REND RAHIM FRANCKE talks to Iraqis–her own wide contacts inside her native country, but also a network of exiles, who in turn stay in touch with family and friends back home. As executive director of the Iraq Foundation, which promotes democracy and human rights in Iraq, Francke keeps abreast of this steady flow of fresh information from private sources. The other day, she distilled what she is hearing from inside southern Iraq for an audience of journalists at the American Enterprise Institute. All that we are reading in the press about intimidation of civilians by agents of Saddam’s regime is true: This was Francke’s first theme. The people of southern Iraq “are held hostage in their towns and cities”–this is not U.S. propaganda. The Baath militias and the thugs of the Fedayeen patrol the streets, man the intersections, question people in their homes, and even are garrisoned in private houses in bands of three or four. This deep penetration of the neighborhoods is a highly effective means of social control.

The background–the catastrophe of 1991, when America encouraged an uprising against the regime, then stood aside as Saddam repressed it–further explains people’s fear. Estimates of the numbers killed in that bloodbath begin at 30,000, Francke said, while Saddam’s government has bragged of slaughtering 300,000. Before people stick their necks out again, they want to know their liberation is for real. “It will take a lot of work to overcome the residual lack of trust,” Francke says.