By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
May 23, 2003
Last Saturday in his weekly radio address President Bush gave America and a worried world some good news: “With the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have removed allies of al Qaeda, cut off sources of terrorist funding, and made certain that no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's regime.
“These two battles were important victories in the larger war on terror. Yet the terrorist attacks this week in Saudi Arabia, which killed innocent civilians from more than half a dozen countries, including our own, provide a stark reminder that the war on terror continues.
“The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government is taking unprecedented measures to defend the homeland. And from Pakistan to the Philippines, to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al Qaeda killers. So far, nearly one-half of al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed. And we will remain on the hunt until they are all brought to justice.”
Can we now all breath a sigh of relief and do something other than stay glued to the latest disaster in the news? Not if the media and the terrorists can help it. Shortly after the President spoke, ABC News reported: “Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network has threatened to deliver devastating blows to the United States and Israel.
"The next strikes will stun the Americans and Israelis," Abu Mohammad al-Ablaj, "coordinator of the al Qaeda-affiliated Mujahedeen Training Centre," said in an email published by London-based Al-Majallah. “The upcoming strikes will throw the enemy off balance. They will target the rear of the snake (the United States), which Abu Abdullah (bin Laden) said should be hit. These strikes will hearten the faithful and disconcert the infidels."
The lead story in just about every news source promptly became an Associated Press article entitled: “Amid terror fears, terror level raised to orange.”
On Tuesday afternoon, at a news briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shared more good news with the media, none of which I have seen reported. He said, “there is some good news coming out of Iraq today. Consider a few examples. Each day we get reports of problems and also of things that are working. Here are a few of the things that are working.”
For starters, 65% of Baghdad’s children are now back in school and, Rumsfeld said, “An Iraqi committee of Shi'ites, Sunnis and other interested groups is being put together to revise the curriculum. So schools that once taught really basically obedience to the regime can begin preparing students to live as productive citizens in the society.”
Regular train service has been restored between Iraq’s major cities, Kirkuk has sworn in a new mayor and Mosul just held its first municipal elections, selecting a mayor and 23 members of a town council, local courts and most primary health car centers have re-opened. In Southern Iraq, where Shiites live, there is “more electric service today than at any time in the past 12 years” and in Basra, “operation Leak Stop began on May 14th with a team of Iraqi plumbers moving through the city repairing leaks in water pipes, which has been a fairly continuous problem because of the degradation of the infrastructure.”
While that may not seem to be remarkable to the younger generation, it is to me because I was a teenager when World War II ended and I remember the misery and the hopelessness of EVER rebuilding some of the cities destroyed. In fact, The Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady,) which was destroyed in Dresden, Germany by Allied bombs on Feb. 13, 1945, lay in rubble for 56 years. In 2001, after East and West Germany finally were re-unified, reconstruction of the Church began. Most of the Iraqi infrastructure was not bombed. The Iraqis did more damage in most places through looting than the Americans did with their bombs.
Iraq has fallen off the front page as rapidly as did Afghanistan when the Taliban were routed – and more than 2 million Iraqi refugees returned to their homes in less than a year. Remember the Big Fear of the United Nations, the Turks and the Syrians before the war began?
The Human Rights Watch, which opposed American action, issued a briefing paper on February 12, 2003, warning, “A war will bring new hardship to existing civilian and displaced populations within Iraq; produce new refugee outflows to neighboring countries; strain the resources of and possibly prompt a backlash within neighboring countries against Iraqi refugees; and place new demands on donor states to provide increased assistance inside Iraq and to Iraq’s neighbors, as well as to open their own doors to a significantly larger number of Iraqi refugees.
The big story is what DIDN’T happen. The UN had refugee camps set up to cope with the “refugee outflow” that never took place. For whatever reason, it appears, the ordinary citizens of Iraq did not have the fear of the Americans and the British that we have been led to believe exists there. Whatever was planned once the American troops crossed the much-discussed “red line” surrounding Baghdad that was supposed to be so devastating also didn’t happen.
Was that just a bluff? Or, was it a plan to use chemical weapons on the Americans that was thwarted by the up to 55 mile an hour winds blowing towards Baghdad that made use of them impossible? Or, did the American just move too fast and paralyze the Iraqi military communication with they precision bombing?
And, what has prompted the Iraqis find it in their hearts to begin planning a new, more cooperative nation, where Shi’ites, Sunnis, Turkmen, Kurds, and Assyrian Christians can form committees and plan new curricula for their schools?
It would be nice to know. But, apparently, that isn’t considered news by most news sources.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com