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July
14, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
One of the easiest and quickest things we could have done was to establish a free Iraqi news service on television and radio. In urban areas such as Baghdad and Tikrit, nearly every Iraqi home has satellite television, and those that don't have regular TV. The only programming they receive today comes from three sources. First is al-Jazeera (all terrorism, all the time). Next is al-Arabiyah, a station that broadcasts anti-Americanism from Dubai. (When Peter Arnett was axed by CNN, al-Arabiyah hired him, and now broadcasts his reports with an Arab voice-over). Last, and not least, are the regular broadcasts from Iran which don't even require a satellite dish to pick up. Against this propaganda onslaught we are broadcasting: nothing. It's no better in the other media. The main newspaper is Al Sabah. Its editor — Ismail Al Zayir — is anti-Coalition, and his newspaper reflects it. A woman named Shamim Rassam — who for three decades was one of Saddam's faces to the foreign media — is now in a prominent position with the "Iraqi Media Network," the only media representing the Coalition in Iraq. While American soldiers are guarding Iraqi banks and museums, no significant Iraqi police force has been mobilized. Offers from the free Iraqi groups to put thousands of their own troops on the street to maintain order have been rebuffed. One of my Iraqi National Congress sources in Baghdad told me that they could put 5,000 troops on the street within two weeks, and within another six to eight weeks, could have at least 25,000 on the job, relieving the Americans who, in my source's words, are "sitting ducks". The INC wants to put its people on the job under Coalition command, but Paul Bremer — and his bosses — rejects the idea. While State marginalizes the INC, it is doing the same for Kurdish leaders. Wednesday's New York Times carried an op-ed by Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leaders of the two largest Kurdish groups. They wrote, "We need to mark out a clear path toward national elections and representative government, so that Iraqis have some sense of certainty about their political future." Another "roadmap"? Yes, but this one could work if we knock over some of the roadblocks. First, the president needs to remove the State and CIA apparatchiks that are stalling the creation of the provisional government while they play Clive of India. Talabani and Barzani are absolutely right. We need a public plan to establish Iraqi control of Iraq. We need to let the Iraqis form a provisional government now, not months or years from now. There was a constitutional government in Iraq before Saddam. There can't be an agreement on a new Constitution immediately, so we should get the free Iraqi leaders to agree to some version of the old one, have them sign it as a temporary document with a fixed expiration date. Then help them sixty craft their new one by that date. Publish a real road map to democracy, and assure them that no matter how long the fugitive Saddamites fight, we won't pull out until Iraq can stand on its own feet. We lost Vietnam for many reasons, but one of the top two was that we published deadlines for our withdrawal. We need to make sure that the enemies of freedom know we won't leave before it's time. And those messages need to get out to Iraq. Whoever is advising Paul Bremer on managing Iraqi news media should be ordered to spend what little it may take to get a free Iraqi equivalent of MSNBC and Fox on the air right now. The fact that this hasn't happened yet betrays a level of disarray — or worse — in Bremer's operation. That television network — and a radio cousin we should also put on the air — should broadcast the voices of all the free Iraqi groups. Give them each several hours a week, and let them produce news and talk shows. From those voices and faces, the Iraqi electorate can start educating itself about which of these groups should be elected in whatever free elections follow. Then get the free Iraqi forces mobilized, and let them police the streets. The sooner we do this, the sooner our people there — and the Iraqis themselves — will be safe. Keep the Iraqi police and troops under Coalition command, and keep a close eye on them. This is not a Middle Eastern version of "Vietnamization." The Iraqis are smart, capable people who have at least the memory of freedom. The sooner we let them take responsibility for it — without withdrawing our forces that guarantee it, for now — the sooner they will taste it again. If you notice where most of the violence against Americans is being perpetrated, it's in the corridor from Falujah in the west to Baghdad in the center and north around Tikrit. It is in those areas, which are primarily Sunni, that Saddam's forces melted away during the military action, and are now operating a well-funded guerilla operation. That the violence is concentrated there doesn't mean Iran is innocent, just that the Shia population hasn't yet been armed or sufficiently stirred up by them to add to our problems. Adding to our problems is, of course, the job of the State Department's pals in Saudi Arabia that have sent dozens of Wahabbi mullahs into Iraq. They are now preaching the same hatred and violence against the Coalition that is their normal fare at home. And they are allying themselves — and the funding they bring — to the remnants of Saddam's regime. Their goal is not to restore Saddam. It is — as it has always been — to prevent democracy from taking hold on Saudi Arabia's border. We need to be more aggressive about capturing and holding prisoners. When members of the former Republican Guard or anyone operating against Coalition forces are caught, they need to be held indefinitely. Moreover, anyone — including the Saudi mullahs — who are identified as preaching violence against the Coalition forces should join them in prison. None of these prisoners should be released until there is the new government takes custody of them and determine their fate. Last, and certainly not least, we need to rebuff all the voices of "pragmatism" that want us to turn Iraq over to the U.N. The U.N. is hopelessly corrupt, both as to confronting terrorism and as to the money it holds that belongs to the people of Iraq. The people of Iraq deserve better than to become serfs of the U.N., or to the French and German companies salivating at the prospect of reentering Iraq. We should establish the Iraqi provisional government and demand that the money the U.N. holds be turned over to it. Otherwise, we should pay the $4 billion ourselves, and take it out of our U.N. "dues." It would be a bargain on both ends. — NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and is now an MSNBC military analyst. He is the author of the novel Legacy of Valor. |
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the situation in Iraq is allowed to drift for many more months, a decade
from now historians will be asking, "Who lost Iraq?" It's less
than four months 
