Dan Rather THE MIDDLE EAST:
LAST WEEK, long-awaited scenes of celebration came to downtown Baghdad. Perhaps just as important, they were broadcast around the world. Whether or not these images will sway those in this region opposed to the United States action in Iraq remains to be seen. But even among those here who support the war, such as the Kuwaiti government, relief over the successful course of the military campaign is tempered by growing concern.
It is fuelled by the situation in the Iraqi south, in cities such as Nasiriyah, Umm Qasr and Basra. The military battle for these towns is all but over, but the battle for a viable, whole and stable Iraq has just begun. A vacuum has been created in the palaces, party headquarters and police stations that Saddam and his Baath Party apparatus so recently occupied. It has been filled, so far, by something akin to anarchy.
This is the next challenge that the United States will confront in Iraq, one that will present its own formidable problems and dangers. They will need to be met with the same degree of skill and dedication the United States has brought to the military fight, if any victory is to be deemed complete and decisive.
The fight here is for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. It is for a transformation or evolution of opinion on the various Arab streets. And it is for the vindication of a campaign that has become as much about the democratisation of Iraq as it is about regime change and disarmament.
The full plan for this battle still seems to be taking form. Questions remain, at least in public, over the shape of an interim Iraqi government, the timetable for eventual return of Iraq to full Iraqi control and the role if there is to be one to be played by the United Nations. No one has claimed that this process will be easy. An early indication of just how difficult it might be was provided by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi resistance leader with White House ties who was airlifted into Iraq this week along with hundreds of his Iraqi National Congress followers. When he arrived in Nasiriyah, where planning for the interim government will take place, he spoke words not of jubilation but of agitation. Where, he wondered, was the U.S. and British effort to restore electricity, to provide water, food and other essentials? Why, he wanted to know, were coalition forces not already attending to these problems?
The U.S. answer is that humanitarian aid is on the way and that the distribution of relief to Iraqi civilians is contingent in part on the security situation on the ground. These answers might sound rational back in the United States, but hungry, thirsty Iraqis might well see things differently. If scenes of desperation and anger are allowed to supplant those of joy and liberation, the battles for hearts and minds and Arab opinion will be dealt a major setback. If such scenes were to spread to Baghdad, the result could be disastrous.
For now, there is celebration. The United States, with a daring military campaign, has removed the tyrant's yoke from the Iraqi people. Americans, grateful for the skill and dedication of their fighting men and women, will want to bring them home, give them a ticker-tape parade down the "Canyon of Heroes." But to win this war on the terms set out will require patience, understanding and staying power. And in the short term, it will require immediate action to keep civilians spared by bombs and bullets from falling victim to starvation, disease and the brutality of mob rule.
Dan Rather is a television news anchor. Copyright 2003 DJR Inc. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
