Editor’s note: Cholene Espinoza contributed to this column
BAGHDAD, Iraq – My week in Iraq’s capital has been instructive, pointing to both the perils and the promises of reconstructing this deeply conflicted and broken nation.
I’m going to start with a recent conversation I had with my Iraqi translator, who, for reasons you’ll understand shortly, I’ve nicknamed “Baghdad Mary.” As we are driving through the streets of Baghdad, she asked me what I thought of Saddam Hussein.
“Bad guy,” I replied, “a very bad guy.”
She shook her head in disapproval. “I love Saddam Hussein,” she said. “Did you know that all of the children called him Baba Saddam [“Papa Saddam”], and that he loved children?”
I was dumbfounded. “But what about the mass graves,” I demanded to know. “The bones of women and children were found in those pits!”
She looked at me and shrugged. “Oh, well,” she sighed, “nobody is perfect.” She later added, “Under Saddam, I was safe in my house, I had electricity, I had water and a job.”
It’s too easy to simply write Baghdad Mary off as morally obtuse. But that ignores what I think are the central issues in Iraq’s reconstruction, which, if not solved quickly, will unravel whatever good the United States has or can accomplish here and we can start a new hunt for new weapons of mass destruction in a few years.
The two central issues are: De-Baathization and basic health for the Iraqi people. De-Baathization, essentially akin to the process de-Nazi-fication following the defeat of Germany in World War II, is not a matter of arrest hit lists, decks of cards, wanted posters or the purging of Baath Party leaders from important positions. De-Baathization must really be about the elimination of an idea, a culture of fear and an entire way of life.
I would like nothing better than to report that Baghdad Mary’s feelings about Saddam (among the Sunni population) are held by a tiny minority on the margins of society over here. But that wouldn’t be true.
Baghdad Mary’s views in part result from a conviction among many Iraqis that life under Saddam Hussein was better. And, in fact, most believe that he is still alive, still orchestrating attacks on coalition forces, and may even eventually return to power. A letter circulating around Baghdad University with Saddam’s signature warns Iraqis to stay away from the U.S. military because they will be killed along with them.
Many of the groups now killing U.S. soldiers go by such names as, “The Party of Return” and I’ve been told by credible sources that threats are widespread that any Iraqi assisting the coalition will have their tongues cut out – or worse. And given George Bush the Elder’s 1991 broken promise to the Shiites – to assist their revolt against Saddam – is it any wonder that many Iraqis believe that the United States will cut and run when the going gets tough?
Until the Bush administration can definitively locate Saddam, the entire American reconstruction policy is in jeopardy.
The enemy of reconstruction is not just Saddam, but the culture he represents. How do you kill a cancerous idea? In Germany, it was relatively easy. Hitler was only in power for 12 years – before that, Germany had within living memory the experience of the Weimar Republic, the Kaiser and Otto von Bismark’s social reforms.
Many Bush people love to romanticize this country as a 5,000-year-old civilization. True enough, but its living memory only reaches back a bit longer than 40 years, which is too short to recover authentic memories of the freer Iraq of the 1940s and 1950s. Iraqis think “centrally,” as in, Central Baghdad. The concept of local autonomy was non-existent. As the head of USAID, Andrew Natsios said, “everything was cleared through Baghdad.” Today, there is no central authority. Everyone is waiting to be told what to do.
Paul Bremer, the man George Bush put in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction has some good ideas – a free and independent media, among them. But Maslow’s hierarchy of needs wins. Security, electricity, water, money. Young girls do not leave their homes due to the threat of being kidnapped. As for “free speech”? According to Don North, the consultant for the Iraqi Media Network, many Iraqis prefer Saddam TV, when the “anchors looked and spoke perfectly, vs. the media of today with young journalists interviewing people on noisy streets making grammatical errors.”
And what about democracy? Baghdad Mary says, “No, I don’t think democracy. Iraqi people are hard. We need a strong leader. Maybe a king would be best. Someone strong, like Saddam.” Saddam ruled by divide and conquer, by pitting a Sunni minority against a Shiite majority and a Kurdish minority. He created the illusion of a Sunni Herrenvolk, vesting that group with power at the expense of other Iraqis groups. Baghdad Mary is a product of this strategy.
Mussolini boasted that under fascism, the trains ran on time. Under Saddam, people felt safe so long as they behaved and, yes, things tended to run on time, including the scheduled executions. Until the United States convinces average Iraqis that not only are the executions over – really over – but that they will be better without him, the country will, as one Iraqi said, be a nation of complete violence in four months.
As one member of the Iraqi Red Cresent Agency said, “Take the military, for example, these people were trained to kill for 20 years. Now they still have weapons, but no money. What do you think will happen?” Ironically, two former Iraqi military members were shot and killed while protesting for pay at a demonstration two days ago. The Baghdad Bulletin reports that there is now one U.S. solider for every 80 Iraqis. It’s going to take a lot better odds as the temperature continues to rise to above 120 degrees.
