What you're not hearing about in Iraq...

[MKSheppard]

Providing a Better Life for the Iraqis

by David Mattson
www.insightmag.com/main.c...yid=450414
Aug. 26, 2003

One of the reasons given by President George W. Bush to justify war with
Iraq was that ridding the country of the Ba'athist dictatorship would
provide a better life for the Iraqi people, an issue about which the
administration has been questioned sharply in recent weeks. There have been
few reports of positive changes in Iraq. The most repeated statistic of the
continuing U.S. presence there is the number of soldiers who have died from
terrorist bombings and assassination attacks. Did the president lie when he
said that sending U.S. troops would end an oppressive regime and make life
better for the Iraqi people?

Despite liberal punditry and electioneering rhetoric to the contrary, say
regional specialists at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon, the evidence is
turning in favor of the administration. The Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA), the allied temporary government in Iraq, has made astounding progress
in humanitarian efforts as well as in developing autonomy and democracy for
the Iraqi people, according to sources that have been on the ground there.
"I was expecting chaos and anarchy, and that's not what I found at all,"
says CPA official Tom Basile, who recently arrived in Iraq.

Only a few months ago Saddam Hussein's regime and its swarms of Ba'ath Party
bureaucrats were using their control of food, sanitation, potable water and
health care to manipulate a terrified population. Rivers from which drinking
water was drawn were full of garbage and sewage, and as many as one-third of
the children in the south-central region of the country suffered from
malnutrition.

In the intervening months, despite the systematic looting and sabotage of
urban infrastructure and continued operations by Ba'athist terrorists hiding
among the population, there has been remarkable improvement, say observers
inside the country. Many of Iraq's 240-plus hospitals and clinics have been
rehabilitated and are operating above prewar levels. According to U.S. and
nongovernmental-organization (NGO) reports, before the war only one or two
hospitals had the technology and staff to perform major surgery, and these
hospitals were available only to Ba'ath Party members and those working
closely with the dictatorship. In 2002, Saddam's regime spent just $20
million on health care for the Iraqi people - not even $1 per person - and
some sources put the figure closer to $13 million.

"Immunizations were nonexistent before the war," David Tornberg, deputy
assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy, tells
Insight. He says this is a major reason why only one of every eight children
in prewar Iraq lived to the age of 5. Through the efforts of the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) and the NGOs, 25 million doses of
vaccines for measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, polio and other diseases
have been distributed to the Iraqi people - enough to treat 4 million
children younger than age 5 and 700,000 pregnant women. "We are going to
support the Iraqi people in ensuring that more than 90 percent of Iraqi
children are immunized by the end of 2004," Tornberg says.

Indeed, he says, "The planning that was done prior to the war prevented a
humanitarian crisis. There could easily have been mass starvation and
outbreaks of diseases such as cholera." But these disasters never
materialized. Before the military invasion of Iraq, U.S. agencies positioned
food, medical supplies, water, blankets and health kits just outside the
country in preparation for the enormous humanitarian problems the troops
would encounter among the people upon arrival. The U.S. government also
provided grants to U.N. agencies prior to any actual assessment of the need
in Iraq simply to ensure that the agencies would be prepared to respond
immediately, say U.S. public-health specialists.

But the single most amazing figure in the reconstruction effort may be the
enormous amount of food that has been steadily distributed to the Iraqi
people since their liberation. Some 1.2 million tons of food have been sent
to Iraq. And, say authorities there, as quickly as 30 days after the end of
fighting the United States had a distribution program fully operative to get
food to those in need.

Malnutrition was a major cause of infant mortality and disease prior to the
war. Yet, says Tornberg, "We found warehouses full of rotting food and
expired medical supplies, left over and undistributed from the oil-for-food
program." Saddam had withheld these supplies and even used water to control
his suffering people, say U.S. officials in Iraq. "In one southern city in
Iraq, what had been a clean water source was turned off and polluted water
was placed in the water supply," says William Winkenwerder, assistant
secretary of defense for health affairs.

Prior to the war, critics claimed the Iraqi people would be unable to adapt
to a democratic form of government. However, according to CPA and USAID
offices in Iraq, locals quickly have taken responsibility to advance the
democratic process. "Local towns and cities are functioning with local
interim governments and mayors," says a USAID worker. "Ad hoc elections have
taken place in some places to set up governments."

On July 13, after consulting with Iraqi people nationwide, the CPA appointed
a 25-member Governing Council with a rotating presidency. The tribal and
religious ethnicities of these representatives approximate those of the
country, and two members of the council are women. They will speak to the
CPA for the Iraqi people. The 2004 budget will require approval of the
Governing Council, which is authorized to present emergency amendments to
the 2003 budget.

Critics of the council already have attacked its credibility as a
representative of the Iraqi people because its members were not directly
elected in a national plebiscite. However, the council is only an interim
body in anticipation of a formal constitution, likely to be written by a
preparatory constitutional committee.

Humanitarian aid and the creation of democratic institutions are only two
components of repair that the coalition has addressed. Education in Iraq
prior to Saddam's regime was among the best in the Arab world, but gradually
was reduced under the dictatorship to a shambles. All universities now are
open and have programs linking them to schools in the United States. Iraqi
education authorities met recently to discuss general admission of women to
higher education. The meeting resolved to do away with a policy that limited
the number of women in a class, often to as little as 25 percent of
enrollment. "Now, just as in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere, those with
the highest test scores will get accepted to the school of their choice,"
says Karen Triggs of the CPA public-affairs office in Baghdad. "This
includes courses that previously restricted women's entry. A course could
now in principle be 90 to 100 percent women if women's test scores are
better."

There has been progress on infrastructure as well. USAID has 12 major
reconstruction contracts up for bid in Iraq, nine of which already have gone
to private companies. These projects involve efforts to rebuild or refurbish
hospitals, schools and water-treatment plants all over Iraq. "There is a
priority to use local Iraqi workers and companies when possible," says a
USAID representative. For example, 39,000 Iraqis have been hired as
electrical workers.

Private consultancies are being used where possible. Bearing Point Inc. will
work with the Iraqi people and the CPA to create and maintain a competitive
private sector. It will review government regulations and policy, as well as
support the central bank and assist in creating a system for small-business
loans and other financial essentials. This kind of economic savvy will be
used to develop changes crucial to bringing foreign investment into the
country and helping create a solid economic environment for local
businesses.

While economic adjustment goes forward, and with many young men unemployed,
12,000 Iraqis will be carefully vetted and trained this year for a new Iraqi
army, with a projected 28,000 to be added the following year.

In an attempt to get Iraqi children outside and active, members of USAID and
the CPA have rebuilt playgrounds and helped get stadiums ready for the
hundreds of soccer teams around the nation that have begun preseason play.
The Iraqi national team has played regional games, and the nation is
expected to participate at some level in the next Summer Olympics.

As all this is happening, and the Iraqi people are being freed of the
specter of terror, revelations of the horrors of Saddam's regime are an
ever-present reminder of the dark night from which the country is emerging.
More than 102 mass graves have been identified throughout Iraq. The CPA
estimates that nearly 300,000 people were murdered and buried at these
sites, many of them after monstrous torture.

According to official and private sources with whom Insight spoke, the
results and progress made through planning by the U.S. government, and
specifically the CPA and NGOs, already have saved many lives and improved
the situations of millions of formerly hungry and desperate Iraqis. Local
areas have begun to accept democratic processes and are learning to work
with the Governing Council. As oil production and electrical power continue
to improve, these sources say, Iraqi workers again will have stable lives,
jobs and income.

"It was American soldiers who gave food to the hungry, who gave their own
medical supplies to the Iraqi doctors, who brought water to the thirsty,"
says embedded Time magazine reporter James Lacey, who has talked openly
about his experience with the 101st Airborne. These troops reflect "the best
of America," he says. And, as the CPA's Basile puts it: "Every day, I see
something new we are doing to make life better for the Iraqi people."

[MKSheppard]

Correct link is

I Love dressing my Links!

[Soontir C'boath]

It is fantastic that they are improving greatly. It brings a smile to me that I haven't in awhile...~Jason

[Howedar]

Shit. I have to write an essay for English about why we shouldn't have gone to war, and one of my points was that things in Iraq really aren't much better now than before.


DAMN YOU SHEP!


But seriously, thats good news. I hope things continue to get better.

[MKSheppard]

Shit. I have to write an essay for English about why we shouldn't have gone to war, and one of my points was that things in Iraq really aren't much better now than before.

DAMN YOU SHEP!

*Cackles insanely*

[Nathan F]

*Hears the sound of flushing in the background as half of the "?ee, I told you we shouldn't have been there" arguments go down the drain*

[RogueIce]

Shit. I have to write an essay for English about why we shouldn't have gone to war, and one of my points was that things in Iraq really aren't much better now than before.

I seriously hope you're kidding on that...or, if not, it was of your choosing for some reason, and the teacher didn't make you write about that sort of topic.

[Howedar]

We have to write a pro or con paper about something. I chose the war with Iraq (rather, the motivation for it) because there was an assload of references, and went con because, honestly, I think most of the data out there supports that side.

I don't necessarily think we should not have gone to war in Iraq (I honestly don't feel well informed enough to make such a judgement), but I know the support I had leaned heavily con.

[Howedar]

Oh, and my professor is German. I figured anti-war would not go over badly.

Some mod could add that to my last post and kill this one if they've got nothing better to do

[Vympel]

If you were writing an essay about the cons, I don't really see what huge awesome revelation this article has made. It sounds like an important announcement from the Ministry of Truth to me.

[Darth Wong]

Does it matter that the only named source is an embedded reporter, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the Iraqi civilian perspective or experience?

[Howedar]

If you were writing an essay about the cons, I don't really see what huge awesome revelation this article has made. It sounds like an important announcement from the Ministry of Truth to me.

Well it doesn't. I just won't address it. But it seemed funny at the time.

[Peregrin Toker]

I'm not that worried anymore over the situation in Iraq - but isn't the situation quite "uneven" with some areas being very safe while others have went Mad Max??

The article doesn't answer this question rather accurately.

[MKSheppard]

Does it matter that the only named source is an embedded reporter, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the Iraqi civilian perspective or experience?

Well, let's see, we've got 1.2 million tons of food being sent and distributed
all over Iraq, they may have no power but they're not going to starve, like
they did under Soddom Insane

[Nathan F]

Does it matter that the only named source is an embedded reporter, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the Iraqi civilian perspective or experience?

Until someone can find a reliable firsthand source that dissavows these claims, then you kind of have to take what is said at face value.

[Worlds Spanner]

If you were writing an essay about the cons, I don't really see what huge awesome revelation this article has made. It sounds like an important announcement from the Ministry of Truth to me.

Well it doesn't. I just won't address it. But it seemed funny at the time.

Ah sweet academia. A conflicting source? Ignore it and hope the teacher is ignorant!

Seriously. It usually works too

[Howedar]

Thats not just academia, thats how real life is.

[Darth Wong]

Does it matter that the only named source is an embedded reporter, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the Iraqi civilian perspective or experience?

Until someone can find a reliable firsthand source that dissavows these claims, then you kind of have to take what is said at face value.

You're missing the point; the only named source is one who has no firsthand knowledge of the Iraqi experience. He can only tell you about the 101st's experience. There is no actual contradiction between this account and the various stories of lawlessness and victimizations coming from other correspondents, because they can both be simultaneously true.