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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Washington File

23 April 2003

U.S. Sees Political, Religious Freedom Growing Quickly in Iraq

(State Dept. spokesman discusses Iraq, France April 23) (660)
By Jane Morse
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- In the "new atmosphere of freedom" created by coalition
forces, the Iraqi people are wasting no time taking advantage of their
newly found political and religious rights, says Richard Boucher, the
spokesman for the U.S. Department of State.
"The flowering of Iraqi politics on such a rather quick basis is
really something to behold," Boucher told reporters at the daily State
Department briefing April 23.
"You also have this phenomenon of hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi pilgrims now making a pilgrimage they haven't been able to
make for 20 years," Boucher said. "And all that becomes possible
because of the new situation that's been created by the coalition
forces -- the new atmosphere of freedom that we've been able to create
that leads to the emergence of politicking in Iraq, which is a good
thing, as well as the ability of Iraqis to celebrate their religious
liberty for the first time in two decades."
He pointed to broad participation by Iraqis in building a new Iraq.
"You have groups from outside that are coming in that are setting up
operations, meeting with followers, trying to make contacts among
local people," the spokesman observed. "You have groups of local
people who have been coming forward. You've got local officials,
people who can do things and run things coming forward and getting
organized."
The United States, he said, is encouraging dialogue among the many
groups in Iraq. The first formal meeting to bring Iraqis together to
discuss their country's future took place April 15 in Ur; another will
be held April 28 in Baghdad. The hope is that a series of such meeting
will lay the groundwork for an Iraqi interim authority, the spokesman
said.
Asked whether U.S. officials have contacted Iran about movement of
Iranians into Iraq, Boucher said the United States has made it clear
to its contacts that "outside parties need to ... keep from any
particular interference with different groups, and need to do whatever
they can to prevent Iraqis from escaping, Iraqi regime officials from
escaping or otherwise ... affecting the situation for the worse."
Asked about the current condition of the relationship between the
United States and France, the spokesman replied, "We want to cooperate
and work together where we can, where it's in our interests. But,
also, we have had some fairly strong disagreements lately, and we need
to also think about how to deal with those and what the implications
might be in terms of the kind of cooperation we can have on these
issues."
While a number of countries disagreed with U.S. decisions regarding
Iraq, the disagreements with France were "much more acute," Boucher
said. "France didn't just disagree with our policy, they actively
lobbied against it," he said. Such actions, the spokesman said, will
have "consequences," but he declined to describe specifics.
"The point I would make," Boucher said, "is that having had
disagreements like this in our relationship, doesn't change the fact
that we're allies; doesn't change the fact that on a daily basis we
cooperate in many, many fields, whether it's anti-terrorism or finance
or sometimes trade policy, various things we're doing together even
around the world.
"At the same time, there is obviously an effect on the relationship on
how we look at things, how we evaluate things, and how we look at
things we might want to do in going forward. So, there are
consequences for those things. We will have to take into account the
disagreements, have to see to what extent the new cooperation in other
areas puts them in the past, but also have to understand that we did
have these disagreements, understand that they were serious and
difficult, and that that has consequences for the future."
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)



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