Iraq Meets Most of Interior Ministry's 2008 Goals, Officials Say

American Forces Press Service

May 15, 2009 - Iraq's Interior Ministry held its third and final conference to review accomplishments under its 2008 annual plan today, and a senior official said 80 percent of the plan's goals were met. More than 100 senior members of the ministry's national and provincial leadership took part in the event - formally known as the Year-End Review - held at the Ministry of Interior Officers Club. Coalition leaders also attended to observe Iraq's progress in planning and carrying out its wide-ranging mission to serve and protect its citizens.

The conference, overall, appeared to be positive, according to Brig. Gen. Max Marriner, deputy commanding general of the ministry's coalition-led transition team.

"It represents a positive step forward in improving the planning process within MoI," Marriner said. "It generated good discussion on the responsibilities of the directorate and provincial leaders. That will contribute to further debate, follow-on work, and continued progress throughout the ministry."

Maj. Gen. Waleed Hadawi, the ministry's director general of plans and tracking, highlighted the importance of the event by stating, "Planning is our way of reaching our destination."

The ministry's strategic plan identifies eight goals with 54 underlying objectives and 152 tasks to achieve them. The eight major goals are:
create a secure environment, eradicate corruption, extend the rule of law, enforce strong ethics, create excellence, strengthen relations with society, derive authority from the people and parliament, and create a culture of initiative. Each of the ministry's directorates has responsibility for some of the objectives and tasks within their areas of concern.

"Eighty percent of stated goals were fully or partially achieved, but the remainder encountered some obstacles, and the review provided an open forum to discuss methods to resolve them," Waleed said. Improved spending of the Interior budget was a key topic of discussion among senior ministry staff.

Senior Deputy Minister Adnan al-Assadi brought to the group a firm message from the Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bolani: It is essential that the strategic plan meets the goals of the MoI and that the Plans Directorate and all the other directorates work together to focus on their targets and aim toward the goals ahead of them. Al-Assadi also stressed that attendees should look at the directorates that did not meet their goals and find out why.

"It is not bad when you fall short," he said, "it is only bad when you fail to admit it and learn from your mistakes."

Waleed said the guidelines of the plan create a vision for an effective, efficient and capable ministry, enabling society to live in peace and security, free of crime and terrorism. Implementing the capital investment portion of the plan, for example, has great impact on the functioning of the ministry. It provides the infrastructure required for housing and training the police, so all must do their best to spend money allocated to them under the plan.

This was the third and final conference discussing the ministry's 2008 plan. Future conferences will focus on implementation of the 2009 plan.

(From a Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq news release).