Los Angeles Times 2/02/05
Op Ed, by Arianna Huffungton
Quick, before the conventional wisdom hardens, it needs to be said: The Iraqi
election was not the second coming of the Constitutional Convention.
The media have made it sound as if last Sunday was 1776, the fall of the Berlin
Wall, Prague Spring, Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Filipino People Power,
Tiananmen Square and Super Bowl Sunday all rolled into one.
It's impossible not to be moved by the stories coming out of Iraq: voters
braving mortar blasts to cast ballots; election workers counting votes by the
glow of oil lamps; teary-eyed women in traditional garb proudly holding up
their purple-ink-stained fingers.
It was a great moment. A Kodak moment. And unlike the other Kodak moments from
this war - think Saddam Hussein's tumbling statue and Jessica Lynch's rescue
- this one was not created by the image masters at Karl Rove Productions.
But this moment, however moving, should not be allowed to erase all that came
before it, leaving us unprepared for all that may come after it. The
triumphalist fog rolling across the land has all the makings of another
Mission Accomplished moment.
Forgive me for trotting out Santayana's dictum that those who forget the past
are doomed to repeat it, but, for God's sake, can't we even remember last week?
So, amid all the talk of turning points and historic days, let us steadfastly
refuse to drink from the River Lethe, which brought forgetfulness and oblivion
to my ancient ancestors.
Let's not forget that for all President Bush's rhetoric about spreading freedom
and democracy, a free election was the administration's fallback position -
more Plan D than guiding principle. We were initially going to install Ahmad
Chalabi as our man in Baghdad, remember? And the White House consented to an
open election only after Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani sent his followers into
the streets to demand it - and chose an election date that came after our
presidential campaign was done, just in case more suicide bombers than voters
turned up at Iraqi polling places.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that this was a legitimate democratic election in name only.
Actually, not even in name, because most of the candidates on Sunday's ballot
had less name recognition than your average candidate for dogcatcher. That's
because they were too afraid to hold rallies, give speeches or engage in
debates. Many were so anxious about the threat of being killed that they fought
to keep their names from being made public.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that many Iraqi voters turned out to send a defiant message
not just to the insurgents but also to Bush. Many of those voters' purple
fingers were raised in our direction. According to a poll taken by our own
government before the June 2004 handover, 92% of Iraqis viewed the U.S.-led
forces in Iraq as occupiers, while only 2% saw them as liberators.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that the war in Iraq has made the United States far less safe
than it was before the invasion. According to a report released last month by
the CIA, Iraq has become a breeding ground for the next generation of
professionalized Islamic terrorists. Foreign terrorists are now honing their
deadly skills against U.S. troops - skills they will eventually take with them
to other countries, including ours. The report also warns that the war in Iraq
has deepened solidarity among Muslims worldwide and increased anti-American
feelings across the globe.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget the woeful lack of progress in the reconstruction of Iraq. The
people still lack such basics as gasoline and kerosene. The country is
producing less electricity than before the war. There are food shortages, and
the number of Iraqi children suffering from malnutrition has nearly doubled.
According to UNICEF, nearly one child in 10 is suffering the effects of chronic
diarrhea caused by unsafe water - a situation responsible for 70% of children's
deaths in Iraq.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget the blistering new report from the special inspector general
for Iraq reconstruction, which found that the U.S. occupation government that
ruled Iraq until last June has been unable to account for nearly $9 billion,
having overseen a reconstruction process open to fraud, kickbacks and
misappropriation of funds.
And the election doesn't change that.
Let's not forget that we still don't have an exit strategy. The closest the
president has come to one was on Sunday when he said, This rising democracy
can eventually take responsibility for its own security. Eventually being
the operative word.
Although the administration claims that more than 120,000 Iraqi security forces
have been trained, other estimates put the number closer to 14,000, with fewer
than 5,000 ready for battle. Of those we've
