I found a site the other day called One Million Reasons to leave Iraq. And I noticed that most all the reasons were sent in from people living in America. I wondered where the Iraqi reasons were.
Then I noticed that one million Iraqis had signed a petition begun by Shiite leader Sayyed Moqtada Sadr, popular (according to some) among the young and the poor in Iraq, calling for a pullout of coalition forces in Iraq. But I began wondering how freely the Iraqis signed the petition given that many are afraid of Sadr, who has been accused of kidnapping and murder.
And so Jennifer (my collaborator) sat down and read. And read and read -- about 20 hours' worth of Iraqi blogs, some pro-coalition forces; some against; some accused of being fronted by the CIA; others merely talking about the continuance of daily life among strife; and still others who suddenly, eerily stopped blogging a month ago, six months ago, a year ago and we wondered what happened to them.
What we learned? Electricity is still a large problem, with many bloggers reporting two to four hours of electricity followed by four to six without. Potable water is also a problem as is lack of medicine. Also a problem is “typhoid, cholera, kidney stones...[and] we now even have the very rare Hepatitis Type-E...and it has become common in our area,” said al-Nuwesri, while adding that they never faced these problems prior to the invasion of 2003.
One blogger reported that his hospital had only three working blood pressure machines and “as most of the ER patient in Iraq die so we didn't take a lot of history from patient unless there is a lucky man pass the dangerous state which is very rare.”
There is also despair from mothers who’ve lost their sons -- whether to death or kidnapping or prison is often unclear. There is anger against terrorists and against occupiers who have, in many respects, made daily life more difficult. There are eyewitness accounts of corruption among the new Iraqi leadership as well as coalition forces and reconstruction teams.
And I pull my hair, wondering how we fix this mess and get out. And in the short term, there’s an answer: listen to Stuart Bowen, a presidential appointee filling the role of special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction who has testified before Congress about mismanagement of some of the $18.4 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) along with some contractual mishaps. In essence he says that accountability for and transparency of the money being spent is especially important in times of crisis and havoc. And his latest report brings home the fact that “the IRRF cannot meet all of Iraq’s reconstruction and development needs... in the end, only the government of Iraq can initiate comprehensive policy reforms and a development program.”
And that is the crux of the matter. Iraq needs to do it. If it requires help, it can ask. We should not assume we know better than them how to create their development program and policy reforms.
So, check out One Million Reasons; sign their petition. Let’s let Iraq be independent.
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Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks.