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April 15, 2003
Release Number: 03-04-136
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOTES FROM POOL REPORTERS: MEETING AT AN NASIRIYAH
From Martha Brant, Newsweek:
Folo on from earlier file. These are quotes from interviews done outside the conference. Others will be sending along their interviews as well.
1) Entifada Qanbar, 44, the representative of the INC. He had been out of Iraq for 13 years before today (he left in 1990 when Saddam loosened the borders), and as per earlier file, choked up upon arrival. "It's a great thing. A dream that came through," he told reporters. "This is something I dedicated all my life for. I suffered in Iraq, I served five years in the Iran Iraq war, I was arrested by Saddam's intelligence in 87, 11 of my best friends were executed," he said. But now he says, "It feels safe to be back."
On the Free Iraqi Fighters:
"We are moving forward. Doing very well. We are helping the allies. We are now considered part of the coalition under the command of General Franks."
On Chalabi:
A role for him?
"Certainly of course. Dr. Chalabi .....Iraq is a huge country. There is no intention for any one to try to steal power or take power. Every one can have a share. I feel that we will be able to take our fair share of expressing ideas and promoting democracy."
On Democracy:
There seems to be a lot of suspicion...
"Tom Daschles is suspicious of Paul Wolfowtiz. In a Democracy you don't have a unified position. You criticize eaach other. It's part of democracy."
What next for him:
"I will move to my hometown of Baghdad (eventually). I still have my family house there and I will probably make my house a center for the INC."
On the Baath party playing a role:
It has to be former Baath party members that were not involved in human rights violations or crimes. We are not against Baathists as persons unless they are criminals but as an ideology, which basically set its nails in the Iraqi socity and hijacked the Iraqi culture and society."
On this meeting:
"I think it's significant from a moral point of view, not that we expect much decision."
2) Salem Chalabi came to the meeting on his own. He is 40, a lawyer, and the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi. He has been around Iraq for the last three months trying to help and hopes to use his expertise in helping with a new constitution. He left Iraq the first time at 18 days old in an armored personnel carrier and then for good at age five. He speaks with an American accent but says he has spent much of his time in England.
On the constitution:
"I'm against anyone doing drafts of the constitution. It has to emerge out of a process."
What process?
He said he expects the IIA to appoint some 150 to 200 delegates to a constitutional assembly in the next few weeks. He says the representation would be regional not ethnic.
Would there be pressure for it to be ethnic"
"There will be..... But you need to point out that trying to enforce the ethnic based structure could lead to a serious disaster...civil war. Everyone has an overinflated sense of what they represent and they are not going to be happy."
Would he consider going back to live in Iraq?
I would. Hopefully not in a sandstorm (he said as the wind whipped around us), that't not very appealing. It's important for people with professional backgrounds to come back. He said the prof ranks in Iraq had been "decimated."
On Garner:
"He doesn't want to be the political arm.....Even among the Iraqis outside there has been a big misperception about Garner. They look at it as if it is a quasi occupation (which he disagrees with). Maybe there is criticism that they have been too slow, but they are trying hard."
One last bit of color:
At the Tallil air base the MPs guarding it had made up a handwritten cardboard sign that read George Bush International Airport. The departing Iraqis waved to them and their new sign out the bus windows as they left.
endit
From Nicole Winfield, AP:
For the pool, some more quotes from Iraqi participants at the meeting, the first three are quoted from their speeches to the meeting, the last one is from a one-on-one interview outside the tent:
Kenan Makiya, a professor at a U.S. university, said Baath Party rule had destroyed the legal foundation of Iraq, and said democracy "is essentially the rule of law."
He said it was going to take years to develop the a legal foundation after the "disaster" of Baathist Rule, which he said had penetrated deep into the ideological structure of the Iraqi people.
"And this is where the importance of the transitional authority or transitional government comes from," he said.
Sheik Sami Azer al Majnoon, wearing a golden robe and red headdress, proclaimed to the gathering of opposition Iraqis and exiles that "the period of opposition is over."
"I think it is incumbent now as our duty to do everything we can to cooperate with Gen. Garner and his staff," he said, adding that "sincere and open consultation" was the best way to cooperate.
"One of the bases of democracy is honest differences of opinion," he said. "However at the same time this is also one of the difficulties of democracy."
He stressed that the state religion of Iraq must be Islam, saying there could be "no concession."
"This has been a fundamental part of the Iraqi government from its very formation down to this day. And I would like to advise the coalition not to adopt a policy interfering in this area," he said.
Saphiq al-Suheil, one of the few women attending the meeting, noted that Iraqi women had suffered greatly at the hand of Saddam's regime.
"Therefore there is a responsibility for all of you to take into consideration the role of Iraqi women in the construction of a new democratic state."
She said the Iraqis don't want to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s in the construction of a new Iraqi state.
"We don't want to see the United States and the members of the coalition impose upon the Iraqis a government not chosen by the Iraqi people."
One of the participants was Ibrahim Al-Oloum, a lawyer from Najaf, where sporatic fighting has bedeviled coalition forces for weeks.
He said it wasn't enough for coalition forces to have removed Saddam from power, saying one of the "immediate requirements" was for security to be restored.
"The Iraqi peole look for both process, the falling of the Saddam and at the same time minding security," he said outside the conference. "You cannot do one step without the next. This is a half-finished job."
When asked about the future, he said the joining together of exiles with Iraqis would create the "core" for running the country, but acknowledged that Garner had a role to play.
"It's very necessary to have Garner _ for as short a time as possible," he said.
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