Abdul Qadir Obeidi
General. Abdulqadir Mohammed Jassim Al-Mafraji' commonly known as Abdulqader Alobaidi was the 31st Defence Minister of Iraq in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from June 2006 to December 2010.
Life and Education
Alobeidi was born in Baghdad 1947 for a mid class family in Al-Fadil city, which is located in Alrisafa district. His tribe Almafraji is one of the famous Iraqi tribes that resides in southern Karkuk and Salah Aldeen provinces. This tribe includes the famous Iraqi families schu as Al-Buniya, Al-Jidda, and Al-Aftan. The name Al-Obaidi came from a commun claim that states Almafraji tribe was part of Al-Obaidi tribe before it became an independent tribe, in fact, Al-Obaidi and Almafraji tribes both reside in Alhaweeja district. He is one of the major generals in the Iraqi army during Saddam Husain's ruling time. He finished all his education in Baghdad. In 1966 he attended the Iraqi Military Academy, graduated with honor in 1968 / class 47 as a second lieutenant to serve in the Iraqi Armed Forces. In 1973, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense sent him to study in the Soviet Union to earn a Master's of Science degree in Aerodynamics of tanks weapons from Vestrel academy of military science; graduated in 1975. In 1977, he attended the Iraqi Staff College and graduated in 1979.Military Service
Alobeidi is considered one of the Iraqi military officers who greatly participated in developing the Iraqi Armored Corps; moreover, he became the general commander of the Iraqi Armored Corps from 1988-1992; prior to this position, he was the dean of the Iraqi Institute of Armored Sciences from mid of 1986 to 1988. That Institute; however, was considered one of the best Institutes in the Middle East. He has several publications and studies regarding the Tanks and Ballistics. One of his positions during the Iraq-Iran war was a tanks battalion commander in the 10th armored brigade, which was one of the elite armored brigades in the Iraqi Armed Forces, especially when that armored brigade achieved a superior victory by completely destroying and captivating the Iranian Golden Division in Alkhafjia battle, then he became a brigade commander in one of the armored divisions. Also, he served several times in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense headquarter in Baghdad as the secretory of the Minister of Defense Adnan Khairallah. In 2004, he joined the new Iraqi army, serving first as the commander of the operations center and then commander of military operations in western Iraq. Prior to his appointment as Minister on 8 June 2006, he was the commander of the Iraqi Ground forces. In fact, he was mandated in the end of 2004, exactly after the liberation of Falluja, to establish the Iraqi ground forces command; thus, he was the first IGF's commander.Political Life
After the Gulf war 1991, he started to criticize Sadam's regime, opposed the 1990 invasion of Kuwait; as a result, he had been demoted and sentenced to seven years in prison with confiscation of his movable and immovable assets; nevertheless, he was under security surveillance after releasing from the prison and banned from leaving Iraq .Alobaidi was the first Iraqi military commander to lead new Iraqi military forces that was participated alongside American troops to liberate Alfallujah city from terrorists and outlaw armed groups in November 2004 ; as a result, Abd al-Nasir al-Janabi, who was one of Iraqi Council of Representatives member, accused him of being a "war criminal" in a military campaign against the city of Fallujah during his confirmation hearing in the Council of Representatives.
Alobaidi is not affiliated with any political party and he was known with his independency and impartiality in dealing with the Iraqi conflicts during his ministry; however, his appointment was strongly backed by the Sunni Arab-led Iraqi Accord Front but they turned to be against him after few months of his ministry as he refused to be a biased and insisted to be a minister for all Iraqies ^.
Thus, he faced an agrrasive interferings from political parties, as they wanted to use the Ministey of Defense for political purposes and for their own benefits. His strong refusal to their attempts of interfering in the Ministry and the Iraqi Army put him in confrontation with these political parties as they attempted to impeach him for several times during his ministry.
Alobaidi assigned to the minister of defense position in a very critical time when the sectarian war was in its peak and the Iraqi army was still not ready and in the rebuilding process; nevertheless, the Iraqi ministry of defense was suffering from corruption and almost out of control. Thus, he started to chang the system of the defense ministry that was established in 2004 since that system was the main reason of corruption and gave othority to the civilian employees, who don't have any military background, to be overpower the Iraqi military officers, which affected their efforts to enforce the security. Thus, he started to redo the system by reworking with the same system of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense since its establishment in 1921 till 2003. Thus, he is the actual establisher of the Iraqi Ministry of Defence after 2003 and had spent an enormous efforts to restore the prestige of the Iraqi Army.
In March 2007 he said that "corruption and militias inhabit the halls" of the Defense Ministry, "fictitious employees" were "rampant" and he is pressured to restructure his ministry along the lines of power-sharing deals.
In October 2008 he announced that all soldiers and other employees of the Ministry would be forbidden from joining any political party, running for political office, working on any political campaign or even attending political demonstrations.
Till December 2009, he was known as an independent minister and most of the political parties were not able to prove his political leanings; however, he was banned from the 2010 Iraqi elections due to alleged links with the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party which were fabricated.