Beyond Baghdad

For all this, critics gave the Bush administration a 24-hour reprieve. The honest ones admitted they were wrong. That’s a small group. Others chose, rather remarkably, to ignore the hopeful turn of events. Bill Moyers devoted last week’s episode of his current events show to arguments for gun control and an update on corporate scandals. (PBS might consider changing the show’s name, from “Now with Bill Moyers” to “Last Year with Bill Moyers.”)

As for the rest, they’ve spotted a new disaster to blame on the Bush administration–neglect of Iraq’s many problems. It used to be the primary argument of the naysayers that the United States was intent on a hostile takeover of the Middle East. As the administration has begun to announce its plans for postwar Iraq–an interim authority and a quick transition to an Iraqi government–that argument has disappeared faster than Saddam Hussein. The new worry is that the Bush administration will cut and run, ignoring the needs of Iraqis.

On September 24, 2002, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned his readers about a “definite whiff of imperial ambition in the air.” The next month he was certain about the coming occupation of Iraq. “The administration has offered many different explanations, some of them mutually contradictory, for its determination to occupy Baghdad.”

Effective with the fall of Baghdad last week, Krugman inverted his critique, in the process establishing his own impeccable credentials when it comes to “mutually contradictory” arguments. “There is a pattern to the Bush administration’s way of doing business that does not bode well for the future–a pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect,” Krugman wrote April 11. “After the triumph,” he wrote of the Bush administration, “when it comes time to take care of what they’ve won, their attention wanders, and things go to pot.”

It’s hard to predict the future, but there’s no sign yet that the administration is suffering from attention deficit disorder. Indeed, postwar planning continues apace in Washington and Kuwait.

In the resort town of Safat, 12 miles south of Kuwait City, a government-in-waiting prepares itself for the coming transition. Life here is frenzied, but comfortable–a dramatic contrast to the life of the American forces now in Iraq. Soldiers eat MREs, the postwar planners feast on lunch and dinner buffets at the five-star Hilton Hotel. Journalists scoot about in rented Mitsubishi SUVs with gas cans attached to the top, while government officials drive new Chevy Suburbans.

Postwar planners are drawn from a wide variety of government agencies and opposition groups in Washington, D.C. One man I talked to is helping draft a new Iraqi Constitution, though he told me he has some other duties to attend to first. Another is finalizing the plan to flip the Iraqi media–in a period of days–from a collection of state-run propaganda mills to freely operating independent outlets.

The operation here, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, is run by Jay Garner, a retired general who directed Operation Provide Comfort, which carved out a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq in the early 1990s. Garner is a raw, no-nonsense administrator who has thus far stayed away from the media. Several members of his team, those coordinating activities in southern Iraq, moved into Umm Qasr, Iraq, late last week–the first members of the Interim Iraqi Authority to operate on Iraqi soil. The group in charge of northern Iraq was scheduled to depart Kuwait on Saturday, April 12.

Operating on a parallel track in suburban Washington, D.C., is the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC), run by Emad Dhia, an Iraqi American from Detroit. That group consists of 100 Iraqi exiles who have spent the past two months working 16-hour days, seven days a week. They will shortly join Garner’s staff in Iraq to facilitate the transition.

The first order of business, says Dhia, is staffing the various ministries. “Many of the positions in the ministries will soon be empty,” he says. “They were held by Saddam sympathizers and Baath party members, who will be removed, of course.” The IRDC experts will work with the remaining ministry officials to identify Iraqis capable of assuming high-level positions in the ministries. “We have to make sure the government is not paralyzed and that the services are provided to the people,” says Dhia. “In a lot of the ministries there are good public servants.”

At the same time, others from the IRDC will begin work with the provinces and towns to reestablish a governmental presence on the local level. “Many of the problems will be local problems,” says Dhia, pointing to the work of his staff with experience in health care. “We need people to run the clinics, to get medicine, to take care of patients.”

Dhia scoffs at critics like Krugman who worry that the Bush administration will leave the job unfinished. “I talk to Jay Garner, and I see a man who is committed to helping the Iraqi people,” he says. “I talk to Paul Wolfowitz and I see a man with a vision to help establish democracy through the region. President Bush has given us the resources so that we are aligned to be successful.”

Two weeks before the start of the war, Vice President Dick Cheney met with a small group of Iraqi exiles, including Dhia, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. Among many other topics, he offered them his hopes for postwar Iraq. “We want to create the conditions under which democracy can flourish.” That’s all he said on the subject.

Dhia agrees. “The sooner we are done, the sooner the new Iraqi authorities can take over.”

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.