Making a Case in the U.S. for Iraqi Progress
May 15, 2007
All Things Considered, May 14, 2007 · Congress is
wrestling with the question of funding the Iraq war:
The House has passed a bill to parcel out funds in
installments, and this week, the Senate will
probably vote on a bill of its own. For the past
week, one of Iraq's most prominent political leaders
has been meeting with those lawmakers in Washington,
D.C. Barham Salih, a Kurd, is one of Iraq's deputy
prime ministers. He talks with NPR's Michele Norris
about why members of Congress said many of them are
running out of patience with Iraq's leaders, and why
he thinks an early U.S. pullout would be disastrous:
Barham Salih: I can understand that perhaps the
present posture of American troops in the urban
centers of Iraq, and American kids in Humvees
wandering the streets of Baghdad, may not be an
image that Americans can tolerate for much longer. I
can understand this thing. But this is a battle
against an enemy called al Qaida and international
terrorism that is transcending borders, and it is
attacking here in the United States; it is attacking
us in Iraq. |
Dr Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq.
You can listen to the interview from
NPR, Windows Media |
|
We cannot afford – we
have to adapt in a way that we can win it in time.
It is important that we enter at [a] different level
of partnership between the Iraqi government and
Iraqi leadership and the United States, because
ultimately it is about Iraq leadership. I can tell
you this readily, and I have said this back in
Baghdad: Americans cannot deliver for us; we have to
deliver for our own
country.
You say Iraq needs to deliver for itself, to stand
on its own. Until it's able to do that, if you are
against any kind of timetable for withdrawal, how
long do you think the U.S. should or would be
involved in Iraq?
I think more and more reliance will have to be
placed on the Iraqi side, and we are witnessing
that. When we assumed sovereignty in 2004 – June
2004 – we had no forces. Now Iraqi police and Iraqi
military are nearly 400,000 or so.
In terms of time, I can tell you the vision that we
have – and this is something that we and the
administration are on accord on this matter – is
that we build Iraqi forces. As more Iraqi troops
come online, they assume more responsibility, and
our reliance on the Americans will be less than
before. I hope we will reach a stage where Americans
will not be needed for daily combat operations,
where the Americans will be redeployed to a
strategic posture, where they will be there as an
asset to fight in a strategic sense, where they are
needed to fight the extremists and the terrorists,
or to deter regional interferences. I think that is
not impossible to imagine in the foreseeable future.
Now, Dr. Salih, I didn't hear in that answer a time
frame. For many Americans, what they're
uncomfortable with is this open-ended commitment.
I don't think there should be an open-ended
commitment. The reason I am avoiding a time frame
per se is because I don't want to let the enemy know
what the time frame will be, and I don't want him
just to simply wait us out. If people think that
this can be fixed in any given American cycle –
political cycle – they will be proven wrong. This is
very much like the Cold War. This is a long-term
struggle. We need to be honest about that, clear
about it, but I am readily willing to accept that
the present posture of American deployment in Iraq
may not be sustainable from a domestic point of
view. How can we change that process so that it will
be sustainable, so that we can win it and not let
time be used against us?
Is the surge working?
On a security level, yes — many districts of Baghdad
have been cleared of terrorists and militias; [there
have been] many important discoveries of weapon
caches and bomb factories. [A] new phase of the
operation has started. And I have to remind you also
that the full deployment of forces has not taken
place yet.
The surge gives us the time to lock in a political
settlement, a power-sharing arrangement that will
create the political coalition needed to defeat an
al Qaida and support and enhance our military
capabilities. The surge – so far, so good, but we
need to do better on the political track.
If the political framework is so important – there
is one issue that has left many members of Congress
scratching their heads – why are lawmakers planning
a two-month summer break when so much key
legislation is still at a stalemate?
Well, there is a saying that one has also to be
careful what one wishes for. We wished for a
democracy in our part of the world, an independence
of the legislature, and our legislature is powerful
and [has] a mind of [its] own – actually, 275 minds
of their own. These are the numbers of Iraqi
parliamentarians.
I'm glad to tell you that I spoke to the speaker of
parliament a couple of days ago. He told me that he
and the prime minister have had a discussion about
this thing. They have decided to postpone their
recess so that they will remain in session in July,
awaiting proposed legislation to go to them from the
government.
I want to return to something you said. In your
estimation, you say the surge is working, but might
this be a temporary breakthrough in the areas where
they've actually been able to provide some measure
of security, if the extremists or the insurgents or
whatever you call them are merely leaving the area
and planning to wait out the U.S. and Iraqi forces
and return the minute they let up pressure?
That is the danger. How can we sustain the military
gains? It's not just a matter of clearing a
neighborhood for a day and then relieving it and
creating a vacuum. We are working now on measures by
which these military victories, these security
measures, could be sustained beyond a search.
What is the message that you leave with after your
visit here and your many meetings?
I leave with a message – and it is a helpful
message, by the way; it will help me debate this
issue in the Iraqi cabinet and with my
parliamentarian colleagues – of frustration and one
of waning patience with this transition in Iraq, [a
message] that we need to do better, we need to
demonstrate progress on a different scale. The
world's greatest democracy is helping us, wants to
help us, but we need to demonstrate that they have a
much more effective partner in that. I believe it's
a positive message; it's not damning. I have not
heard, by the way, from anybody that they want to
throw in the towel with these guys. I mean –
But are you getting a message that patience is
wearing thin?
[It] is wearing thin, but they need to see progress.
And Americans should understand it is not only the
government of Iraq at the other end receiving this
message; other interested parties are also receiving
this message, some of whom are liking it, and they
want to feed your frustration and want to escalate
the conflict in Baghdad … so that they can grow this
frustration in the United States. The question is,
how [do] we win this thing? The fate of Iraq is not
only important for Iraq, as it is important for the
rest of the region as well.
Dr. Salih, thank you for coming in to talk to us.
Thank you for this opportunity.
That was Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of
Iraq.
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