Beyond Baghdad
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Beyond Baghdad Planning Iraq's future. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Safat, Kuwait ONE OF THE MOST DECISIVE military campaigns in history. A war plan that sought to spare the lives not only of Iraqi...
...The operation here, the Office of Reconstruction I and Humanitarian Assistance, is run by Jay Garner, a retired general who directed Operation Provide Comfort, which carved out a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq in the early 1990s...
...Two weeks before the start of the war, Vice President Dick Cheney met with a small group of Iraqi exiles, including Dhia, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House...
...Postwar planners are drawn from a wide variety of government agencies and opposition groups in Washington, D.C...
...The sooner we are done, the sooner the new Iraqi authorities can take over...
...It's hard to predict the future, but there's no sign yet that the administration is suffering from attention deficit disorder...
...Several members of his team, those coordinating activities in southern Iraq, moved into Umm Qasr, Iraq, late last week—the first members of the Interim Iraqi Authority to operate on Iraqi soil...
...They were held by Saddam sympathizers and Baath party members, who will be removed, of course...
...The first order of business, says Dhia, is staffing the various ministries...
...We want to create the conditions under which democracy can flourish...
...Indeed, postwar planning continues apace in Washington and Kuwait...
...The administration has offered many different explanations, some of them mutually contradictory, for its determination to occupy Baghdad...
...A war plan that sought to spare the lives not only of Iraqi civilians, but of Iraqi soldiers...
...Effective with the fall of Baghdad last week, Krugman inverted his critique, in the process establishing his own impeccable credentials when it comes to "mutually contradictory" arguments...
...As the administration has begun to announce its plans for postwar Iraq— an interim authority and a quick transition to an Iraqi government—that argument has disappeared faster than Saddam Hussein...
...Bill Moyers devoted last week's episode of his current events show to arguments for gun control and an update on corporate scandals...
...PBS might consider changing the show's name, from Now with Bill Moyers to Last Year with Bill Moyers...
...Journalists scoot about in rented Mitsubishi SUVs with gas cans attached to the top, while government officials drive new Chevy Suburbans...
...The group in charge of northern Iraq was scheduled to depart Kuwait on Saturday, April 12...
...Scenes of jubilant Iraqis in the streets—praising President Bush as "The Hero of the Peace...
...I talk to Jay Garner, and I see a man who is committed to helping the Iraqi people," he says...
...That's a small group...
...Then, liberation...
...Another is finalizing the plan to flip the Iraqi media—in a period of days—from a collection of state-run propaganda mills to freely operating m independent outlets...
...They will shortly join Garner's staff in Iraq to facilitate the transition...
...Many of the positions in the ministries will soon be empty," he says...
...Dhia agrees...
...That's all he said on the subject...
...On September 24, 2002, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned his readers about a "definite whiff of imperial ambition in the air...
...Dhia scoffs at critics like Krug-man who worry that the Bush administration will leave the job unfinished...
...Life here is frenzied, but comfortable—a dramatic contrast to the life of the American forces now in Iraq...
...In a lot of the ministries there are good public servants...
...Others chose, rather remarkably, to ignore the hopeful turn of events...
...It used to be the primary argument of the naysayers that the United States was intent on a hostile takeover of the Middle East...
...Many of the problems will be local problems," says Dhia, pointing to the work of his staff with experience in health care...
...Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...We have to make sure the government is not paralyzed and that the services are provided to the people," says Dhia...
...At the same time, others from the IRDC will begin work with the provinces and towns to reestablish a governmental presence on the local level...
...The new worry is that the Bush administration will cut and run, ignoring the needs of Iraqis...
...For all this, critics gave the Bush administration a 24-hour reprieve...
...In the resort town of Safat, 12 miles south of Kuwait City, a government-in-waiting prepares itself for the coming transition...
...Among many other topics, he offered them his hopes for postwar Iraq...
...Garner is a raw, no-nonsense administrator who has thus far stayed away from the media...
...I talk to Paul Wolfowitz and I see a man with a vision to help establish democracy through the region...
...President Bush has given us the resources so that we are aligned to be successful...
...The next month he was certain about the coming occupation of Iraq...
...Operating on a parallel track in suburban Washington, D.C., is the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC), run by Emad Dhia, an Iraqi American from Detroit...
...One man I talked to is helping draft a new Iraqi Constitution, though he told me he has some other duties to attend to first...
...Soldiers eat MREs, the postwar planners feast on lunch and dinner buffets at the five-star Hilton Hotel...
...We need people to run the clinics, to get medicine, to take care of patients...
...After the triumph," he wrote of the Bush administration, "when it comes time to take care of what they've won, their attention wanders, and things go to pot...
...As for the rest, they've spotted a new disaster to blame on the Bush administration—neglect of Iraq's many problems...
...The honest ones admitted they were wrong...
...A rush to repair the damage—most of it caused not by American bombs, but by more than three decades of tyranny...
...That group consists of 100 Iraqi exiles who have spent the past two months working 16-hour days, seven days a week...
...There is a pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does not bode well for the future—a pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect," Krugman wrote April 11...
...The IRDC experts will work with the remaining ministry officials to identify Iraqis capable of assuming high-level positions in the ministries...
Vol. 8 • April 2003 • No. 31
