Reconstructing Iraq: Nation Building, Continued
Reconstruction: Eyewitness Report (continued)
• Baghdad is alive with commercial activity. Government employees are now receiving salaries ten times higher than before the war. The streets are clean. Children from poor families Said visited were eating bananas – something unheard of, under Saddam Hussein. • Many Iraqis forced into exile by Saddam Hussein’s regime are now returning to the city to set up political parties, start newspapers and to begin business enterprises. • Most dangerous is the ongoing political violence, according to Said. Most suicide bombers and terrorists target police stations, schools and international organizations. Many of these terrorists are considered foreigners. • “Some reports from the country seem to imply that Iraqis welcome at least some of the violence as legitimate resistance to occupation. During my eight days I did not meet a single person who shared this view. Indeed, the vast majority of people in Iraq – especially women, who represent 60% of the adult population – do not want the Americans to leave anytime soon. • “Iraqis want to regain control of their future and to become truly independent and free. They are sick of violence of all kinds, whatever the pretexts. They are tired of empty rhetoric and ideologies. Most Iraqis want to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and move on. Whoever cares for them should help them do just that.”
Iraq
86
After Operation Iraqi Freedom