As many as thirteen Iraqis were killed yesterday in Fallujah, near Baghdad, when demonstrators fired on U.S. troops. Many of the demonstrators, some carrying pro-Saddam signs, were children and young men aged 5 - 20. Demonstrations such as this are part of the precious right to free speech. But in Iraq, as in many other places around the world, the people don't see a difference between demonstration and fighting because they don't understand that their freedom doesn't include random violence.
We don't know whether yesterday's incident was the product of local frustrations or agitation by former Saddamites or outsiders eager to provoke incidents to build anti-American feelings among the local populace. That doesn't really matter. There will be many more incidents like this around Iraq. We cannot allow our soldiers to be fired on without response, and we cannot allow Iran's proxies--or those of other countries--win the bigger fight by failing to stick to the job, and stay as long as we need to ensure that the next Iraq is an ally, not another Islamist enemy.
The president promised that yesterday, in his Dearborn speech. The interesting part was not in the president's words, but in the audience's reaction. At one point, Mr. Bush reminded the crowd of expat Iraqis and their children that religious freedom is a God-given right. The crowd began to stand, giving him an ovation. We could only see, in the camera's view, the people on stage behind him. The last to rise, with the most sour look on his face, was some character in a Taliban-wannabe getup, black turban and robes. He doesn't think religious freedom is anyone's right, and he and his ilk will fight us and the new Iraqi government to see that it doesn't take root. But that is the real battle for Iraqi democracy. There are Shia and Sunnis and Turkomen and others in Iraq. If they all do not gain religious freedom first, and exercise it freely, the battle for Iraqi democracy may well be lost.
The Saudis suffered a blow yesterday when we announced we would pull our command assets out of Prince Sultan Air Base--"PSAB" in the inevitable Air Force acronym--and move them to Qatar. Their uncooperativeness and religious hatred of the West should have propelled us out of there sooner. But in Qatar, our fly-guys will have freedom of movement, and operation. That advantage will pay off throughout the region. The Saudis will not stop their undercover campaigns against us.
Today's Arab News--the Saudi official English daily--opines that our victory is both cheap and incomplete because Saddam and his top thugs may have disappeared. It says, "In short, almost everyone in the region believes that the Americans helped Saddam Hussein and his cronies flee the battlefield. Now, we can all sit back and watch US forces hunt for Iraqi terrorists all over the neighboring Arab and Islamic countries, just as they did after Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar vanished in Afghanistan." The Saudis are one of the principal regimes that will be threatened by religious freedom in Iraq, and our hunt for terrorists threatens their influence throughout the region and the world. We must keep that in mind as much as they do. Their intent to spread Wahhabism to the world sees Iraq as an essential objective. They will do whatever they can to subvert religious freedom there.
While this goes on, so does the job of rebuilding Iraq. Yesterday's meeting between about 300 Iraqis and Gen. Jay Garner produced the decision to meet again within a month and choose an interim government for Iraq. This will be much like the meeting held for post-Taliban Afghanistan which resulted in the Karzai government. Once that government is established--and it must be before the U.N. oil-for-food program expires on June 3--the last vestige of U.N. control will vanish, and Iraq's new government can deal with any other to establish relations and begin its role in the world. After that, the enemies of freedom will try to turn up the heat on the new government and the population, and we have to be there to cool things down to a productive temperature.
The president pledged that we will help Iraqis build a prosperous and free nation, and we will keep that pledge just as we did our pledge to rid Iraqi of an oppressive regime. We can win the long battle for Iraqi democracy without being loved in the region, but not without being respected. We cannot allow--regardless of the protests and the bloodshed that will continue--our resolve to fade. The Democrats' resolve, never strong, is already fading.
I spoke yesterday with former New York governor Mario Cuomo. We talked about the president's tax cuts, which he opposes, and how the Dems will posture themselves on national security. His only answer was that the president's failure to fund homeland security more was an enormous failure. Sen. Bob Graham, taking a parallel line, said that we have "...virtually abandoned the war on terrorism." Since 1972, we have needed no further proof that the Democrats are clueless on defense and foreign affairs. But they continue to provide redundant proofs, betting only on the President to fail. They fear that the large success--ridding Iraq of Saddam--will be followed by smaller successes building to a real democracy in Iraq. One of those small successes happened this morning.
Today, the first free Iraqi newspaper will hit the street, only 6,000 copies strong. It will be devoured as is the news from the free Iraqi radio and television being broadcast with our help. As more electricity is restored around the nation, so will the flow of news and ideas. So long as we are sure the Iraqi people are free to hear it, and not to fear we will abandon them to the mullahs, they will use their freedom well. It's no wonder that the First Amendment includes both freedom of the press and freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers didn't put them first by accident. Here, as in Iraq, those two freedoms are the foundation upon which the others stand or fall.
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