in a good way. We didn’t even make any changes in Kirkuk’s local police, which consists mainly of people from the province. I don’t think the current situation in Kirkuk is worse than before. It is better than before when one party controlled Kirkuk.

Some people from Kirkuk are still displaced living in the Kurdistan Region. The crop fields of some people have been burnt. Why do you think the situation is good there?

Setting fire to crops is a crime and I hoped that the government would issue an explanation on why crop fields have been widely

burnt this year in Kirkuk and Nineveh and other places. There was an effort on the part of terrorists or another party. The government should have conducted a general investigation. Anyway, this is not related to the reimposition of law in Kirkuk. It was certainly unpleasant for me to see an intense propaganda and media campaign by some parties in Kurdistan branding forces in Kirkuk as invaders. Our efforts were intended to prevent the country from division. Security and law were imposed in Kirkuk without bloodshed. 

But why was blood shed in Tuz Khurmatu? Tuz Khurmatu was completely under the control of the Peshmerga. A year before that, we asked them to allow Iraqi federal forces to be with them to better the security conditions, but they rejected it. Then confrontation happened with its residents. There was sensitivity between Turkmen and Kurdish brothers in Tuz Khurmatu. Peshmerga forces confronted them and then left completely, leaving behind unrest. I issued an order in 24 hours to send federal forces and finally Tuz Khurmatu was recaptured and security was enforced.

Some claim you wouldn’t have been able to enter Kirkuk if there hadn’t been an agreement with a group within the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which is known as the October 16 group. What was this agreement like?

This is not true. I will tell you the truth. The truth is I dealt clearly with the Peshmerga. I didn’t consider Peshmerga an enemy. My message for Peshmerga forces was that they were part of us and that I respected them and would coordinate with them. Peshmerga forces didn’t fight, despite their leaders ordering them to fight. But the Peshmerga didn’t want to enter a war with Iraqi security forces. I heard from media outlets that a party was accused of treason. But you should review your policies before accusing someone of treason.

But some say Peshmerga forces fought in Pirde (Altun Kupri) and Sihela?

This happened later. An order was issued after a while. There was an effort for bloodshed and this is a wrong policy. Some media

How could you have advanced further when your Abrams was defeated in Pirde and Hashd al-Shaabi was also repelled when Peshmerga fought?

This is not true. This was an unexcused aggression. It was an effort to confront the Iraqi army. These tanks were not headed toward Erbil. Only the law was imposed. There was a problem and an investigation was launched into it. It was an effort on the part of some leaders in the Kurdistan Region to drag Iraq into a direct war, but we avoided it. After all, I was prime minister of Iraq and I take Kurdish interests to be Important in the same way I take the interests of the Arabs to be important. 

It pains me to see a Kurd getting killed, suffer or without a salary. Remember when they said there was no money to dispense salaries, causing difficult situations in Kurdistan, I sent a team to investigate the subject and the team audited the employees’ payroll. The team found out that there are 400,000 employees in the Region. The Region sent us the data, and we allocated a budget for the salaries of the employees in the Kurdistan Region, according to the data.

Why did you impose some sanctions on the Kurdistan Region in the aftermath of the referendum?

We didn’t impose sanctions. Rather, they tried naming them as sanctions. We tried to impose proper mechanisms. Anything that is related to outside Iraq is a federal issue. That is why we didn’t impose a flight ban on domestic flights in the Erbil and Sulaimani airports. And this was because it wasn’t a federal issue. We imposed a ban on international flights until federal authority was imposed. We wanted to impose this, but they rejected it. That is why we had to ban external flights. We lifted the ban after they committed [to federal authorities]. 

There is another topic. The Iraqi army even defended Kurdistan. Peshmerga, other forces, and people therefore slept in safety. Iraqi forces in concert with Peshmerga forces fought on several fronts and we defeated ISIS together. It wasn’t right to hold a referendum after the liberation of Mosul to separate a part from Iraq. We are partners in Iraq. And when you are a partner, you have no right to take away some of the partnership without mutual understanding or reaching an agreement. I think the leaders who held the referendum, not me, will shoulder the responsibility for what happened.

Kurdish leadership delegations came to Baghdad several times and said the referendum was not for separation. Rather, it was only to take peoples’ opinion.

That is right. They said this. But why would the government take the opinion of the people in the Region, while this can also be done by media outlets? Even in the past and as prime minister, I had said that I would respect the will of the Kurds who want to build a state inside or outside Iraq. This is one thing, but it’s another thing to break a part away from Iraq unilaterally. This is what they said, but they said something else when the referendum was approaching. They spoke about de facto. But I didn’t do anything until the referendum was held. I called on the federal court to reject the referendum and we informed the international community that we were against this. And the international community was behind us.

Some claimed you took these measures in order to gain popularity during elections. Is this true?

After the events of October 2017, you had some official and unofficial contact, especially with then Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, to restore relations. How was this?

Most of these relations were declared. They were proper and officials visits. The point behind this was that we live in one country and should therefore coordinate within this framework. The flight ban was lifted before the election – two months before then. The salaries were also sent before the election. This wasn’t sanctions. If I wanted to win, I wouldn’t have reopened the airports, nor would I have sent salaries until after elections so I would win. 

I think it was good coordination and his Excellency Nechirvan Barzani did coordinate within this framework. He was happy about the coordination. There was good, mutual understanding between us. He is a young leader and I am optimistic that Kurdistan might move in another direction. Our relations with his Excellency Masrour Barzani were also good. Relations with his Excellency Masoud Barzani were not separate from this framework either.

Did these relations continue after October 16?

There were contacts even during the referendum in order to prevent the implications of the referendum. This is not a personal matter or rivalry. Our relations are very good. However, there are [different] opinions on what is happening, the interests of the country and nation. And some of the measures I took were within this framework. My relations with his Excellency Masoud Barzani were not strained. He visited me when he came to Baghdad, meaning there is nothing and that I didn’t do anything personal against him and that he didn’t do anything personal against me either.

Translated by Salim Ibrahim