December 18, 2005
Iraqi Democracy 3, Terrorists 0
By Jon Kyl
After months of criticism
of President Bush’s policy, gloomy press coverage that seemed
to focus almost entirely on car bombs, and near panic on the part
of some Congressional Democrats, we now have a useful barometer
to assess the real state of affairs in Iraq - Thursday’s
historic and enormously successful parliamentary elections.
The third
national plebiscite vote in just two years since Iraq’s
liberation from Saddam Hussein was largely free of violence and
saw a turnout rate higher than most western nations’. Millions
of Iraqis who proudly dipped their fingers in purple ink, enjoying
the democracy that our troops and their own have sacrificed so
much to build, provided what the Wall Street Journal
rightly described as “the most eloquent rebuttal to American
defeatists.”
Voter turnout
was high across nearly all regions of the country, including such
former terrorist strongholds as Fallujah and Tal Afar. Sunni Arabs,
who largely sat out January’s interim election and October’s
constitutional referendum, have clearly changed their minds, participating
in the democratic process in such huge numbers that some polling
sites ran out of ballots.
No one ethnic
group or party is likely to emerge with a clear majority in parliament;
so forming a new government will require flexibility and compromise.
And time. This process will be as difficult in Iraq as it is in
every other parliamentary democracy, but that’s a sign of
civic health.
As are numerous improvements
in the lives of ordinary Iraqis that never seem to command the
media attention that relatively isolated terrorist attacks do.
Most Americans are not aware, for example, that:
·
According to a Brookings Institution report, “for all the
insurgents' attempts to sabotage the Iraqi economy,” per
capita income has doubled since 2003 and is now 30% higher than
it was before the war.
· The Iraqi
economy is projected to grow 16.8% in 2006; there are five times
as many cars on the streets than in Saddam Hussein's day, five
times more telephone subscribers, and 32 times as many Internet
users.
· While one
independent media outlet existed in Iraq before 2003, there are
now 44 commercial television stations, 72 radio stations, and
more than 100 newspapers.
·
“To all of this,” writes Norman Podhoretz of Commentary,
“we can add the 3,404 public schools, 304 water and sewage
projects, 257 fire and police stations, and 149 public-health
facilities that had been built as of September 2005, with another
921 such projects currently under construction.”
· On the military
front, a November report by the Committee on the Present Danger
(which I am privileged to co-chair in an honorary capacity with
Sen. Joseph Lieberman), cites a compelling example of what is
being accomplished by American troops. In the recent Operation
Steel Curtain on the Syrian border, our troops detained more than
1,000 suspected insurgents. One hundred weapons caches were found
and cleared.
The report also notes
the steady strengthening of the Iraqi armed forces, and the increasing
degree of responsibility they are assuming in the fight against
the insurgency: Since July, Iraq's armed forces have added 22
new battalions, and 5,500 police-service personnel have been trained
and equipped (as have some 2,000 special-police commanders). Coalition
senior officers report that 80 Iraqi battalions now are able to
fight alongside our troops and 36 are "generally able to
conduct independent operations." More than 20 of the coalition's
forward-operating bases have been turned over to the Iraqi army.
One would
hope that these improvements and last week’s election would
finally silence the claims, from Hollywood to Howard Dean, that
the war in Iraq is "unwinnable." The sheer size of last
week's turnout makes clear that the insurgency lacks a broad base
of support inside Iraq. If the new government serves its people
well and protects the rights of Iraq’s minority Sunnis,
terrorists will have fewer and fewer places to hide.
Sen.
Kyl serves on the Senate Finance and Judiciary committees and
chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Visit his website
at www.kyl.senate.gov.
