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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Many of the millions of Iraqi exiles welcome war and hope Saddam will be ousted. That doesn't mean they trust the United States.
Nov 20, 2002 | For most of the world, it would be a tremendous relief if Saddam Hussein cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors and averted a vicious war in the Middle East. To Alaa Yousif, a 35-year-old software engineer living in Austin, Texas, who fled Iraq as a teenager, such an outcome is "my worst nightmare coming true. I hope war is imminent and I hope it is the end of Saddam."
"It's ironic," Yousif notes wryly, "but the majority of Iraqis support a war against their country."
Yousif, who runs an Iraqi exile community Web site called Iraq Voice, says, "I have yet to meet someone that comes out of Iraq who says, 'Oh, we don't want war because we're afraid of the casualties.' Iraq has had so many casualties. They don't mind risking casualties just to end the suffering they're going through."
Of course, the feelings of roughly 4 million Iraqi exiles -- one-sixth of all Iraqis, if State Department figures are correct -- are not easily summarized. They left their homes at different times, during different stages of their lives, and settled in different countries. No association speaks for the Iraqi diaspora, although the Washington-backed Iraqi National Congress, the leading opposition group, claims to. This population, many of whom experienced the barbarism of Saddam's regime firsthand, is largely silent when the possibility of a war with Iraq is debated daily among pundits and politicians.
Perhaps that's because their opinions, born of an anguished calculus that forces them to decide what they fear and hate more -- bombs over Baghdad or Saddam's enduring tyranny -- don't fit snugly into any TV debate format. Much of what they say will displease both hardcore hawks and doves. Several speak of a nation betrayed by generations of American presidents, ripped apart by American-imposed sanctions, fearful of more death and destruction but so desperate to depose their dictator that they're ready to accept an American invasion.
Of course, some Iraqis have such profound distrust of the United States that they're convinced its involvement can bring only misery. Haifa Zangana, a 52-year-old Iraqi writer living in London, was subjected to atrocities by Saddam's regime, but now, as she wrote in a September Guardian column, "This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me."
Yet interviews with a dozen ordinary Iraqis and community leaders in six countries, as well as comments solicited on Iraqi bulletin boards like Iraq Voice, suggest that few share her unequivocal opposition to war. In a highly unscientific poll on Iraq Voice, 72 percent of 140 respondents answered yes to the question, "Should the U.S. remove Saddam from power by using force?" Zangana concedes that desperation has bred support for America's war plans. "It's very understandable that some Iraqi people want to get rid of Saddam any way they can, with the help of anybody," she says.
Of course, a dozen people is a tiny sample, but their views echo each other in powerful ways. Most would like to see a multinational force, preferably including Arab soldiers, come into Iraq and overthrow Saddam. Despite the White House's recently announced plans to track Iraqi immigrants in the United States, most Iraqi exiles are quite amenable to American foreign policy goals. They would even be happy to see Americans invade alone, if they believed Bush was serious about getting rid of Saddam, rebuilding Iraq and creating democracy (though many don't). Antiwar protesters who oppose an attack on Iraq under all circumstances may speak for many people throughout America, Europe and the Middle East, but they don't speak for most Iraqis.
Adil Awadh, a 33-year-old living in Lincoln, Neb., says he was disinvited to speak at a Nebraskans for Peace rally after the organizers heard he was planning to talk about Saddam's crimes. "I always advise my friends and people who I meet in the United States to focus more on what the Iraqis want," he says. "The Iraqis want to be liberated. I found it very hard to conceive why some people do not believe that Iraqis have this desire."
Even Anwar Al-Ghassani, an Iraqi writer who teaches at the University of Costa Rica and is a leading Iraqi voice against the war, says, "There is no sense in opposing the Iraq policy of the Bush administration 100 percent. Don't oppose it 100 percent, but criticize and give some other options; perhaps this will help."
