On The Line

Host: Is Iraq making progress toward stability and democracy? I’ll ask my guests: Andrew Apostolou, vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and joining us by phone from Boston, Zainab al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress. Welcome and thanks for joining us.

Andrew Apostolou, tell me about the new interim assembly in Iraq. Who’s on this interim assembly?

Apostolou: Well, essentially this assembly was chosen from the Caucus elections which were held in each province, which sent around thirteen-hundred delegates to a national convention in Baghdad. And what then happened, was [that] they elected a smaller interim council, a hundred people who will have a veto power over what the prime minister can do. Now, what happened in the end and unsurprisingly, was that the organized parties, let’s say the exile parties and the Kurdish parties, as well as a number of very well organized independents dominated it. And their slate was successfully elected and the rival slate was not. And there’s been some concern expressed about that. But that’s really hardly surprising that the people who are best organized win these sorts of events. It’s not a democratic assembly, it’s not intended to be. It’s meant to be representative, however, which it is, to a significant extent. And it will be there until January when we have elections.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij are you there by phone?

Al-Suwaij: Yes.

Host: How do you describe this assembly? Is it representative? Is it democratic?

Al-Suwaij: I think this assembly has something to do with elections inside every and each city. Every city in Iraq, they had to choose their own people, their own representatives to come to represent them at the conference in Baghdad. So, realistically speaking, it’s not appointing people, but electing people to be delegates to this conference. So this is what the first step towards, as we call it, democracy at this period of time. And I think it will be, not like the last one. I think Iraqis now are much more aware of their rights and everything and they will be ready for the election in 2005.

Host: Andrew Apostolou, there was a lot of concern that there would be terrorist acts that would try to derail this process of choosing an interim government. Is there a level of confidence gained by just the mere fact of having been able to gather people in one place and get them to sit down and choose a slate and the thing actually going off?

Apostolou: Well absolutely. And also, what was interesting was there was a mortar attack on the first day, but the convention carried on. And what’s amazing, if you read some of the media coverage here, say the editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, you’d think this whole thing had been a complete disaster. But I think, as Zainab Al-Suwaij basically indicated: this is an important step forward for Iraq. This is a country that’s never had a democratic election, that’s never had a fully representative government, that’s been a dictatorship for many years. A country where the majority was disenfranchised and the minority was routinely brutalized and yet, these delegates behaved themselves in a remarkable fashion, I think, better than most people in some Western political parties — that I could name but I won’t. And they carried it off very well. And it’s quite remarkable what they’ve done. And I know, of course, it’s not full democracy and they know it too. I think it’s a very important first step. We know however that people will try and derail this process and the act of violence against the convention is a good example. And we know that people, whether they are people in places like Najaf and Fallujah are going to try and stop the elections in January. Because they know if there are elections they will lose.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij, what were the criticisms of the choosing of the interim assembly?

Al-Suwaij: Well there are some groups that, first, in the beginning, they refused to participate and then when the conference happened, they said that they had not been represented. I think that was just false, because there was a call in the beginning, before the conference. There was a call for every and each province in Iraq to bring people together to elect their representatives, from each group, from different political parties, from civil society organizations and ministries and all of these. But unfortunately, some of the people who are against democracy in Iraq, they didn’t wish to have this happen. So they started saying their allegations about the conference and how can they have been fairly represented in this conference. But many of them also, what I heard about the conference is many people, or many delegates would feel they could not agree on choosing their people within the conference. Each province has a certain number of representatives. And then they have to choose within these representatives, you know, maybe sometimes two or three people to represent them. But they could not agree on that. So they started choosing people among them who have been much more capable, or based on their history of helping the Iraqi people, especially after the operation and then they chose people based on that. So I think this is part of what was happening during that conference. Host: Andrew Apostolou, the idea of this interim assembly was that there would be room for people from each region in the country, the representatives of both Sunni and Shi’a Islam and other religious minorities and also representation for women. Have those various criteria been met in this assembly?

Apostolou: Well, there was some concern expressed on from Basra, for example, that they were under-represented. But in the end, every major city in Iraq did get represented. One can understand the concerns of the Basrais, because their city suffered considerably under Saddam’s regime. And if you look opinion polls, what’s interesting is that in Basra, infrastructure and development is actually as much a concern as security, whereas in the rest of the country it’s security that’s the concern. I mean, Basra has certain special needs, indeed, Iraq generally is a very fragmented country, I think that’s one thing to bear in mind. Every part needs to be represented and that’s what’s happened. The concern though is that the exile parties did dominate. But, as I said, that’s sort of understandable. And if we’d wanted more provincial representation and stronger provincial representation in southern, in central Iraq, the Arab areas of Iraq, then we’d have had a longer transition. Because as you know, the British government argued for a longer transition, not a one-year transition, to bring out what they called the “internal factor”. That sadly, didn’t happen. And the internal factor unfortunately in some parts of Iraq has been very negative. It’s been violent. And I have to say the one thing the exiles do bring is an experience of living in Western countries, living in democracies and the sort of political skills that are needed in Iraq. So I think some of the criticism that we’ve heard, particularly in Western media has been very unfair.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij, I know you’ve been working on women’s rights issues in Iraq.

Al-Suwaij: Yes.

Host: What about the representation of women in this group? Was it what was hoped?

Al-Suwaij: Well, we are always hoping for more, but at this point, I thought I good number of women have been represented there. But, still the number is very small. We were hoping for a better number in the coming election.

Host: Andrew Apostolou, what does this assembly and the way this came together suggest for the prospects of elections in January?

Apostolou: Well what it suggests, I think, is if the result is replicated, the forces that we know well, let’s say the exile parties, some of the large provincial interests and the Kurds will do very well in the elections. But what it also suggests is there’s a warning, which is that people are going to try and derail this process, because they know either that they won’t get Elected — and so they need violence as a way of getting the attention they want — or because they just don’t like the idea of a democratic and representative Iraq anyway. So I think what it suggests is that we are going into a very, very dangerous period. We’ve just been through an extremely dangerous period. It’s going to get worse, because we have U-S elections in November and the people in Iraq who are fighting know that the more casualties they inflict, the more likely they are to have an impact on the U-S political process. They have no preference either way, but they do want to damage America. And secondly, we have Iraq elections in January and again, the more violence they can inflict, hopefully, they will try and derail national elections. And it’s going to be very tough to stop that.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij, what’s your sense of the prospect for elections in January?

Al-Suwaij: Well, there are a lot of concerns about the election in January, just like Andrew just mentioned some of the groups don’t wish for the democratic election to happen in the upcoming year. So they are trying to do their best in terms of showing violence around certain cities. And definitely also, some other concerns are the neighboring countries, some of them don’t wish well for Iraq and for the democratic process to go on. So this is going to be the major concern about the upcoming election.

Host: Andrew Apostolou, we’ve talked a lot about this new interim assembly, but before the interim assembly came in, we now have an interim government in Iraq. Looking back over the time they’ve been in charge, how is it going?

Apostolou: Well, the government has had a so-called honeymoon period and it’s started to fray because of the al-Sadr uprising in Najaf. And so far, it’s been reasonably popular according to the opinion polls. In Iraq we’re becoming addicted to opinion polls like we are in America. And that’s, I think, because people were a bit fed up with C-P-A [Coalition Provisional Authority] and Bremer. And there was a perception that politically they had failed, even if economically Iraq has done rather well. And the new government has some good people in it. It has some very effective people in it and it has tried very hard. And also, it’s making a real point of putting Iraqis into the front line to fight to show that Iraqis are fighting for their freedoms. That’s a very important point to get across both in the U-S and indeed in Iraq because Iraqis ultimately have to own this.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij, what’s your sense of how the Iraqi Interim Government is doing and how it’s being perceived by Iraqis?

Al-Suwaij: Well, I think the Iraqis Interim Government so far has been doing a good job. And when I was in Iraq two weeks ago, many Iraqis are talking about the new government and how they are trying so hard to implement security in the country and between the people and also at the same time working hard to develop ministries and all the government offices and all these other issues and how to compromise and work in all

cities inside Iraq. I saw many of the government representatives. They are doing really well and they are looking at the responsibilities that they have right now. of course, [they are] much bigger and harder responsibilities than they used to be before when the C-P-A was there. And I think they are taking steps forward, even though it’s slow, but at least [there’s] something telling us that there is a better future for this government or at least in these four months until the election is going to happen.

Host: And yet Andrew Apostolou, one of the biggest challenges facing the interim government as they say themselves was the issue of security. And not only has there been the fighting in Najaf, but also continued terrorist attacks large and small, assassination attempts. How is the interim government doing on facing this issue of security? Do they have a strategy? Apostolou: Well, yes they do, and that’s to build up Iraqi security forces to try and take on some of the tasks the U-S is doing. And that’s, of course, very difficult. There are really three security issues here. The first is the criminal security problem. And that’s something which doesn’t get much coverage abroad, but it’s a big problem for Iraqis. And that’s a lot of people who are either unemployed or former security operatives, people taking advantage of their rather nefarious skills.

Host: So, in the West we hear a lot about kidnapping of Westerners by terrorism, but we won’t necessarily hear as much about kidnappings of Iraqi civilians by Iraqi criminals who are looking for ransom?

Apostolou: Absolutely, and that does happen quite a lot. And it’s worth bearing in mind that Iraqis are suffering terribly from crime. And the crime indicates that they’re very, very poor indeed. Then we have the terrorist problem in the Sunni triangle, which is essentially Baathists and Islamists working together and Fallujah is a good example of that. The Baathists of the Fallujah brigade essentially protect what is a Muslim Brotherhood-run city now that exports terrorists to Baghdad. And not cleaning up Fallujah was, I think, one of the biggest mistakes that’s been made so far. And then, of course, we have the problem in the South Central area, which is Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which is a rag-tag militia, but it’s quite large in terms of numbers and recruits very quickly and easily. They may not have the best military skills and they take terrible casualties whenever they come up against U-S forces, but nonetheless, that’s a big challenge for the Iraqi government. And in both those cases, the problem for the Iraqi government is that they want to be seen to being winning themselves, and attacking it themselves, but ultimately they do have to rely to a significant degree upon the U-S, so it’s a very difficult balance to get right.

Host: Zainab Al-Suwaij, U-S commanders have made it very clear that in the fighting in Najaf, that whether they attack or hold back is very much determined by the political leadership and the Iraqi interim government. What’s your sense of the decisions that the Iraqi Interim Government has been making about how to handle the threat from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Najaf?

Al-Suwaij: Well, I think the Iraqi Interim Government is going to decide to go ahead and take Moqtada out of the mosque in Najaf. And I think this should happen, just to stop this bloodshed that’s been happening in Najaf for more than three weeks now. There are some religious sensitivities there, among the Shiites and the religious leader, sheik, in Najaf. But I think the only way is to get Moqtada out of their mosque and stop the bloodshed there.

Host: Andrew Apostolou, a lot of the attacks, the terrorist attacks and kidnappings that have been going on in Iraq are targeting aid workers and, or people working in reconstruction. How much of an impact has that had on reconstruction efforts in Iraq? Are the terrorists succeeding in making life miserable for Iraqis?

Apostolou: Yes they are, and one good example is a big power station near Baghdad that generates a hundred megawatts capacity, and it should have been up to five hundred megawatts. But the French and Russian engineers working on it and because the kit was supplied by French and Russian companies, left, because, quite understandably, the security situation was too poor. So, it has had an effect. It’s a well worked out, very clever strategy that the terrorists have. They are systematically knocking out all the support that underpins the U-S presence. They are thereby making the burden upon the U-S, putting the weight on American shoulders that much greater. They don’t take on American forces head-on, not the A1-Qaida people, that is, too often, because they’ll lose. But, if they get rid of the Red Cross, get rid of the U-N, they get rid of the reconstruction people, somebody has to pick up the slack and it’s the U-S forces. So it’s a very, very well-targeted, very well worked out strategy. And they’ve succeeded for the most part in the Sunni triangle and significantly in parts of Baghdad. And Moqtada’s people are now starting to do something similar in the South Central area with their kidnappings and attacks on foreigners. So it’s a real concern. It’s interesting that the one place in Iraq where reconstruction is going well and where the economy is visibly booming is in Kurdistan and that’s because there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack on an American there. But it’s secure. And part of the problem in Iraq is the only way you can have security in Kurdistan is by cutting it off from the rest of Iraq, which is essentially what has happened. Zainab Al-Suwaij, what can be done to make things, safer for the kind of reconstruction needed to make Iraq more stable?

Al-Suwaij: Well, to increase security inside the country, increase the number of police and also block the borders. We have long borders with Iran, with Turkey, with Syria, Jordan and Saudi [Arabia] and Kuwait. I mean, all of these borders need to be tightly secured. Most of the borders have been open and it’s making it very easy for terrorists, even from outside Iraq to come to Iraq and help people from the previous regime to implement these terrorist acts inside Iraq and recruit more people into these kinds of activities. Also, [we should be] engaging Iraqis more in terms of these rebuilding projects and provide a lot of people, like many people in the streets with jobs. I think that will also help secure the rebuilding effort of Iraq and secure the lives of the people who are coming to help Iraqis inside Iraq.

Host: Andrew Apostolou, we only have about thirty seconds left. [Let’s get] your sense on both those two issues, the border issues and also the effort to get more Iraqis involved in the reconstruction and not rely so much on people from outside.

Apostolou: Counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism are fundamentally political. You need an overall political strategy which incorporates security. So, of course, Zainab Al-Suwaij is absolutely spot-on again. We need Iraqis engaged. This has to be their fight. We need to separate the terrorists and insurgents from the population. And when we isolate them, we defeat them. As for Iraq’s neighbors, sadly, they don’t want us to succeed and she’s absolutely right on that.

Host: I’m afraid that’s going to have to be the last word for today. We’re out of time. I’d like to thank my guests: Andrew Apostolou of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Zainab Al-Suwaij of the American Islamic Congress. Before we go, I’d like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our web site at www.voanews.com/ontheline For On the Line, I’m Eric Felten.