Ministry of Defence (Iraq)

The  Ministry of Defence (وزارة الدفاع العراقية) is the Iraq government agency responsible for Defence of Iraq. It is also involved with internal security.

Authority
The Ministry directs all the Iraqi Armed Forces, comprising a Joint Headquarters, the Iraqi Ground Forces Command (which controls the Army), the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Navy (including Marines), and the Iraqi Air Force.

History
The Ministry was dissolved by Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2 of mid-2003. It was formally re-established by CPA Order 61 of February 22, 2004. In the interim period, the CPA Office of Security Affairs served as the de facto Ministry of Defence.

The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Bureau directs the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Command, which is a further military force answerable to the Prime Minister of Iraq directly. As of 30 June 2009, there had been legislation in progress for a year to make the Iraqi CTB a separate ministry.

Minister of Defense
The position of Minister of Defense was left vacant in the current Iraqi cabinet, approved on 21 December 2010. While it is vacant, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki serves as the acting defense minister.

The previous Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Abd al-Qadr Muhammed Jassim al-Obaidi, is a Sunni career military officer and political independent. He had limited experience and faced a number of hurdles impeding his effective governance. Some of the major problems included inheriting a staff that is notorious for favorism, corruption, and deeply divided along sectarian and ethnic lines. He was a rival of the former Minister of the Interior Jawad al-Bolani, National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubai, and Minister of Staff for National Security Affairs Shirwan al-Waili. He has been criticized for not being able to stand up to the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army members which dominate his own party. In addition, as a Sunni he faced inherent challenges working within a Shiite-dominated government.

On September 19, 2005, The Independent reported that approximately one billion US dollars have been stolen by top ranking officials from the Ministry of Defense including Hazim al-Shaalan and Ziyad Cattan.

Previous defence ministers under Saddam Hussein's regime included Ali Hassan al-Majid ('Chemical Ali'). Iraq's very first minister of defence was Jafar al-Askari (1920-1922).