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Ambassador L. Paul Bremer was selected by President Bush in May to oversee the Coalition Provisional Authority and its reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Gideon Yago sat down with Bremer recently to discuss the state of affairs there, and though their discussion occurred prior to the capture of Saddam Hussein, Bremer's comments still offer insight into the conditions faced by coalition troops and the citizens of Iraq.
Gideon Yago: It looked like right after the war there was a time when things here in Iraq were on the up-and-up, but now when you flick on the TV at home all you see in the headlines is "Attack, Attack, Attack." What's changed over the last couple of months?
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"You don't ever eliminate crime. Crime is there. Terrorism is a form of crime. So it's not as if we're ever going to be able to say, "Well, that's finished, there's no more terrorism."
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L. Paul Bremer: Well, two things have changed. ... One of the things that changed is that the opponents of the vision of a democratic Iraq are conducting more attacks against our forces, and they're becoming more sophisticated. The thing you don't see on television is the other thing that's happened, which is that life has gotten a lot better. Not only are people free now, but they've got electricity, they've got water, the schools are all open, the universities are open. Health care is good. So there's a lot of good news, it just doesn't get as much attention as the bad news.
Yago: We've talked to a lot of young Iraqis over the last week and a half, and a lot of them were very excited initially that American troops were coming to topple the regime. But now they're scared to leave their houses, they're worried about crime, they're worried about the failure of the infrastructure. What do you say to that young Iraqi who is losing hope in America right now?
Bremer: I think the vision that we have for the future of Iraq is very much the vision that young Iraqis want. This is a very young country. Sixty percent of the people here are under the age of 25. And therefore the kind of Iraq we're trying to build is for them. It's for the majority of the people, who are under 25. And it's a vision of an Iraq which is peaceful, which is stable, which doesn't have wars with its neighbors, where people can decide what they want to do with their lives — do they want to be doctors or lawyers or shoeshine men? — and where they can get married and bring up kids and send them to school. The kinds of things people all over the world want. And it's a vision that I think is very consistent with what the Iraqis want. Now, we have work to do to get there. We've got to make the security better. We've set in motion a plan to introduce elections here next year. And that will then give everybody a right to express himself or herself freely, in a democratic way. So I think it's a vision that is very much in line with the vision of most Iraqi youth.
Yago: Is it possible to put a fixed date on that and say, "You're gonna feel safer in X amount of time"?
Bremer: Well, I think [it's already safer]. For example, take Baghdad. The violent crime in Baghdad has dropped almost 40 percent in the last two months. So people already are safer. We have thousands of policemen on the street now. When I got here in May there wasn't a single policeman anywhere in the country. I have 60,000 police. So it's already safer and it will continue to get safer. You can't say at what date it's completely safe any more than you can say what date it's going to be completely safe in Boston or in Atlanta or in Dallas. Crime will be a factor of everybody's life, but I think it will become more secure in the period ahead.
Yago: A lot of people at home supported the war because they thought it was going to make America a safer place in regards to terrorism. Is America safer?
Bremer: We are really at the forefront of the war on terrorism here. We've got several hundred terrorists in the country that we know of. At least that's what our information suggests. And effectively the terrorists recognize that if we succeed here, if we are able to establish a peaceful democratic Iraq, it will be a substantial defeat for the whole world war on terrorism. So America is safer to the degree we can win the war here. Because if we don't win the war here, we're gonna have to fight it on the streets of America.
Yago: Has it gotten better, though? Is the world a safer place now that we are in Iraq?
Bremer: I think it will be. I think once we have won the war against terrorism here, it will be a safer place. Yes.
Yago: How will you know when that mission has been accomplished?
Bremer: Missions like fighting terrorism and fighting crime are never finished. You don't ever eliminate crime. Crime is there. Terrorism is a form of crime. So it's not as if we're ever going to be able to say, "Well, that's finished, there's no more terrorism."
Yago: The objective was very clear during the war: change the regime, turn over Iraq to the people. But I think the objective might not be as clear right now. Why are young men and women still fighting and dying here in Iraq?
Bremer: Well, because we haven't finished the job yet. And the job is to do what President Bush has said we want to do, which is to establish a free and peaceful democratic Iraq. We've got remnants of the old regime here who are anti-democratic, who are killers and who do not agree with that vision for Iraq. And they're out killing people. And what they're killing mostly now is Iraqis. They're running suicide bombs against police stations. They're out killing Iraqis who want to cooperate with us, because they don't share that vision. And we have to continue that fight.
Yago: Why is it so much more difficult to win the peace than it was to win the war?
Bremer: I'm a historian, and it's been true for almost any peace that anybody's ever had. A war is relatively easy to define. You can define how you defeat an enemy and then you can have a military that follows through and does that. A peace is much more ambivalent. You have to deal with political structures, economic structures. And the case here, those were thoroughly dominated by a totalitarian government for decades. You have to repair that. You have to repair civil society.
Yago: What are America's objectives in repairing that civil society?
Bremer: The objectives are a stable Iraq, which is democratic, where they have a representative government which respects individual liberties of men and women, which allows the freedom of worship but recognizes the Islamic character of the majority of the population. A country where they have the kinds of checks and balances which work in most Western societies. And civilian control of the military. Separation of powers. It's a very big list of things that has to happen. It's easy to state and difficult to implement because they've never had that government.
Yago: What do you say to the families who may have lost a loved one in Iraq and have grown bitter about our mission here because of it?
Bremer: What I would say is everybody here in the armed forces is involved in a noble task, and their sacrifices, whether they die or are wounded, are worth it, because America is doing something great here.
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Photo: MTV News
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