Tuesday afternoon, when we landed at Tallil Air Base in Iraq, the 44-year-old couldn’t keep from crying. “It’s a great thing. A dream that came through,” he said. “This is something I dedicated all my life for.” Qanbar, who represents the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in Washington was one of a group of about a dozen diplomats, military brass and exiles that flew from Central Command in Qatar to Southern Iraq for the first meeting to discuss a new government. “It feels safe to come back,” Qanbar said.
Our pilots didn’t feel quite the same way. The C-130, a cavernous plane that has its innards exposed, started defensive maneuvers as soon as we crossed the “fence”–the Iraqi border–just after noon, Iraq time. The pilots donned body armor, dumped fuel and dropped down to 200 feet above the desert floor. Then we started weaving. When we landed, after a first attempt that was aborted with a sharp turn, it felt as if we dropped from the sky. Several of the VIPs on board threw up into newspapers.
It was the start of a turbulent meeting. About 80 people gathered in the shadow of one of the Arab world’s greatest archeological sites–the 4,000-year-old ziggurat of Ur. Fortunately, it is too big to loot. Coalition representatives and Iraqis from both inside and outside the country met under a big air-conditioned tent with red carpets covering the desert floor. “What better birthday can a man have than to begin it not only where civilization began but where a free Iraq and a democratic Iraq will begin today?” asked the head of the U.S.-led interim government, retired lieutenant general Jay Garner, who turned 65 on Tuesday.
Garner is trying to show the Iraqis that he is doing his best to work himself out of a job. He was wearing a twin American and Iraqi flag pin yesterday. But several Iraqis boycotted the meeting to protest his installment and a demonstration of thousands shouted “No to America and no to Saddam” in nearby An Nasiriya. “Even among the Iraqis outside, there has been a big misperception about Garner,” says Salem Chalabi, 40, a lawyer and the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial head of the INC. “They look at it as if it is a quasi occupation.” He made his own way to the meeting and hopes to help with a new constitution.
The Pentagon likes to blame reporters for a lot of things, from the notion that looting in Iraq was out of control to the perception that Ahmed Chalabi and his group, the INC, have gotten preferential treatment from the United States. The Coalition flew Chalabi’s Free Iraqi Fighters, a group trained by the United States, into the south to help wage war and now keep peace. That led to widespread speculation that the United States wanted to see Chalabi as president. Suspicions grew when the INC’s Qanbar became the official liaison to exiles at CENTCOM.
But the United States has also supported other Iraqi leaders, especially the Kurds in the north. And Qanbar was not the only exile that CENTCOM flew to the meeting. Emad Dhia, 50, a member of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy in Michigan, is heading up a group of Iraqi technical advisers working with Garner. His aunt was assassinated by Saddam’s henchmen, and until recently he kept his address in suburban Detroit secret. Says Qanbar: “There is no intention for anyone to try to steal power or take power. Everyone can have a share. Tom Daschle is suspicious of Paul Wolfowitz. In a Democracy there is no unified position.”
If so, then democracy surely has a strong future in Iraq. There were many differences of opinion at the half-day meeting, which ended just as a sandstorm was kicking into full gear. Sheik Ayad Jamal Al Din, a Shiite cleric from Nasiriya, was the first to speak to the group. He wore the black traditional robe and cap and argued passionately for “a system of government that separates belief from politics.” He got polite applause. But he was immediately followed by a school teacher named Nassaar Hussein Musawi, who disagreed, saying: “Those who would like to separate religion from the state are simply dreaming.”
The meeting did not produce too many specifics. They outlined 13 principles that they want to see in a new government–from democracy to the demise of Saddam’s Baath Party. And they took their first ever vote in free Iraq: a show of hands that they would hold another meeting in 10 days’ time. But the very fact that the gathering happened was monumental. For the tribal leaders, many in traditional dress, talking about these ideas is totally new. “They are still nervous,” explained Hoshyar Zebari, a representative from the Kurdish Democratic Party. “They don’t believe Saddam is gone yet.” If seeing is believing, they also won’t believe the United States does not intend to rule Iraq until Garner et al pack their bags and head home.
