The Iraqi people have become a popular topic in the debate over war in Iraq. Protestors on both sides claim to speak for innocent Iraqis, who have suffered so much at the hands of Saddam Hussein, and who must now cope with the dangers of an invasion. But one voice has been missing from the war discussion: the real voice of the Iraqi people.
What do Iraqis think about America, and about war? Up until now it has been difficult to tell, because the Iraqis themselves have not been allowed to tell the world. There is no freedom of speech in Iraq -- to voice an opinion is to risk imprisonment, torture or execution. The anti-Western, pro-Saddam tirades broadcast on government-operated Iraqi television represent not the views of real Iraqis, but those of the dictator's mouthpieces. Foreign journalists in Iraq are supervised by government monitors, and thus shielded from true interaction with the Iraqi people. Some brave Iraqi exiles have spoken out, but it is difficult to extrapolate the views of a few activists to a whole population.
But with the entry of coalition troops and international war reporters into Iraq, and with the gradual dismantling of Saddam's internal security forces (read: secret police and torture squads) in those areas controlled by coalition forces, the true voices of Iraqis have started to filter out. And while the words that reach the West are anecdotal at best, they are encouragingly supportive.
Shortly after the start of the war, United Press International reporters covered a taxi that crossed the border from Iraq into Jordan. Inside were a group of American anti-war protestors, who had gone to Iraq in February to serve as "human shields." They brought with them 14 hours of uncensored video, taken without Iraqi government minders present and shot by former human shield Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East. He told UPI that some of the Iraqis he taped "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler."
Another former human shield, Daniel Pepper, left Iraq in a similar fashion. In an editorial for the London Daily Telegraph -- titled "I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam" -- he writes: "Once over the border we felt comfortable enough to ask our driver what he felt about the regime and the threat of an aerial bombardment. 'Don't you listen to Powell on Voice of America radio?' he said. 'Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb the government and Saddam's palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam.' ... It hadn't occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war. The driver's most emphatic statement was: 'All Iraqi people want this war.' He seemed convinced that civilian casualties would be small; he had such enormous faith in the American war machine to follow through on its promises."
Perhaps the most famous image of the war so far comes from the city of Safwan, where U.S. Marines tore down the giant portrait of Saddam Hussein, while an Iraqi man beat the portrait's face with his shoe. London's Guardian newspaper told the story of Ajami Saadoun Khlis, whose son and brother were executed under the Hussein regime. "[Khlis] sobbed like a child on the shoulder of [the paper's] Egyptian translator. He mopped the tears but they kept coming ... God help you become victorious ... We came out of the grave.'"
While the supportive sentiments of these few Iraqis are comforting, it is true that they do not speak for all Iraqis. It is true that some Iraqi paramilitaries are fighting against coalition forces, and that fewer Iraqi soldiers than predicted have surrendered. But others, like the Kurds in north Iraq and the Shi'ites in Basra, have joined the fight against Hussein's tyrannical regime.
Most of the population sits in between these extremes and has responded to the invasion with caution. That is an entirely reasonable reaction, as many grave concerns still face the Iraqi people. These include the demand to minimize civilian casualties, the need for food, water and medicine, the task of creating a new government and the prospect of a foreign military presence in their nation for some time to come. These difficulties are real and ongoing, and will take time to resolve; until then, caution from Iraqis should be expected. But Iraqis can be confident that one major obstacle to peace in their nation will soon be gone: Saddam Hussein.
Again, in the city of Safwan, an embedded TV reporter asked an Iraqi why he was tearing down Saddam's picture. After all, in 1991 Iraqi forces in Safwan killed demonstrators who had pulled down images of Saddam during the first Gulf War -- why do it again? Said the Iraqi, simply: "because now, we can."
