The Bumpy Road to Democracy in Iraq
BARNES, FRED
The Bumpy Road to Democracy in Iraq It's not easy recovering from generations of despotism BY FRED BARNES Baghdad Here's what you learn quickly in Iraq: The I transformation of the country into...
...That's bound to be traumatic...
...For one thing, it might ease Iraq's religious and ethnic tensions...
...In meeting soldiers in World War II, Dwight Eisenhower had a great icebreaker...
...Journalism training provided by the CPA and other organizations has helped...
...Nonetheless, a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Operation Iraqi Freedom has gained impressive momentum...
...The truth is the difficulty with Iraqis—their whining, their ethnic squabbling, their anti-Americanism—hasn't diverted Bremer from his relentless nation-building...
...In one, six soldiers were charged with assaulting detainees at a military prison, a breakdown in discipline that infuriated the top American commander, Lt...
...The CPA has spread teams of experts, academics, administrators, bureaucrats, and consultants throughout the restructured Iraqi government and private sector...
...Saddam's equal-opportunity repression has created a sense of community among very disparate factions...
...The Bush tax cuts pale in comparison...
...I tried it in Iraq, and it led to friendly chats every time...
...Travel to Kurdistan and you'll run into them...
...Mike Fleischer, an economic adviser and brother of former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, has made a back-of-theenvelope calculation that money paid to Iraqis annually from the reconstruction budget over the next few years will amount to 6 percent of GDP That's staggering...
...At briefings, Iraqis get a simultaneous translation, and they're allowed to ask most of the questions...
...I have my doubts...
...Though terrorist attacks continue, they don't halt progress and are likely to be gradually beaten back...
...There are no credit cards or ATMs, and no privatization of state-owned companies has taken place...
...Were Bremer staying on for the next 10 years as Iraqi viceroy, robust growth could be all but guaranteed...
...Attend something as seemingly superficial as an Iraqi sports event and you'll see what I mean about national pride...
...Iraq went from a totalitarian tyranny to an open society in a single day...
...With that last step, Iraq would have a truly modern economy...
...Nothing says optimism to me like putting up a new building," says Fleischer...
...True, Iraqi journalists act better than they did months ago, when all the questions were barely disguised accusations or simply based on rumor...
...Should national unity prevail, Iraq's chances of becoming a stable democracy will improve dramatically...
...It necessitates high taxes, which grabs money that might be put to more productive uses...
...Tales of mistreatment are largely mythical...
...This got them nowhere with Iraqi journalists, who have reacted hysterically...
...When Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared at a press conference here last week, the Iraqis called for a moment of silence for the two dead TV journalists...
...The immensity of the task in Iraq is really breathtaking...
...Iraqis want help...
...A half-million or more used cars have been imported from Jordan, Kuwait, and Turkey...
...Likewise, Iraqis watch the news about the occupation, then comment on it, negatively...
...The officers are fine, but it's the enlisted ranks these days that are most impressive...
...Several days later, the entire Iraqi press corps marched on the "green zone," the American headquarters, with a letter of protest for Bremer...
...For success to be achieved, they need to buy into the program fully— democracy, free markets, rule of law, property rights, political compromise, and patience...
...Now they're on a spending spree...
...They need an attitude adjustment...
...And the money will enter an Iraqi economy that suddenly is among the freest in the world...
...Don't underestimate the sense of Iraqi national pride, despite the strong sectarian identification," he says...
...The press in Iraq feeds this mood...
...Boxes of refrigerators, TVs, generators, and small appliances are piled in front of stores...
...Their expectation was an America capable of supplanting Saddam in less than three weeks would improve everything overnight...
...Kurds, educated exiles who've returned from London and Detroit, and a good number of other Iraqis have embraced what Paul Bremer calls the "new Iraq...
...Before the end of January 2005, a democratically elected government will take office, further eroding U.S...
...Fleischer likes to take visitors for a tour of the Karrada shopping district across the Tigris River from CPA headquarters in Saddam's Republican Palace...
...This was followed by a walkout, as Powell stood silently and watched...
...For the past year, America and its allies have held Iraq together...
...Ricardo Sanchez, and the chief spokesman, Brig...
...thrive, the Wild West capitalist half...
...Mark Kim-mitt...
...Iraq is a large country, with the north as different from the south as Boston is from Birmingham...
...There's a serious obstacle remain-ing—the attitude of many Iraqis...
...Two incidents dominated the Iraqi press in late March...
...troops have been trained to be nice to Iraqis, strange as that seems...
...TV reporters were given millions of dollars of state-of-the-art equipment...
...They don't want Saddam back, but they look unfavorably on the American occupation...
...But perhaps the problem is more basic...
...The two TV news channels that Iraqis watch, Al Jazeera and al-Arabia, are reflexively anti-American...
...When that didn't happen, they grew frustrated...
...It is strongly led by Bremer, well organized, and undaunted...
...Unemployment, as best anyone can tell, exceeded 60 percent...
...But don't assume a growing economy and declining terrorism spell success...
...Kurds and Shia and even many Sunnis have mass grave and torture chamber victimhood in common...
...So is the major news service, Reuters, and AP, staffed by Europeans, isn't much better...
...But they appear to hate being helped...
...Then one read a tendentious statement, complaining the United States has neither made Iraq safer nor stopped terrorism...
...Bremer thinks unemployment may have already fallen to less than 20 percent...
...The question is whether elected officials will do the same or represent their narrow ethnic, religious, or regional constituencies...
...Amazing...
...clout...
...Like the French, they may never forgive America for having liberated them...
...Now they're conflicted between lashing out at the American occupation and trying to get the full benefit of it...
...Having been cowed by Saddam, many Iraqis seem to be making up for it by distrusting their American occupiers and hectoring them whenever the occasion arises...
...And while the security environment here is dodgy, the only downside of terrorist attacks on the creation of a new Iraq has been to discourage foreign companies from rushing in with large-scale projects...
...The assumption is people hoarded cash instead of depositing it in banks that Saddam might loot...
...Bremer, in a rush to lock in reforms before handing sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, wants to start decontrolling prices this spring...
...But an American official who's worked closely with Iraqis and whose views I respect differs...
...The exact details were unclear...
...The new Iraqi media are as close as you can get to a proxy for the Iraqi people, at least in the Baghdad area...
...At the moment, only half the economy stands to Bremer's handpicked Iraqi Governing Council has been willing to compromise and sacrifice for the common good...
...economy would be nearly $650 billion a year...
...And Fred Barnes is executive editor THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...But the papers obsess on the subject of brutal treatment of innocent Iraqis by American soldiers...
...Seventy years ago, Iraq's first king, Faisal I, described Iraqis this way: "There is still—and I say this with a heart full of sorrow— no Iraqi people, but an unimaginable mass of human beings devoid of any patriotic ideas, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, prone to anarchy and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatsoever...
...Satellite dishes, banned under Saddam, sprout from nearly every roof...
...The experiment hasn't worked...
...Block, the Treasury economist, believes the Iraq economy will grow 7 percent to 9 percent a year for the next decade...
...But a journalism teacher in Iraq wrote in the Washington Post that her students cling to the idea that their job is to read the news—not report it—and then comment on it...
...Special backgrounders are conducted for them...
...The only dinars with Saddam's face on them are sold as souvenirs...
...A grateful Iraqi heart would be a sign of a new Iraqi attitude and a signal of sure success...
...The economy was run into the ground by Saddam...
...He would ask, "Where you from, soldier...
...Iraq has traffic jams, street life, drinkable water, reasonably reliable electricity, and is about to experience an extraordinary economic boom, thanks to the $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds soon to begin arriving...
...I've dwelt on the bad news...
...Bre-mer's handpicked Iraqi Governing Council was willing to compromise and sacrifice for the common good...
...A comparable injection of new money in the U.S...
...Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator and America's chief asset here, says Saddam's oppression was worse than the Communists' in Eastern Europe and Russia...
...But a consumer-led surge is underway...
...Iraq has no tariffs or duties, a flat tax rate of 15 percent, no restrictions on capital investment, few regulations that are being enforced, and a new currency that's actually strengthened since its introduction last December...
...The most encouraging trend in Iraq is solid economic growth, sure to be followed by torrid growth...
...A massive American presence—100,000 troops and the largest U.S...
...It put GIs at ease...
...Maybe it's not their fault...
...A hot economy could have a significant social and political impact...
...Where the money came from nobody knows...
...The economic consequences of this are destructive...
...Rather than professionalized, the Iraqi press has become politicized...
...Americans I talked to in 10 days here agree Iraqis are difficult to deal with...
...Iraqis pay a pittance for gas and virtually nothing for food and electricity...
...They rarely inquire about the progress of investigations of terrorist attacks...
...Visit the new central bank and they're there...
...I'd like to see one other thing in Iraq, an outbreak of gratitude for the greatest act of benevolence one country has ever done for another...
...Terrorists who kill innocent Iraqis get softer treatment...
...Their questions at briefings are mostly of the why-are-you-Americans-picking-on-Iraqis variety...
...Indeed, they demand it and are angry and frustrated when they don't get it instantly...
...They're polite warriors...
...They met privately with Iraqi journalists...
...All transactions are done in cash...
...At least there was a period of transition in the Communist countries when the terror was lifted and the rules liberalized...
...I didn't understand the breadth of the effort until I noticed a press officer's list of phone numbers of senior advisers in various fields...
...What also says optimism is the return of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of exiles with money and schemes for investing it...
...Bremer and Kimmitt went to unprecedented lengths to soothe Iraqi anger over the killings, quickly ordering an independent investigation...
...The other half is socialist, not only the so-called SOEs (state-owned enterprises) but the subsidies for food, gas, and electricity...
...In the other, two Iraqis working for al-Arabia TV were killed in a clash at a checkpoint...
...And Kimmitt discussed the case at briefings on the record...
...Iraqi reporters have been coddled by the military and Bre-mer's CPA in hopes they'll evolve into a responsible free press...
...All at once, America and its allies are trying to modernize a primitive banking system, assess and exhume scores of mass graves, revive Iraqi agriculture, create a respectable press corps, recruit and train police and a new army, replace worn-out and antiquated infrastructure, establish regulatory agencies like an Iraqi version of the Federal Communications Commission, start a public broadcasting system, and persuade Iraqis they're better off without heavily subsidized food, gasoline, and electricity...
...For another, it would make the decision to abolish bankrupt nationalized enterprises acceptable because the 500,000 employees could find jobs in the private sector...
...Will elected officials do the same...
...Vacant storefronts and bare lots are being turned into retail businesses and new buildings...
...A group of Iraqi reporters meets weekly with Bremer, a break American journalists don't get...
...embassy in the world—will remain, but American influence will begin to dwindle...
...that's just off the top of my head...
...And growing incomes would allow Iraq's first elected government to begin decontrol of prices...
...In short, the American intervention is so powerful and all-encompassing that it overshadows everything else...
...He knows the Iraqi attitude problem can't be solved overnight...
...This summer the Iraqi economy will be on the receiving end of the biggest stimulus in history...
...Cell phone use is soaring...
...The liberation of Iraq has brought about a flowering of newspapers—nearly 200 of them—and that's a positive development...
...I saw soldiers deal respectfully with Iraqis all over the country...
...But many Iraqis haven't...
...The point is he and Bremer didn't play down or ignore the incident...
...Of course the economy is still primitive in many ways...
...They're sullen and suspicious and conspiracy-minded...
...The Bumpy Road to Democracy in Iraq It's not easy recovering from generations of despotism BY FRED BARNES Baghdad Here's what you learn quickly in Iraq: The I transformation of the country into a B peaceful, free market democracy is a bigger, more demanding, and far more difficult project than you ever dreamed...
...But he will hand over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 and be replaced by an American ambassador who won't have his sweeping power and may lack his political skill as well...
...The GDP for 2003 was $20 billion, less than Americans receive from the Earned Income Tax Credit...
...The fields were agriculture, standards and quality control, culture, displaced persons, education, electricity, environment, finance, foreign affairs, health, higher education, housing, human rights, industry, interior, water, justice, labor, security, oil, public works, planning, religious affairs, science, trade, transportation, youth and sports, Baghdad, civil affairs, governance, Iraqi media, oil policy, infrastructure, private sector, and strategic communications...
...Already GDP for 2004 is expected to reach $24 billion or $25 billion, and joblessness has dipped below 30 percent, according to Bill Block, a Princeton-educated economist for the Treasury Department now working for the CPA...
Vol. 9 • April 2004 • No. 29
