Tantamount to re-establishing Hussein.

Submitted by Kirk Bertino (United States), Apr 13, 2004 at 14:48

The problem I see with the article you wrote (The Root of Iraq's Rebellion) is that it is tantamount to putting Hussein back in power. If we wanted an Iraqi strong man in power in Iraq we should never have removed him. He might have been a brute, but a brute might be just what Iraq needs to stomp out all the little fires that keep popping up all across the country. Iraq shows what is typical of a country like that where you have every other little group competing for power and a large amount of available weaponry especially of the kind they have - AK-47 and RPGs. The problem with such an environment is the way to stop the attacks takes un-humanitarian actions. You hit everybody indiscriminiately. Next time some gets a bright idea everybody else puts a stop to it before you do. That is what Hussein did. That is what has been done for centuries. It's cruel, but effective. Under our humanitarian way of trying to establish rule we will not be effective b/c dissidents know that all they have to do is to attack and hide. Nobody will inform on them and nobody will get hit by the U.S. forces. The reality is that if we are going to resort to that form of counter measure then we might as well have left Saddam Hussein in power b/c that is how he kept power.

In the long run this would look very bad for the U.S. Since we have committed out selves to this role and since re-establishing a Hussien like figure would be counter-productive, what we have to do is concentrate on destroying and seizing the vast amounts of weaponry around the cities. We should not drive convoys through cities as that makes them sitting ducks for road-side bombs. U.S. forces are easy targets. Iraqi forces are not b/c they blend in to the environment.

What would be most effective would be to meet with the city leaders - even former baath party members - and have them establish self rule on a counsel. Governors for their own cities and counselmen for the cities which can meet for to represent the states interests in a larger congressional style body.

They are not going to accept westernized life styles. That's something we are going to have to accept. Islam will play a prominent role b/c it is a political religion and the muslims in Iraq are devout.

We either should have left Saddam Hussein in power b/c he had a stabalizing and moderating effect on the country or we should accept that a self-ruling government in Iraq is going to have profound influence from Islam.

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