We are in trouble in Iraq. The Bush victory was a fraud. That, in short is the judgment of Thomas Ricks writing in the Foreign Policy Review. His essential claims are that the turnaround in Iraq began when US Commanders began listening to foreign and even anti-war voices; that the Surge was essentially the name for buying off insurgents; and that the Surge in any case failed.
Why, then, do I maintain that the surge didn’t work? Militarily, or tactically, it did. It improved security. But its stated goal was to create a breathing space in which a political breakthrough could occur, and that did not happen. In fact, Odierno says at the end of my book that the surge did create a breathing space, and that to our surprise, some Iraqis used it to move backwards rather than forward.
But no breakthrough occurred. All the basic questions that vexed Iraq before the surge are still out there unanswered: How do you share oil revenue? What’s the relationship between Sunni, Shia, and Kurd? For that matter, who speaks for the Shiites? What’s the role of Iran, which for my money is the biggest winner in this war so far? Will Iraq have a strong central government or be a loose confederation? All of these questions have led to violence in the past, and all of them almost certainly are going to lead to violence again.
So now it is President Obama’s war. I have a great deal of sympathy for him. I believe he’s a good strategic thinker, but I also think he has inherited the worst foreign policy situation that any new president has ever taken on—and foreign policy isn’t even his top-priority problem, which would have to be the economy. It’s a huge load to take on. But Obama’s handling of it thus far worries me.
It’s interesting to compare Rick’s prognostications with those of Michael Totten, who presents both sides of the story. His introduction to Part I summarizes the problem perfectly. “During my last trip to Baghdad I tried to figure out if the worst in Iraq is over or if the dramatic reduction in violence is just a long lull. Half the Iraqis and half the Americans I spoke to were optimistic. The other half think Iraq is probably doomed. I have no idea who’s right, and neither does anyone else. This is the first in a four-part series where I’ll present both cases and let you decide what to think for yourself. We’ll start with the good news”. His Part 2 is already up.
I’ve not been to Iraq. However I remember something which an Australian officer who occupied a senior position in Iraq said at a dinner I recently attended. He said, and I am quoting only approximately, that ‘interventions are about allowing history to restart in a society that has become stuck. Iraq had become stuck in Saddam. The future of Iraq is unknowable,’ he said, ‘but it has started again.’ That remark didn’t answer any questions about the future of events, but it helped frame my expectations.
Personally, I think Ricks is thinking about the problem the wrong way. The “political breakthrough” he speaks of could never have occurred under Saddam. But in a larger sense I think Ricks is right to warn about failure in Iraq. OIF was meant to send a signal to the despots of the Middle East to mind their manners; to avoid supporting nonstate terror actors; to avoiding seeking weapons of mass destruction. But the dominant meme to emerge from the last six years has almost been the exact opposite. That it is hopeless, except in the sense of buying them off, to deflect Middle Eastern despots from their schemes; that it is equally impossible, and possibly even immoral to stand forcibly in the way of those who seek nuclear arms. Obama is not entirely, as Ricks argues, the hapless victim of the policies of the last six years, rather he is the expression of a point of view that believes they are a failure.
The debate over the future of Iraq is inseparable from the larger argument about the future of Middle Eastern policy. Some think that Bush’s policies were a recipe for failure. Still others think Obama’s actions are active pursuit of disaster. Maybe we should take Michael Totten’s attitude and chronicle events and leave judgments to the future.
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I’m still deeply confused about “political reconciliation” as a necessary precondition of peace. It seems to me that many countries are deeply divided yet peaceful.
In order to maintain the gains from the surge violence needs to remain at low levels. Political reconciliation is nice but is not the only way to peace and victory.
I’m also deeply cynical about war skeptics who kept declaring that “military victory is impossible” (until it happened) are now saying that “military victory did not bring political reconciliation.” Except that it did, just not a top-down model from Baghdad but a local movement by the Awakening councils. No one predicted that.
It seems to me that if we want to operationalize progress in Iraq it should be by something measurable, like number of attacks or number of people killed. Once we start elevating an abstraction like “political reconciliation” to be the decider of victory of defeat we lose sight of reality. By that standard, the U.S. has still not reached “reconciliation” from the events of 1861-1865.
I’ve read Ricks’ books, and they’re very good, but I’m not sold that anything is necessary for peace but peace.
It’s the “root causes” thing again. There are none.
The opponents of the Iraq War have never voiced a meaningful alternative strategy. If we had not deposed Saddam then what would have happened? The sanctions regime was finished. Oil for Food had bought the governments of France, Russia, China, Canada and by extension more (such as Turkey who were pressured by the French.) To have left Saddam in place would not only have condemned millions to oppression and savagery but would have made the problems of nuclear, and other WMD, proliferation much worse and would have made the problem of terrorism in and around Israel much worse than it is now. In addition we can only speculate on how our forces in Afghanistan would be threatened if both Iraq and Iran were fueling competing insurgencies. All of the current problems, including those in Pakistan, would still exist and would be even worse. Rick’s is playing for influence as he goes, his politics prejudice his analysis, Even if he was correct on a point it is dangerous to rely on his arguments.
This is just more advance weaseling on behalf of BO. No matter how bad things get in the economy or foreign affairs, it’s *always* going to be Bushitler’s fault.
The future of Iraq is unknowable,’ he said, ‘but it has started again.’ That remark didn’t answer any questions about the future of events, but it helped frame my expectations.
I fully agree, but the corollary of this statement is that nobody involved in Iraq policy-making can possibly know what the hell they’re doing, and at this point one strategy is pretty much as good as another.
I think it was right around the 2006 midterm elections (USA) when I finally concluded that strategy was a moot subject in the Iraq War. It simply didn’t matter anymore. Iraq was going to recover someday (and be much better off than it had been under Saddam), but this would be due to the natural fecundity of life itself, not to any policy decisions. The survivors would pick up the pieces, cobble together a new life from the rubble, start having children, and gradually the war would fade away into the passing generations. The window of opportunity when policy decisions mattered had long since shut; a discontinuity in history had been reached, and now it was up all up to nature.
I shrugged and began to think of it like this: “One of the things that wars inevitable do is to promote cultural exchange. There wouldn’t be so many Vietnamese immigrants in America today (the child of one such couple is one of my best friends), and a Vietnamese restaurant in every shopping center, if we had not fought a war in that country. We ought to just welcome the refugees from Iraq, and I can look forward to some aromatic tobacco and good falafel.”
What I mean to say is, it seems we could have achieved equality of result in Iraq If we had simply butchered and bolted, laid waste to the country’s economy, and dispatched a small interdictory force to watch over things while the locals rebuilt. We would have incurred the moral censure of the world, but it would have blown over in a few years (for fickle mankind is always ready to forget), and it would not have given the Left a McGuffen for 5 years’ worth of skeptical press coverage with which to beat up the Bush administration.
We might not be looking at a President Obama today if that had happened, and the situation in Iraq would be no different. Perhaps this is the ultimate indictment of Rumsfeld’s Defense Department and of modern precision warfare in general: it turns warcraft into too dainty a matter. It’s best to just rock-and-roll and then get the hell out. It does far less damage in the long run.
“Disputes over how many Sunni Arab terrorists to grant amnesty to is
causing an increase in violence. Shia leaders believe too many of the
Sunni Arabs released from prison, or no longer subject to arrest, are
still participating in terrorist activities. Many Sunni Arabs still
believe that eventually, via coup, terrorism or revolution, the Sunni
Arabs will again rule Iraq. Many Kurds and Shia want to kill or expel all
the Sunni Arabs, and be done with the threat.”
Source:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20090525.aspx
Also see:
Collecting Blood Debts:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20090330.aspx
The violence in Iraq isn’t over by a long shot. But it’s something
the Iraqi’s will have to resolve for themselves, one way or another.
Matt Beck/4
Perhaps this is the ultimate indictment of Rumsfeld’s Defense Department and of modern precision warfare in general: it turns warcraft into too dainty a matter. It’s best to just rock-and-roll and then get the hell out. It does far less damage in the long run.
1. You’ll never know until you try. It had to be tried, if not for anything else than discounting that scenario from the future cookbook.
However…
2. Every theater has different requirements. One size does not fit all. I maintain that the initial goal as Iraq is concerned was valid and that it will have very positive results in the next 15 years. The change of tactics in the last few years notwithstanding–a necessary adjustment for the original armchair plan.
How can Iraq know peace in the near future without a strong coalition military presence?
Anyone who knows the history of the region and the ancient conflict between the Shi’ites and the Sunni would be pessimistic.
Saddam Hussein was a monster but, in my view, Islam in such a geographically volatile region could only be kept in check by a strong military presence or monstrous dictatorship, such as Iraq knew under Hussein.
Democracies, like the U.S.A., with constantly changing governments and policies, just aren’t suited to long-term nation building, except where both sides of politics share a common vision and commitment.
The coalition’s strategy in Iraq seems seriously flawed and betrays an ignorance of the historical Sunni/Shia divide.
What is to happen now to all those Iraqis who shared a vision for a free and democratic Iraq and now are to be abandoned?
Are they to share the same fate as the Vietnamese abandoned to the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese communists?
When the coalition withdraws, God help the Iraqis who are perceived to have collaborated with the hated crusader infidels.
Iran seems to be in a position to play a leading role in Iraq’s future, especially with 60% Iraqis being Shi’ites.
Two points about Rick’s assessment of Obama: He may be a good strategic thinker on one level (political), but if his basic premises about the situation are shallow or flawed, his strategies won’t work. Obama has been shielded by his race and education in his political battles in America, but foreigners won’t cut him any slack on that. Apologize and the world will love you and do your bidding is an extremely naive strategy. One only has to look at his Guantanamo plans.
I can’t stand the inherited-a-terrible-situation excuse. Obama didn’t inherit anything; he sought the office and spent 3/4 of a billion to win the race. He promised easy answers when there are none. If anything, his glib promise to bring the troops home from Iraq immediately probably fueled resistance and caused our opponents to lay low and wait for better weather. As to other world problems: Did Obama inherit Pakistan from George Bush or from Lord Mountbatten? Did he inherit North Korea from George Bush or Harry Truman? Maybe it’s all Adam’s fault. In the real world, the lines of inheritance are not as clear as in a court document.
It’s strange that his root-causes thinking is based on an image of a tap root, where the world is a carrot. A little time gardening could have given him a more realistic picture of divergent side roots entangling themselves with those of other plants.
I agree VB, the surge was working and it reached a point where the terrorist simply melted away to wait for the “troop withdraw” that each democrat Prez hopeful nearly fell over each other to promise the overly educated near ignorant liberal elitist, now that the elections over the no-goods are starting to get back to business, Mean while the “0″ which had no plan what so ever only the shallow “elect me I will do what you want me too!” plan of a ridicules less then twelve month pull out that could only happen with the loss of men and material during the on again off again “worst” economy since the great “D”. Yep folks I said it last year if the Democrat wins the war was lost and that when nearly every MSM was pronouncing the Iraq war over and won!
“OIF was meant to send a signal to the despots of the Middle East to mind their manners; to avoid supporting nonstate terror actors; to avoiding seeking weapons of mass destruction.”
Right. First you depose Saddam, then you scare Syria and Iran into NOT channeling thousands of splodeydopes into Iraq. Did Powell do this? Apparently not. Where was the old “we’re going to cut it off and then we’re going to kill it” soldier? He’d been State-ified somewhere along the line.
Once you’ve consolidated in Iraq (with sufficient troops from the first, not three years later), you loom large on Iran’s horizon and start picking off their vital parts if they don’t behave – which they didn’t. Shaped Charges. Quds Forces. Mookie.
Mr Nice Guy is dead meat in such an environment.
Even if all goes “Perfectly” in Iraq and the Iranians become real nice and friendly, the problem does not go away.
Islam still requires expansion and jihad and as long as they have oil money they will keep on pushing, one way or another.
As long as there is oil money at stake, secular leaders like Saddam and religious leaders like the Mullahs will look for ways to use the riches to expand their power.
The only path to peace in the Middle East is to dry up the source of their funds; Oil money.
The confoundment of the Leftist worldview is man’s inability to self perfect. Nothing that man does is perfect. It cannot be so. And so it goes with war. And the unintended consequences that come from it.
England and Europe certainly did not expect a bottom up power structure to last more than six months in the newly free America. Even Washington himself professed doubts as to the fastness of their creation.
The only lasting peace a human will ever see is when he dies. Because if he were to be honest with himself he does not want peace for all eternity. THAT would be boring. There would be no way to test himself and push the boundaries of his mind. Man NEEDS struggle to truly live as surely as he NEEDS air to truly live.
I expected Obama to seek post hoc affirmation of his “the Surge Failed” thesis in one of the State Department’s favorite diplo-rags.
Rick’s is it! Fig leaves “R”-Us.
Rick’s piece just goes to show that, whether the rub is Al Gore’s “Global Warming,” Biden’s “silent racism,” or the Democrat’s “Bush Lied!”, a poet with a J-school degree can “surround” any story in any way that he wants to make the desired point.
I wonder what Hick’s wrote post hoc about Clinton’s “Bosnia Adventures?” Positive? Negative? Victory or Defeat? Let’s get the FPR on that one, whaddya say?
Looking at a brief history on Wiki, Iraq seems to be returning to one of its ‘normal’ states, i.e. political chaos, sectarian strife etc. It is one of those places that seems bi-polar. It has had a kind of stability when under dictators [Ottoman, early British mandate, Saddam]. Then it flips into chaos when these regimes change.
The heat and the desert sun must affect peoples’ brains or something.
“I believe he is a good strategic thinker” – Thomas Ricks on Barack Obama.
Based on….?
Other posters here have touched on almost all the important points, but the illusion of omniscience of Obama has to be maintained somehow.
And to be more honest, if Saddam was truly a monster (which he was), who was going to get rid of him? Russia? NATO? China?
Iran was trying (pre-OIF), but a real Iraqi civil war with massive ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis and Kurds would have followed.
It could only have been the United States, at least leading a coalition with the most forces available. This is a continuation of a very long struggle tracing back to the ’70′s (at least), when Saddam rose to control the Baath Party in Iraq, and the Shah was displaced by the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Only those who are dead have seen the end of war.
Ricks has projected once again his attitude that nothing positive can come of anything American. His vision that all things American are doomed to failure over time, exhausts patience and gives life to a bad attitude and an insurgency. It is obvious that the man has not a clue, despite all the learning aids, of what the Surge was intended to accomplish nor what the limits of military intervention are.
I wish I could say that I expect more than this kind of effort from “foreign policy experts” and “special military correspondents” (spit).
Says Ricks, “There are three things the American people don’t understand about the war in Iraq right now: (1) how difficult the surge was and how different it was from the previous four years of the war; (2) that the surge failed, judged on its own terms; and (3) that the war is not over.”
After promoting the notion that nothing American could work in Iraq, and having been proved wrong, the man has the gall to say, “yeah BUT”.
Mr Ricks thinks that the American public could not know a thing because he did not tell us. But Mr Ricks should know three things.
(1) that the American Thinking Public understands just how tough the Surge was and that the surge intended to jump start the Iraq military and the Iraqi political process and not complete it.
(2) The Thinking American Public knows that the benchmarks were unrealistic expectations built up about the Surge, and
(3)The American Public Thinks reporters politicians and Democrats opposed to anything American and opposed to everything good, attempted to measure results even before the surge started. Before there was anything to measure Ricks was calling it a failure.
Why supposed academic reviews even give guys like Ricks space in their publications when that space is so precious is probably a more cogent question about Iraqi policy than anything those journals are currently publishing? Al Queda in Iraq is still a danger, but it is not about to overwhelm the Iraqi government like it was the threatening to do after the Bombing of the Golden Mosque. Iraqis have no patience for the sort of sick violence Al Queda promotes. Iraqis will not suffer gladly the extremes any more, and are working to moderate the influence of the Baathists and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary fervor. That takes work, and that means changing a lot of the ways in with Iraq society functions. This is no overnight cultural fad, Ricks should stop trying to treat it as such.
Reporters like Ricks continue to downplay the intelligent decisions and well thought out policy of American military commanders on the ground because they do not have faith in the capacity of the American Fighting man. They also lack the understanding, the intelligence and the mental capacity to figure it out themselves, for if they did it would be such an anathema to their world view that they would not believe it.
Iraq’s path is a long slog ahead to heal the sectarian wounds promoted by the Mullahs and salted by Saddam and the Baath Party. They have a long healing process ahead that has started. Given the acceptance of most Sunni’s of a Government of Iraq, and the respect of an Iraqi army and security forces that promote the rule of law and fairness within that rule legitimate progress is being made.
Where has there not been a push back against any counter insurgency by the insurgents. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t even pretty, and it isn’t over by a long stretch. Why do people like Ricks expect that it is over, why because it is not do they assume it is a failure.
Intriguing and provocative comments by Matt Beck (#4). The author Mark Helprin has consistently argued for the same approach. At first I disagreed with Helprin but now–I just don’t know. I do firmly believe, however, that we need to maintain an offensive military posture against radical Islam. But just how that translates into concrete military action–i.e., the type and nature of military action we should take–is an issue very open to discussion, at least in my mind. I would be interested to hear what other readers and commentators at this site have to say on the subject.
LOTM:
I am in the odd position of being a supporter of the war who proposed a meaningful alternative strategy. I quietly proposed overthrowing the House of Saud as a precursor to overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
It is difficult to say whether my recommendation would have been better than Bush’s strategy. It may have been worse. I have supported the liberation of Iraq for many reasons, but one important one is that the principal alternative to liberating Iraq presented by opponents was sitting on our hands and doing nothing other than bowing down to Islamist tyrants.
As it is, the very stalemate that exists in Iraq is a strategic improvement over Saddam Hussein’s regime; I still regard the liberation of Iraq to be a strategic victory. I had actually expected the situation in Iraq to be considerably worse than it has turned out to be. It is far from perfect, but it is not quite the disaster I had feared.
When the Iraq War started, I thought it would take a long tine to get to some sort of stable condition. I think in retrospect that last summer was really the end of the beginning. The conflicts buried in their society have grown out of islam’s tribal history and the conflicts between Arabs and Kurds and Persians. I dont know that they can be solved. I think Iraq will eventually be three states. Getting there will make the Indian partition look like a garden party. But that is not America’s fault. We have to take people as we find them, not as we hope them to be. I am sorry for the innumerable souls that will suffer through this inevitable process but the Iraqis have to solve it using Iraqi tools.
I think it is our duty to help as we can. It is also in our interest to do so. Perhaps they can reach some form of reconciliation over this Hussein thing. Perhaps they can learn to put up with some competition with allah. Perhaps pigs will fly.
re Bushhitler
The War in Iraq has shown deep weaknesses in our institutions, not much doubt. The NYT comes to mind.
On the other hand some have actually been very impressive. Our military has changed and adapted and won. Would we could say as much for State.
In the cold light of dawn, Bush is seen as a great war President. He found his general, backed him alone against the united conventional wisdom, ISG, Joint Chiefs, press, Congress etc and won. That’s what great Presidents do. Think Lincoln.
As usual, you need to have some perspective, think your own thoughts and realize we have accomplished a lot.
And say “Well Done.”
vb@10:
I was going to cut and paste some of your points to comment on,but then as I read them again, I realized you are spot on in your complete comment.
The Dem’s and the Left fought, scratched, and clawed to get to where they could bask in the world’s regard that was bought and paid for with the tears, blood, and sweat of the Bush administration and conservative souls battling in dark places. Well, congratulations, guys, you now have the con.
America seems to be at war with Fascist Cults. Or, more accurately, Fascist Cults seem to be at war with America, with America not inclined to notice. The more Fascist and Cult-like the organization, the more hostile it is to America. The reason I use the word “organization” is because sometimes these organizations control nations, and sometimes they do not. And, of course, these organizations do not have to be foreign.
The Fascist Cult views each member as a part of an organic whole. Conflict with “The Other” helps keep the whole, whole. As does a Sacred, often apocalyptic, mission. Terrorism can acquire a religious significance. This organic whole is personified in the person of the leader, living or dead. If dead, the effective perpetuation of the Cult seems to require the successor to be either a spiritual or family descendant of the founder (Iran is an example of the former, Syria of the latter, and North Korea of both).
The United States — as the most prominent example of a nation with individual rights and consensual changes in leadership — is a natural magnet for hostility. A leader of a Fascist Cult who successfully “stands up” to the US brings the Cult prestige (Castro, Kim, Khomeini). This is why retreat or “giving in” increases the danger. Deals, when made, are soon broken. Tension with the US is an existential need.
The more fanatical — and therefore incompatible — the Fascist Cults, the easier they can submerge their differences to cooperate against the US (Iran and Korea are current examples or, earlier, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan).
An example of a weakly organized and centered Fascist Cult is the Obama Democratic Party and the Obama News Media. Obamacrats and newsies do not think Mr. Obama lies to them; they think he lies for them. They are loyal, not to the America that is, but to “The America, washed clean, to Come.” Of course every New America is different, hence a lack of specificity. They are not just herding cats, they are herding Schrödinger’s cats. Mr. Obama is, for them, the anthropomorphic personification of that unspecified “New America” and a living policy fudge. In their eyes, Obama gains prestige when he stands up to “the Old America,” rather than standing up to Foreign Fascists (who need to stand up to him).
Fortunately, as the episode with Ted Rall shows, the Obamacrats are currently held together by a “weak force” and are not exactly signing on for political suicide missions, let alone the other kind. Fascist Cults cannot long abide dissent, however, so they either dissolve into numerous cells or become ever more authoritarian.
If the Obama Democrats were a “1″ on the ten point Fascist scale while out of power, I would give them a “2″ thus far, having acquired it. Kim’s North Korea would be a nine. Iran? A seven. Hamas, a six.
Saddam staying in power was fast becoming a defeat for the US on the Iraq front of The Fascist Terror Cult War. Simply by surviving one war with the US, and defying the US for years afterwards, Saddam was winning: gaining prestige and even allies. US defeat on that front would have been complete with a Saddam “break out” from sanctions and eventual acquisition of WMD. That defeat — and it would have been major — was avoided by the Iraq war.
Personally, I was skeptical of turning of Iraq into a model society because, in truth, I did not see the American People as having the patience to do it. Predictably, every suicide bomb was greeted as evidence of defeat. However, Iraqis have been holding a lot of elections so perhaps the idea of consensual government is taking hold. If it does, that will be a major victory for America in our War with Fascist Cults. Assuming, that is, we don’t lose it at home.
#10 vb:
I can’t stand the inherited-a-terrible-situation excuse. Obama didn’t inherit anything; he sought the office and spent 3/4 of a billion to win the race.
Excellent!
But regarding Iraq …
…interventions are about allowing history to restart in a society that has become stuck
I am very much afraid that Islam is about stopping time, and Iraq will not escape that with only what we have managed there so far. Should we have tried for more?
Iraq is as relevant as Anzio was in January 1945. It just is not important anymore.
Ricks desperately wants a defeat (like Obama) to “teach America a lesson” about listening to the innate goodness and moral superiority of both Saddam Hussein and men like him, and Ricks (and people like him).
Ricks is as irrelevant as Saddam and Anzio, because the crux of the matter is nuclear breakout. Which is a reality, and will inevitably lead under weak, anti-American, and moralizing President Barack Hussein Obama, to nuked American cities.
THEN, the only question will be how many Muslims does America kill, and how quickly, to restore deterrence? My ball park figure is about half a billion.
Well, Obama and Ricks knew best. They figured apologies, defeat, and moralizing would magically create power where every time in the past it had brought horrific defeat.
In many ways, people like Obama and Ricks project the hothouse social dynamics and politics of the Western Elite onto the broader world. It’s a failure of imagination above all else.
Wretchard wrote: “He said, and I am quoting only approximately, that ‘interventions are about allowing history to restart in a society that has become stuck. Iraq had become stuck in Saddam. The future of Iraq is unknowable,’ he said, ‘but it has started again.’”
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon: Book I; Chapter III, Part II:
Titus Antoninus Pius . . . diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
===============================
The Iraqis now get to be like the rest of us.
Ricks’ calling Obama a “good strategic thinker” doesn’t help the author’s credibility on this issue, in my view.
Murtada Abdul_Sahib Abol_Nos
Mechatronics Engineer
Iraq-Wasit
Mobile: 07703174304,07812239342
E-mail: murtada.mech@yahoo.com
Education
Bachelor Degree of Mechatronics Engineer – Baghdad University
Computer Skills
AutoCAD (2D &3D)
Ansys
Matlab
Microsoft Visual Basic
Adobe Photoshop
Microsoft office (Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Microsoft Office Excel & Microsoft Office Access).
Familiar with most PC programs.
General Information
Nationality: Iraqi
Age: 26 Marital Status: Single
Language
Arabic: Native language
English: Reading & writing
Practical experience
• Participated in Al-Siyada festival and got the first post on Iraq for my project (vibration absorber) .
• Worked with ( AGI ) British protection company as (interpreter & computer man) for two years.
• Worked with ( BGP ) Chinese Oil company for seismic operations in AL_Ahdab field for five months.