Some good news from Iraq

[Caligastia]

Democracy takes root beneath the turmoil in Iraq
By Ayad Rahim
Special to The Times


Judging from news reports — of terrorist attacks in Iraq and political sniping at home — some might think that my native Iraq is in a terrible mess. Not so.

Many critics see the attacks as signs that Iraqis oppose American involvement. A British survey and an Iraqi poll, however, found that 76 and 85 percent of Baghdadis, respectively, favor the continued presence of coalition troops. That's because Iraqis know, to the core of their marrow, that after 35 years of subjugation, brutality and isolation, they need help, and that if America left prematurely, disaster would likely ensue.

Moreover, considering the grip Saddam Hussein had on the country for 34 years, and the complicity and loyalty he'd purchased, the dead-end attacks are not surprising, for Saddam's killers know they don't have a future in an Iraq without their boss's patronage and protection, and that past atrocities will be punished.

In addition, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis oppose the attacks, knowing that they hinder efforts to rebuild, democratize and modernize the country. Now, with Saddam's sons dead and three-quarters of the "most wanted" in custody, Iraqis are more and more assisting the campaign to destroy the remains of Saddam's terrorist apparatus.

Many who militated against toppling Saddam predicted that Iraq would descend into communal violence or civil war. Instead, Iraqis have worked together and closely with coalition authorities and troops. Local councils and courts are functioning throughout the country. Workers in schools, hospitals and government ministries have elected their own leaders, and seeds of democracy are sprouting up in the forms of private organizations and 150 new newspapers and magazines.

Dilapidated schools and infrastructure are being rebuilt, and the economy is being reformed and revived. In parts of the country that for more than 20 years were limited to one hour of electricity a day and no clean water, stunting people's growth, basic services are now almost nonstop.

Except for the isolated contract killings and sabotage, the country is calm and experiencing improved conditions day by day. A transitional government is in place, the only political body in Iraq's history representative of the country's religious and ethnic groups. Iraqis also will convene soon to write the country's constitution, paving the way for elections.

One friend in America told me that his brother in Iraq is so happy with the way things are going, he wants to build a statue of President Bush in front of his house. Another friend said his siblings told him they could finally breathe — inside their homes — after years of strangulating fear. My uncle in Baghdad said, "We've been brought back to life."

Many experts and diplomats warned grimly that without Saddam, Iraq would break apart, destabilizing the region. Instead, Iraqis of all stripes have shown that their main allegiance is to Iraq, and their main aspiration is to live freely. Most clergy have counseled patience and cooperation with the coalition, and extremists have not gathered great support. Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, having just moved to Iraq, praised America as a liberator in Iraq and urged separation of mosque and state.

Critics predicted that if we encroached on Iraqi territory, thousands of coalition soldiers (many said tens of thousands) would perish, and face urban combat, house-to-house fighting, and chemical and biological attacks. However, because Iraqis wanted to be rescued from Saddam, not fight for him, coalition troops faced little resistance. Instead, coalition troops were greeted with jubilation when Iraqis knew they were at last free, and soldiers are still cheered and received warmly as they carry out their duties.

Military action did not cause a refugee crisis, nor humanitarian or health crises. Environmental disaster was averted, as dams were not broken and oil fields were rescued before Saddam could set them ablaze, as he did in Kuwait.

There were also dire predictions that attacking Saddam would unleash an explosion of anger in the "Arab street" and terrorist attacks at home. The evidence appears to argue the converse — that weak and ineffectual responses to terrorist attacks in the '80s and '90s perpetuated them, while strong action halts them.

Thus, the world's most powerful terrorist has been toppled, the Middle East has been moderated, and some Arabs, despite their media's obfuscation, watch with fascination as an experiment in representative democracy unfolds at their doorstep, an eventuality that could transform the region and counter the wave of terrorism.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces did their utmost to avoid hitting water-pumping stations, electricity networks, hospitals, schools and mosques that Saddam used to base weapons directed at coalition forces.

Thus, by restraint, civilian casualties were kept to a minimum, and the coalition's targeting of Saddam's palaces and bases of power delighted Iraqis, knowing that their salvation was near.



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Good to hear that things are improving for the Iraqi people.

[Caligastia]

I guess nobody wants to hear any good news about Iraq right now.

[Japher]

nope.

[Kropotkin]

Karl Lagerfeldt told me that good iraqi news is out this season. Try again next spring.

[Arrian]

Pull up The Guardian's Iraq coverage and post their most recent story. The two stories might mutually annihilate, releasing enough energy to destroy the planet.

-Arrian

[yavoon]

no news is good news. cuz no1 reports good news. die thread!

=D

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Arrian
Pull up The Guardian's Iraq coverage and post their most recent story. The two stories might mutually annihilate, releasing enough energy to destroy the planet.

-Arrian

Got a link?

[lord of the mark]

no, thats good.

[GePap]

Beyond the two quoted polls there is actually no NEWS in this piece, it is opinion/analysis, more of an op-ed piece really.

[Nubclear]

I was expecting news, not an op-ed

[lord of the mark]

"In parts of the country that for more than 20 years were limited to one hour of electricity a day and no clean water, stunting people's growth, basic services are now almost nonstop. "

thats also news, but naming where would have helped

[Arrian]

Cali,

I was just guessing, based on past history. Try it.

-Arrian

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
thats also news, but naming where would have helped

That was true of a few parts of Iraq months ago..hence 'olds', not 'news'.

[Arrian]

Here, I did it myself:

The blind prophet

Before the war, President Bush told us Iraq was a throbbing hub of terror. It wasn't, of course. But it is now

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday September 3, 2003
The Guardian

The warning was plain. Iraq was a breeding ground of terror, an incubator for al-Qaida and a clear and present danger to "the civilised world". Tony Blair was wary of that argument, but George Bush made it the heart of his case. At his eve-of-war press conference back in March, the president cast the coming attack as the next step in a story that had begun on September 11 2001. Iraq was providing "training and safe haven to terrorists, terrorists who would willingly use weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries". The irony is that, at the time, this was not true. But it is now.
With astonishing speed, the United States and Britain are making their nightmares come true. Iraq is fast becoming the land that they warned about: a throbbing hub of terror. Islamists bent on murder, all but non-existent in Saddam's Iraq, are now flocking to the country, from Syria, Iran and across the Arab world. In the way that hippies used to head for San Francisco, jihadists are surging towards Baghdad. For those eager to strike at the US infidel, Iraq is the place to be: a shooting gallery, with Americans in easy firing range. Afghanistan is perilous terrain, but Iraq is open country. For the Islamist hungry for action, there are rich pickings.

Bush insisted that Saddam's Iraq was packed with these people, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Proof was always thin, thinner even than the evidence of weapons of mass destruction - which is why Blair, to his credit, never mentioned it. But never mind; events have taken care of that little lacuna in the US argument. Iraq may not have been a terrorists' paradise at the start of the year - a retirement home for a few has-beens, perhaps - but it is now. Operation Iraqi Freedom blew off the gates, and Islam's holy warriors have rushed in. Like the blind protagonist of a Greek drama, Bush, in seeking to avert a prophecy, has ended up fulfilling it.

Confirmation comes in the daily drip-drip-drip of the death toll, with one or two Americans (and now Britons) dying every 24 hours. It is a wonder the figure is not higher, with coalition forces now facing up to 20 attacks a day. There were more deaths yesterday, along with a car bomb at the Baghdad police academy.

Not that the victims have been chiefly Americans. Instead, the biggest strikes have been against those seen to be their partners: the Jordanian embassy, the United Nations and, in Najaf last week, Iraq's most powerful Shia leader. That bomb served as a warning to all Iraqis not to get too cosy with the country's new rulers - if the US cannot protect a first-rank, sympathetic cleric, how safe is everyone else?

The result is that no one wants to stand too close to the occupiers. One member of the new governing council resigned at the weekend; another warned the US viceroy, Paul Bremer, that the council "could become a morgue" if the Americans did not do more to protect its members. Others are taking the law into their own hands, hiring private bodyguards. Shias, angry at their vulnerability at Najaf, are taking similar steps, looking to groups such as the Badr Brigades to provide security. This takes Iraq one step closer to a Somalia or Afghanistan scenario: a lawless, failed state, where the only authority is the local warlord. With a murder rate approaching 5,000 a year, that kind of anarchy is not far off. Make no mistake, Saddam's Iraq was an evil tyranny. But it was not a failed state, the ideal climate for nurturing terror. With power and water still not working, thanks to constant sabotage, and thieves stripping vital cables for their copper, it could be soon.

Why is the occupation going so badly wrong? Hubris and incompetence played their part. The Pentagon's civilian planners put plenty of thought into the war, but almost none into the peace. They had a hyperpower's supreme confidence in their own abilities.

But ideology is surely the chief culprit. Republicans can barely spit the words "nation building", so it was a task they preferred not to think about. The Pentagon suits, led by Donald Rumsfeld, are hardcore unilateralists, determined to run the show alone, unencumbered by allies. They were also desperate to prove that new, 21st-century, pre-emptive wars could be light, nimble affairs conducted with minimal personnel and low budgets. From the outset, this wing of the administration has been determined to run Iraq on the cheap. Even now, they have not 'fessed up about the tens of billions of dollars that Bremer admits will be needed to rebuild a shattered country.

Instead, Team Bush seems to be paralysed, uncertain what to do with an Iraq adventure that refuses to follow the action-movie script they had written for it. By now they were expecting the credits to roll, with cheers for the US performance. What they have got is a situation trickier than any the US military has faced since Vietnam.

Only the most fervent anti-war voices are calling for a complete and immediate withdrawal; such a sudden vacuum would surely guarantee anarchy. On the contrary, providing basic security and services to Iraq will probably take many more, not fewer, people. There are now 140,000 American troops in the country; those who know say that it will take a force of 500,000.

The extra men cannot come from the US. American public opinion would hear too many echoes of LBJ's Vietnam escalation. Besides, the US military is already overstretched; short of reviving the draft, it just doesn't have the troops (and conscription is not much of a policy for an election year.) Above all, more Americans in Iraq just means more targets for the jihadists to aim at.

Some in the American press have wondered about Iraqification - training the Iraqis to look after their own, starting with the military now twiddling their thumbs. But that would mean reinstalling a whole lot of Ba'athists: not much of a regime change.

The only solution is, surely, allies. When you look at the zero-casualty rate the genuine coalition governing the Balkans has sustained, this sounds a smart idea. But it, too, is fraught with problems. It will be hard to win over the likes of France and Germany without offering them a degree of political control over the country; Bremer would have to share power. That would be a huge loss of face for the Washington hardliners for whom the UN is an expletive. Besides, how many nations will be eager to expose their young men to harm, now that they know a UN flag attracts rather than deters terrorists?

None of these problems is a surprise. An enterprise that was misconceived from the beginning was hardly going to reach a smooth end. Now that it has started, it has to be run differently - with more money, more personnel, more allies and a timetable for free elections. To get all that may require one more thing, which only the American people can provide, 14 months from now: new leadership.

j.freedland@guardian.co.uk

-Arrian

[Caligastia]

Sure it's an op-ed piece, but it contains good news from Iraq.

[Caligastia]

Uuuhhh...thanks Arrian...I guess...

[Arrian]

The key to the whole thing? Starting assumptions/biases.

The first article is written by someone who supported the war. He thinks it was a good idea. Therefore, he accentuates the positive.

The Guardian writer was anti-war. His position is clearly stated at the end:

None of these problems is a surprise. An enterprise that was misconceived from the beginning was hardly going to reach a smooth end.

Thus: it was a bad idea, and thus of course it is failing. With that starting viewpoint, of course he's going to write negative articles on Iraq.

In short, both pieces are opinion pieces written by people with very clear biases.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

"a throbbing hub of terror. Islamists bent on murder, all but non-existent in Saddam's Iraq, are now flocking to the country, from Syria, Iran and across the Arab world. In the way that hippies used to head for San Francisco, jihadists are surging towards Baghdad. For those eager to strike at the US infidel, Iraq is the place to be: a shooting gallery, with Americans in easy firing range. Afghanistan is perilous terrain, but Iraq is open country. For the Islamist hungry for action, there are rich pickings. "


I thought the terrain in afghanistan was supposed to be the best place to beat the americans, just as the Soviets and Brits were beaten in the past.

In fact theres no particular evidence that many US troops have been killed by AQ - most attacks on AQ have been by Baathists. AQ is more implicated in the attack on the UN, Jordan embassy, and on Hakim. Why go after them if Americans are in easy firing range?

Answer - the American strategy - to build an Iraqi democracy as a first step to transforming the region - this is AQ's nightmare. They take it seriously, even if most in the West dont. And theyre throwing everything theyve got into Iraq to stop it.

Thats why this is the battle we have to win - as Howard Dean has said.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Arrian
In short, both pieces are opinion pieces written by people with very clear biases.

With the bias of most on this forum so painfully apparent, I thought I'd inject some positivity into the Iraq discussion.

[lord of the mark]

heres some more "newsy" good news, from AFP

"With the handover, the provinces of Karbala and Babil will be under Polish command. Najaf and al-Qadisiyah will be under Spanish control and the province of Wasit will be under Ukrainian command. The areas lie in a zone marked out by the coalition between Baghdad and the southern city of Basra.


In another ceremony back in Baghdad, most of the 25 members of Iraq's first post-Saddam cabinet were sworn in, in a step welcomed around the world as progress in efforts to restore Iraq's sovereignty.


Each ministry will continue to be supervised by a coalition-appointed advisor, most of whom are American, and Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, will retain overall authority until an elected government is in place, scheduled for next year at the earliest.


Bremer, who attended the ceremony, has pledged that the interim cabinet would exercise real control in running the government.


On the ground, forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan arrested three suspected members of Ansar al-Islam in the northern city of Kirkuk. All three were carrying suitcases packed with TNT.


Their arrest was confirmation of repeated warnings by Bremer, who has said some of the group's members have returned to Iraq to plot attacks after fleeing briefly to Iran during the war.


Kurdish forces also arrested five former members of the Baath party north of Kirkuk suspected of being responsible for an attack on an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.


Residents in Baquba, 66 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, said US forces had arrested an army general of the former regime, identified as Nassaif Jassem al-Samarrai, and his son in a raid on their house. "

[Caligastia]

Thanks Lord of the Mark.

[lord of the mark]

and then theres this:

"Mortar bombs were fired at the U.S. military base in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit Wednesday and U.S. troops surged out in Humvees and armored vehicles to repel the attackers, Reuters witnesses said.


There were no immediate reports of American casualties in the firefight which lasted around 15 minutes but U.S. forces said they thought at least one Iraqi was killed.

"That was beautiful, best firefight I've ever seen," said Sgt. Gilbert Nail, from Oklahoma.

U.S. officers said six mortars flew over the base which occupies Saddam's former palace on the banks of the river Tigris and landed in empty lots in the city.

A reconnaissance unit on patrol was the first to engage the attackers and U.S. Humvees backed by Bradley fighting vehicles and Apache helicopters rushed to join the fight. They were fired on by rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and machine guns.

Tracer fire lit up the sky as the Americans returned fire, leaving a patch of land and debris in flames.

"It sounds like we got one of the RPG firers, you can hear his rounds cooking off," said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who leads 4th Infantry Division's First Battalion, 22nd Regiment, listening to small explosions coming from flames. '

Thanks Col. Russell and Sgt. Nail. Gotta just love the 4th ID.