Posted on 04/04/2003 2:32:45 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
KANAN MAKIYA'S War Diary
Only at TNR Online Post date: 04.03.03
Iraqis in the diaspora--friends, colleagues, refugees from the 1996 debacle in the north--are at this moment packing their bags, gathering at collection points, and returning to northern and southern Iraq. Some are en route to Kuwait and other countries within or near the "theater of operations"--the Pentagon lingo by which they are learning to refer to their home. The mechanics and specifics of their movement I am not at liberty to disclose. Suffice it to say they should have made their move months ago. The enemies of the Iraqi opposition in Washington made sure that did not happen. Today, however, the U.S. Central Command wants them. It needs them. And nobody in or around the Beltway dares question that. Wasn't it Churchill who said the United States can be counted on to make the right decision after exhausting all the alternatives? Well, better late than never.
I am traveling, too. Presently, I am winging my way back from Nashville, where I have just given a talk on post-Saddam Iraq at Vanderbilt University to a very large gathering of faculty and students. In the few hours it took to give the lecture, field questions, go out for a most congenial dinner with my hosts, and meet the local Iraqi community, I picked up from my voicemail numerous messages from Iraqis asking me questions. These callers, all young men, are traveling into the unknown, preparing to join the fight from which they have been so unjustly left out. Will my reassurances make a young man who has chosen to fight the good fight feel better? Their questions, I confess, I am unable to answer. Should I pretend to know that which I know I don't? Some of these young men, traveling great distances for liberation, will not survive to enjoy it.
What do I know of war, and, for that matter, fighting in the terrain in and around the cities of the Iraqi south? I have not visited those cities for more than 30 years. My memories date back to the 1960s. Such a person is not in a position to reassure anyone of anything. The callers know that, but still they call. Perhaps it is not me they really want to talk to; anyone will do, and I happen to be on the other end of the line. Or perhaps, God forbid, they think of me as an expert on American intentions, which they are now trying to fathom. Should I then call them back to assure them of those intentions, of how important it is at this stage to liaise with CENTCOM while retaining their independence as Iraqis, as banner-carriers of the Iraqi opposition's legacy of relentless opposition to Baathism and national chauvinism?
The more I know of those intentions, the less I know of what to say about them. Yesterday the forces for democracy in Iraq lost a round on Capitol Hill, as Congress voted to place the $2.5 billion earmarked for post-war Iraq in the hands of the State Department rather than the Pentagon. We may yet lose another round if the United Nations ends up diminishing American leadership in the transition after Saddam's fall. Meanwhile, the body known as the Iraqi Interim Authority has not yet been designed, even though no one knows how close or how distant we are from regime change. Jay Garner's reconstruction team is gathered at a Kuwaiti beachside hotel creating spreadsheets of reformed government ministries while the Iraqi opposition is in limbo in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Misunderstanding and confusion are the order of the day. It is getting late. And I need to return those calls.
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