The Iraqi navy will have a daunting task of protecting Iraq’s export outlets in the Gulf and securing Iraq’s territorial waters and the tankers routes once the US military wraps up its mission and hands over security responsibilities to the Iraqi side by the end of December 2011. But that won’t be the end. Just as neighboring countries benefit from the presence and the might of the US navy in the Mideast Gulf waters so will Iraq, Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan, the Strategic Effects Director of the U.S. Forces in Iraq, tells me in Baghdad.
“We will have a presence beyond Dec 2011 in the Gulf, but not in Iraq. We have a carrier in the Gulf all the time and it will stay,” General Buchanan said.
The old Iraqi navy was dismantled when the former regime collapsed in 2003 and a “coastal defense force” was created. Later, it became the navy again but with limited capabilities. Today the Iraqi navy has just 60 vessels and responsibility for complete security over 80% of the Iraqi territorial waters and the Khor al-Amaya terminal and only “point security responsibility” over the Basrah oil terminal, according to the US military.
However, by next year the Iraqi navy is supposed to assume responsibility for the entire security portfolio for the Basrah oil terminal and the rest of the territorial waters. By then they are supposed to have modern patrol boats that they purchased from the US and some training, also courtesy of the US. Or call it the long lasting US effect in Iraq.
It’s no secret that Iraq’s borders to the east and the west are badly secured. Smuggling is rife in humans and everything else. But can Baghdad afford to have less than tight maritime security when it comes to protecting its lifeblood, its oil exports? It’s a matter of building a relationship with fellow navy and coast guards in neighboring countries, General Buchanan asserts. “Through those naval relationships, Iraq is establishing stronger relationship inside the regional security architecture. So far, they’ve got a very good relationship with the Kuwaitis, they have worked out a number of exercises, have worked out procedures for incidents inside each other’s territorial waters, and they have a functional relationship with the Iranian navy as well.”
So far, there have been no joint exercises with the Iranians. Is that because the US military discourages such exercises with its existing “enemy” in the Gulf? No, says the general. They have to work this out between themselves. “It’s important that they have a relationship and that it’s a positive and constructive one. If they don’t, it’s not going to be helpful to anybody. This is something we cannot do for them.”
At some 3.5 million barrels per day export capacity coming up in the next couple of years from its Gulf outlets, the stakes are very high for Iraq to insure its maritime security is up to scratch. That’s a tall challenge for an Iraqi navy that cannot afford to be as dysfunctional as Iraqi politics are.