Posted on 10/31/2003 9:41:19 PM PST by FairOpinion
WHILE newspaper and television stories keep us abreast of suicide bombings and the numbers of dead and injured in the Middle East, there is another side to post-war Iraq that has gone virtually unreported abroad.
It is a story of slow but steady reconstruction, of the immunisation of children, of the rebuilding of schools and hospitals and of the country’s shattered economy.
That is not to downplay the seriousness of the situation in Baghdad and the so-called "Sunni Triangle", merely an acknowledgement that there are two sides to the ledger.
"The media reports things that don't work. They report bad news," argues Andrew Natsios, the head of the United States Agency for International Development. "The fact that there were no riots, no demonstrations, no reports of mass starvation is not a reportable event on the front pages of a newspaper."
Progress is not rapid, but there is progress.
Schools and hospitals aren’t merely open, they are being refurbished. An extensive vaccination programme is underway. Child mortality is falling. The economy is improving, even though unemployment and corruption remain significant problems.
Last week, Kamil al- Keylani, the finance minister, announced an ambitious economic stimulus package, prompting al-Zamaan, the most popular of the 170 newspapers in the country, to declare: "This new reform plan ends 30 years of economic stagnation under Saddam’s regime."
Each week brings more examples of important, but unglamorous reforms.
Oil production is increasing and will soon pass two million barrels a day despite the best efforts of saboteurs. Even the electricity situation is slowly improving. Power generation has returned to pre-war levels.
There are more than 85,000 Iraqis already involved, to one degree or another, with policing and security issues. By January, the US expects to have trained 15,000 members of the Iraqi civil defence corps and 20,000 members of the facility protection service. Work will then begin on retraining 27 battalions of the reconstituted Iraqi army.
Although there remains much work to be done in terms of rebuilding Iraq’s neglected infrastructure, progress on the political front is both more immediate and apparent. And not just on the national level with the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).
As Major Pete Wilhelm, of the 82nd Airborne Division describes, progress towards reconstituting civil society continues apace.
"We set up a Neighbourhood Advisory Council representative of each neighbourhood, and they voted on a leader who attends the city advisory council. Early on, the meetings would last four hours, and it would seem as though no progress was being made. The whole concept of a ‘vote’ came hard and slow. We have gradually transitioned the burden of the agenda into the hands of the representatives. The meetings are down to an hour and a half, and we just keep the ball in play and act as referees. We are making great strides at grassroots democracy."
This example is merely one of many. Work will soon begin on a new constitution and it is a sign of progress that the IGC is pressing for more powers to be given to it. After the Second World War the allies occupied Germany for four years before elections were first held in 1949, and the transition to democracy was even slower in Japan; Iraq will not have to wait that long.
In other words, politics as normal is beginning to take root. It is noticeable too that, despite the manifest problems, the Iraqi people themselves seem more optimistic than doom-mongerers in the US and Britain.
The IGC enjoys widespread support and a recent poll reported that 50 per cent of Iraqis felt that it was doing an increasingly good job. Moreover, the majority of Iraqis feel it is important for the coalition troops to remain in Iraq for at least another year. Indeed, persistent fears that the US may leave too soon do as much to ferment instability as anything else.
What is remarkable, however, is how stable the country is, although certain areas of it remain dangerous. Fears that regime change would encourage Islamic fundamentalism have not thus far materialised. Major population centres such as Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk are remarkably stable.
Jassim Hadi, a history professor at Baghdad University summed up the principle problem facing both the US and the IGC: "The problem with this country is that all its former governments were inattentive to the people and we also fear the forthcoming government."
So, is everything going well in Iraq? No, of course not. There remain serious problems that will bedevil coalition and Iraqi efforts at reconstruction in both the short and long term. But that should not blind observers to the truth that progress, however halting and imperfect, is being made. If the current guerrilla war American troops face is lost, the chances are it will have been lost by a lack of resolve in the US and Britain rather than in Iraq itself.
We saw the same thing happen in Germany as the apron strings were loosened and the German Republic was formed. There were basically two elements in Germany and still are. The lowlands and the Bavarians with different language and ethnicity. Once it became apparent that they were not going to be forced into the same mold, the Federal Republic of Germany became reality.
You know, I understand your sentiment but I just have a hard time believing this would happen. I don't even believe the situation in the Balkans has been solved. Oh sure, right now they're not fighting. I find it hard to believe that with a Baathist dictatorship right next door- Syria- a funamentalist Shia nation right at the other door- Iran- a nation hostile to the Kurds to the north- Turkey- that these three groups are going to be able to get along for a great deal of time.
But I don't really see what else we can do in the long run short of splitting the country up into three smaller countries and signing defense agreements with one or more of them. We can't babysit them forever. We get the country up and running to a point where the people have a legitimate shot to make something out of it and then you have to take off the training wheels...
Last week, Kamil al- Keylani, the finance minister, announced an ambitious economic stimulus package, prompting al-Zamaan, the most popular of the 170 newspapers in the country, to declare: "This new reform plan ends 30 years of economic stagnation under Saddam’s regime."
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European ally press.
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Grownup patriots are changing Iraq from a dangerous enemy to a democratic ally.
Like the tiny Vincent Price at the end of "The Fly", demunists whine, "Help me!".
Raid's here.
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