
STATEMENT
BY
KARL ZINSMEISTER
J.B. FUQUA FELLOW
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
BEFORE
THE
HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
"ENCOURAGING DEVELOPMENTS AMONG
IRAQ'S RISING MAJORITY"
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.
Let
me open by stating that the remarks I have
for you this morning are built on several
bodies of evidence. I am the J.B. Fuqua
Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
I was an embedded reporter during the hot
war in
And I want to talk to you today about ordinary Iraqis.
Every politician is acutely aware of the "silent majority" syndrome. The many skilled elected officials in this room know that mass opinion cannot be accurately judged by listening to squeaky wheels alone. One must look beneath the surface, behind the headlines, at the more glacial forces that underlay the roil of daily events.
It
is the massive, often silent, middle
of Iraqi opinion that I personally am
tracking most closely as I observe
developments in
THE DECEPTIVENESS OF ANECDOTAL TEMPERATURE-TAKINGS
There
hasn't been a proper census in
The
portrayal of the Shiites in the
I
had spent most of my time in
It so happens that the security for this Shiite pilgrimmage was provided by troopers from the 82nd Airborne whom I know well. Their camp had been right beside the road that the pilgrims trod. So I called up one of the officers on the scene-a smart, frank captain and helicopter pilot named Robin Brown-and asked, "Robin, we're getting all this reporting on fanatical, restive, anti-American Shiites. Did something change dramatically in the few days after I left, or what's going on?"
Somewhat
stunned, she reported that the pilgrimmage
not only came off without conflict, but had
actually turned out to be one of the
humanitarian highlights of her time in
HARD EVIDENCE OF IRAQI MODERATION
The
media vs. reality disconnect on this
important event reinforced my concern that
the anecdotal temperature-takings that most
Americans were relying on for their
assessments of
I'd
like to point out that there have now been
four substantial polls conducted in
For
instance: two thirds of Iraqis say getting
rid of Saddam has been worth any hardships
that have resulted. Fully 61 percent have a
favorable view of the Governing Council, and
by 50 to 14 percent they say it is doing a
better job than it was two months ago. An
informal
What does all this tell us? It tells us that we are doing much better at winning the hearts and minds of everyday Iraqis than many of us realize.
The
survey research we did at The
American Enterprise reveals that the
Iraqi public is not nearly so fanatical,
seething, or disgusted with the
First of all, there will be no Baathist revival-Saddam and his cronies are enormously unpopular in the country. Asked by The American Enterprise whether Baath Party officials who committed crimes should be punished or whether it would be better to put the past behind us, Iraqis opined vehemently (74 percent to 18 percent) that the Baathists should be punished.
The
second nightmare scenario is that al-Qaeda-style
organizations would proliferate in the new
The
third nightmare scenario that can, I
believe, be dispatched is the idea that an
Iranian-style theocracy could take hold in
Interestingly, on all of these questions the majority Shiites fell on the more moderate side. For instance, they are much less likely than other Iraqis to want a theocratic government, are more favorable toward democracy, are more likely to pick the U.S. as the best model for a government, and they are much more unfavorable toward Osama bin Laden.
RECENT INDICATIONS OF SHIITE MODERATION
I've been further encouraged by very recent signs of maturity and moderation among both the leadership and the rank-and-file of Iraqi Shiites. The first big test came after the murder of Ayatollah Bakr Hakim (and scores of innocent bystanders) outside one of Islam's holiest mosques in Najaf. More than 300,000 mourners attended the funeral in September, which could easily have turned into a rampage against other Iraqis or American troops. Instead, the Shiite faithful showed a willingness to patiently await the official investigation into the crime.
Then
last week, American forces and Iraqi police
clamped down on Moktada Sadr, a radical
Shiite calling for active resistance against
The
very latest bit of evidence of Shiite
moderation and willingness to help remake
THE MANAGEABLE REALITY OF A WAR AGAINST GUERILLA TERRORISTS
The
relatively small number of extremists
conducting murder and sabotage in the Sunni
Triangle have no chance of winning
militarily. Much more than outsiders
realize,
Keep in mind, there are now 25,000 soldiers from other countries, plus a healthy 60,000 Iraqi security personnel helping American troops police the country, with many more Iraqi police and soldiers in the pipeline. Even today, just months into a new regime, it is already Iraqis who are bearing most of the casualties involved in guarding and stabilizing the country. Let me note that that will increasingly put the attackers on the wrong side of Iraqi opinion.
The
insurgents' only accomplishment is to
create chaos. They are strictly a negative
force, who can only hope to slow down
The insurgents have no platform, no winning message, no identifiable leaders. There is no evidence that they represent a popular movement, or that they enjoy any widespread support. They instead, simply well armed and comparatively wealthy fringe fanatics. Many of them are foreign, All of them are leftovers of old Arab power blocs. They are feared by many Iraqis, but not broadly respected, trusted, or liked.
In
short, they are political criminals.
Everyday Iraqis remember 1991, when
ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS
The
best way to understand our current position
in
On the other side are American forces who have, on the whole, been quite gentle and forbearing. (If anything, everyday Iraqis are now more likely to criticize the Americans for being insufficiently ruthless in dealing with the insurgents.) And any day now, we hope, those American forces will get a multi-billion dollar infusion of funds-thanks to the U.S. Congress and some of our overseas allies-which will allow them to demonstrate to the Iraqis even more clearly who is on the side of progress, modernity, prosperity, and human decency. And you know what? That's a pretty good position from which to prosecute a war against minority guerillas.
No guerilla war is easy. We will need to strike hard, and to spend money. Improving our intelligence, and training more and more Iraqi compatriots who will fight next to us, and increasingly instead of us, should be high priorities. But there is no Ho Chi Minh trail pumping fresh poison into Iraq, and with each passing season there will be fewer weapons in the hands of fewer guerillas with less and less money to spend.
And, meanwhile, new economic and political freedoms will be unfolding across the countryside-cell phones today, open elections tomorrow. These innovations will cumulatively amount to a social, economic, and political revolution, and make the blood-feuding insurgents look more unattractive to normal Iraqis with each passing week.
THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT
The
one factor that could derail
I
can tell you the view on this subject of the
American soldiers in
My
message today is simple:
_______
About the Author: Karl Zinsmeister is Editor-in-Chief of The American Enterprise, a national magazine of politics, business and culture. His book Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq, based on his experiences as an embedded journalist during the second
Appendix 1:
Published
in the
Progress
exceeds prognostication in
There
is basic peace, economic bubbling, and
majority Iraqi support for the path the
By Karl Zinsmeister
Having covered the war as an embedded reporter, having conducted the first national poll of the Iraqi people (in concert with Zogby International), and having remained in close touch with the military men and women who are temporarily the princes running the land of the Tigris and Euphrates, I believe this gloomy view is incomplete and inaccurate.
Let's
start by remembering the traumas that never
befell us in
Not
only was the war itself vastly less bloody
and difficult than some predicted, but its
aftermath has also been quieter. We were
told by prewar prognosticators to expect a
refugee flood, a food crisis, destruction of
the oil fields, and public-health disasters.
We were warned that
None
of these things happened. Nor have other
predicted troubles materialized. When
300,000 mourners gathered for the funeral of
assassinated Shiite spiritual leader Bakr al
Hakim, they didn't rampage, or call for
vengeance against Sunnis, or lash out
against the
Whatever the setbacks, we must remember that much of this war has been a case of the dog that didn't bark.
That is not to whitewash the fact that painful low-intensity conflict is still smoldering, producing casualties equivalent to the hot-war phase.
The
man I photographed in combat for the cover
of my new book about the
Here are some signs they're right:
. Stores are bustling, traffic is busy, and most services have now exceeded their prewar levels. A new currency went into circulation last week.
. Large cities, home to millions - like Basra, Mosul, and Kirkuk - and vast swaths of countryside in the north and south, are stable, basically peaceful, beginning to bubble economically, and grateful to coalition forces who've set them on a new path.
.
More than 170 newspapers are being published
in
.
The Iraqi Governing Council has been well
received by the country's many factions and
ethno-religious groups. Sixty-one percent of
Iraqis polled by
. For the first time, localities have their own town councils. A working court system has been set up. And a constitution is being hashed out.
. In addition to the 140,000 US troops providing security, there are about 25,000 soldiers from other countries, and 60,000 Iraqi police and guards on the job - with many thousands more in the training pipeline.
. Nearly all schools and universities are open; hundreds have been rehabbed into their best shape in years by soldiers.
.
. Oil production has passed 1 million barrelsper day, and is heading toward 2 million.
.
Iraqi public opinion is more moderate than
suggested by the anecdotal
temperature-takings in press reports. Four
entirely different polls have been conducted
in
The
four-city survey in August by The American
Enterprise, a magazine I edit, suggests that
the three nightmare scenarios for
. Meanwhile, the pouncing raids that US forces initiated two months ago have hurt the guerrillas. More than 1,000 fighters have been arrested and many others killed. The bounty paid by ex-Baathists toinduce attacks on American soldiers has had to be increased from $1,000 to $5,000 to find takers.
.
Most critically, the
My
friend Christopher Hitchens - who like me,
numerous congressmen, and other recent
visitors to
That's
no overstatement. Maj. Pete Wilhelm, with
the 82nd Airborne in
After
a recent trip to the country, Mr. Hitchens
agrees, saying, "I saw persuasive
evidence of the unleashing of real politics
in
All
of this has been accomplished in less than
six months from the fall of
Certainly,
there remains an enormous amount to fix in
US
soldiers and administrators are turning a
tide of history and culture in the
.
Karl Zinsmeister, editor in chief of The American Enterprise
magazine, is the author of the new book, Boots
on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd
Airborne in the
Appendix 2:
Published
in the
Wall Street Journal,
WHAT
IRAQIS REALLY THINK
By Karl Zinsmeister
Since
we became responsible for setting a new
course in Iraq after removing Saddam Hussein
in April (and, actually, even before then),
America has been hobbled in setting its
policies toward Iraq by not knowing much
about what everyday Iraqis really think. Are
they on the side of the radical Islamists?
What kind of government would they like for
themselves? What is their attitude toward
the
Up
to now we've only been able to guess.
We've relied on anecdotal
temperature-takings of the Iraqi public, and
have particularly been at the mercy of
images presented to us by the press. We all
know that journalists have a bad news bias
(10,000 schools being rehabbed is not news,
one school blowing up is a weeklong feeding
frenzy). And some of us who have spent time
recently in
Well, finally we have some evidence as to where the truth may lie.
Working
with Zogby International survey researchers,
The
American Enterprise magazine, which I
edit, has just conducted the first
scientific poll of the Iraqi public. Given
the state of the country, this was not easy.
Security problems delayed our intrepid
fieldworkers several times. We labored at
careful translations, regional samplings,
and survey methods to make sure our results
would accurately reflect the views of
Conducted
in August, our survey was necessarily
limited in scope, but it reflects a
nationally representative sample of Iraqi
views, as captured in four disparate cities:
Basra (Iraq's second largest, home to 1.7
million people, in the far south), Mosel
(third largest, far north), Kirkuk
(Kurdish-influenced oil city, fourth
largest), and Ramadi (a resistance hotbed in
the Sunni triangle). The results show that
the
* Iraqis are optimistic. Seven out of ten say they expect both their country and their personal lives will be better five years from now. On both fronts, 32 percent say things will become MUCH better.
*
The toughest part of reconstructing their
nation, Iraqis say by three to one, will be
politics, not economics. They are nervous
about democracy. Asked which is closer to
their own view: "Democracy can work well
in
There were interesting divergences. Sunnis were negative on democracy by more than 2:1, but, critically, the majority Shiites were as likely to say democracy would work for Iraqis as not. People age 18-29 are much more rosy about democracy than other Iraqis, and women are significantly more positive than men.
*
Asked to name one country they would most
like Iraq to model its new government on,
after being offered five
possibilities-neighbor and fellow Baathist
republic Syria, neighbor and Islamic
monarchy Saudi Arabia, neighbor and Islamist
republic Iran, Arab lodestar Egypt, or the
U.S.-the most popular model by far was the
U.S. The
Again,
there were important demographic splits.
Younger adults are especially favorable
toward the
*
Our interviewers inquired whether
*
Perhaps the strongest indication that an
Islamic government won't be part of
*
You can also cross out Osama II. Fifty-seven
percent of Iraqis with an opinion have an
unfavorable view of Osama bin Laden-with
41 percent of them saying it is a VERY
unfavorable view. (Women are especially down
on him.) Except in the Sunni triangle (where
the limited support that exists for bin
Laden is heavily concentrated), negative
views of the al-Qaeda boss are actually
quite lopsided in all parts of the country.
And those opinions were collected before
Iraqi police announced it was al-Qaeda
members who killed scores of worshippers
with a truck bomb in Najaf. There will be no
safehouses for bin Laden in
* And, finally, you can write off the possibility of a Baath revival. We asked "Should Baath Party leaders who committed crimes in the past be punished, or should past actions be put behind us?" A thoroughly disgusted and unforgiving Iraqi public stated by 74% to 18% that Saddam's henchmen should be punished.
* * *
This
new evidence on Iraqi opinion suggests the
country is manageable. If the small number
of militants conducting sabotage and murder
inside the country can gradually be
dispatched to paradise by American troopers
(this is happening as steady progress is
made in stage two of the Iraq war), then the
mass of citizens living along the
Tigris-Euphrates Valley are likely to make
reasonably sensible use of their new
freedom. "We will not forget it was the
None
of this is to suggest that the task ahead
for
This
is fairly understandable; Iraqis have just
lived through a war where Americans were
(necessarily) flinging most of the
ammunition. These experiences may explain
why Iraqi women (who are more anti-military
in all cultures) show up in our data as
especially wary of the
Evidence of the comparative gentleness of this war can be seen in our poll. Less than 30 percent of our sample of Iraqis knew or heard of anyone killed in the spring fighting. Meanwhile, fully HALF knew some family member, neighbor, or friend who had been killed by Iraqi security forces during the years Saddam held power.
Perhaps
the ultimate indication of how comfortable
Iraqis are with
We're
making headway in a benighted part of the
world,
Karl
Zinsmeister is editor in chief of The
American Enterprise, and author of Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in
the
Appendix 3:
The American Enterprise/Zogby poll results
2120 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
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