Chrenkoff: Good News From Iraq

[Annie]

http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/07/good-news-from-iraq-part-31.html

Lots and lots more, not to mention all the links:

Note: Also available from "The Opinion Journal" and Winds of Change. As always, many thanks to James Taranto and Joe Katzman, and all of you readers and fellow bloggers who keep supporting this project. Please note that because of the changes in recent publishing schedule, this installment contains the good news from the past three, instead of usual two, weeks.

Traveling overseas can definitely broaden your horizons, not to mention make you appreciate your home even more:

[Spc. Christopher] Bean, 20, of Port Gibson, finished up a year-long stint in Baghdad as a truck driver with the 594th Transportation Co., a 101st Airborne division. His time in the military has given him a different perspective on the Fourth of July.

“In Iraq, we’re not fighting for ourselves,” said Bean, from his home base in Fort Campbell, Ky. “We’re over there fighting so the Iraqis can have their own Fourth of July.”

One of the things that struck Bean most about his time in Iraq was the people themselves. Most of the Iraqis he met were proud to have the Americans there, he said, and watching them go through their daily lives made him appreciate the historic significance of our Independence Day.

“Being there really opens your eyes to what our forefathers went through to get the freedom we have today,” he said.

Nation-building is never quick and never easy; hard-work and heartache are today, and the results often only years if not decades ahead. But the Iraqi people, with the assistance of the Coalition, have commenced their journey, and despite all the hardships, every day is another step forward. Below, some of these often much under-reported and unappreciated steps from the past three weeks.

SOCIETY: According to the latest survey conducted by the Euphrates Development and Strategic Studies Center in provinces of Karbala, Najaf, Babel and Baghdad, while the opinion is almost evenly split on the question whether the constitution drafting process will finish on time, 53% of those polled thought the performance of the presidency council acceptable, 20% considered it as very acceptable, and only 26% thought it unacceptable. 51% of respondents trust the government to some extent, 21% have very strong trust in it, while 27% of surveyed do not trust it at all.

The constitution drafting process is progressing well:

Although Iraqi lawmakers acknowledge that drafting a permanent constitution is one of the biggest challenges facing the country, the team charged with producing the document are cautiously optimistic that they will complete the job on time.

Lawmakers are up against an August 15 deadline to finish writing the constitution, a daunting task considering the disputes that have taken place so far even over who should sit on then 55-member drafting committee.

The drafting team now has to grapple with the controversial issues of federalism, the role of Islam in governance and the status of oil-rich Kirkuk.

“We hope that, God willing, things will go well and we’ll finish our work on time, particularly if we deal with the thorny issues in a way that satisfies all parties,” said Humam Hammoodi, head of the Constitutional Drafting Committee and a member of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance.

The committee, which was formed in mid-May, now meets every week and has divided into five groups each dealing with a different topic: the basic principles of the constitution, rights and liberties, laws and the formation of the state, federalism, and final principles.

“There are differing viewpoints among committee members, but this doesn’t mean there is no agreement at all among them,” said Sadi al-Barzinji, a committee member from the Kurdish Alliance. “Whatever the differences, they can be solved through democratic dialogue.”

As another story reports, "Humam Hamoudi, head of the committee to draft the constitution, said rapid and intensive meetings are underway with Sunni Arabs regarding possible disagreements. The meetings are meant to prevent a delay in the drafting of the constitution. He added the draft will be done with by August 1, as was decided earlier. He said they have agreed on many issues but there are still some contentious points, like federalism and the authority granted to the region's rulers." The Shia establishment is onboard too: "Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), has arrived in Najaf to meet top clerics to discuss the status quo of Iraq and the drafting of the constitution. The clerics agreed upon having all the different Iraqi spectrums participating in the drafting of the constitution and the political process with out marginalizing any of them."

But the constitution drafting process will soon involve consultation that goes well beyond the committee or even the National Assembly:

Baha' Al-'Araji, a member of the constitution drafting committee told Al-Mada paper yesterday that there are going to be 5 spots in each Iraqi province where citizens can find designated boxes where they can put their opinions and suggestion as to the process of writing the constitution.
Only Baghdad will be an exception due to its high population so there will be 5 spots in each main quarter in the capital.

One million "suggestion forms" are planned to be distributed nationwide soon and there will be specialized teams to read, sort the received forms and prepare summaries that will eventually be submitted periodically to the main committee.
He also mentioned-according to the paper-that the committee has already purchased air time on satellite channels and columns space on papers (ten in total) to publish/broadcast materials of value to constitutional education to help people get a better understanding of the process.

You can also read this short vox populi from the Iraqi street about the new constitution.

And there are other favorable signs for bigger future Sunni engagement in politics:

Several Sunni Muslim clerics have prepared a decree calling on members of Iraq's disaffected Sunni Arab minority to vote in coming elections and participate in the writing of a new constitution, a prominent Sunni leader said...

Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the Sunni Endowment, the government agency responsible for Sunni religious affairs, said the framers of the decree, or fatwa, would seek the support of other groups in the fractious Sunni community. If broadly embraced, Dulaimi and other Sunni leaders said,... the decree could pave the way to full political participation by a segment of Iraqi society that boycotted elections in January and has scant representation in the current government.

The push for the fatwa, together with formal approval by Iraq's National Assembly on Monday of the addition of 15 Sunnis to the committee writing the new constitution, suggested that slow and often contentious efforts to bring Sunni Arabs into the political sphere were beginning to bear fruit.

In another report: "Sunni clerics in Iraq are preparing to hold a general conference by the end of this week. The conference will include edicts to allow participations in the political process, the referendum on the constitution, and the coming elections. There will also be edicts that prohibit targeting the supreme election commission members in Baghdad and other provinces. The conference will ask all Iraqis to reject sectarianism and ethnicity and to stop targeting the clerics and men of thought, especially the Shia clerics."

Meanwhile, in the National Assembly, free-ranging debates make it the first for the Middle East:

Death or torture awaited members of the former rubber stamp parliament if they ever had the courage to criticize the former regime. Today the country’s elected deputies openly pour their wrath on government officials in open sessions which many Iraqis hail as harbinger of a new era.

It was not surprising therefore to see the deputies adding the presence of U.S. troops in the country to their agenda this week as well as corruption in government ministries and terror attacks.

“Iraq’s sovereignty is an issue of paramount importance … It is the responsibility of this assembly to take a decision whether to approve or reject the extension of the multinational forces in the country,” declared Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi.

While the deputies freely discussed the pros and cons of the presence of U.S.-led troops in Iraq, there were no calls for their immediate withdrawal under current circumstances.

More important for other deputies were issues related to the reports of massive corruption in government ranks and the escalating terror and insurgent activities in the country.

As the new habits of debate and openness grow, Iraqi democracy also continues to benefit from increasing ties with overseas. For example, another two cities are becoming twinned:

The IVC of Philadelphia announced today that it is participating in the U.S. Department of State's "Partners for Peace" project with Mosul, Iraq.

Through IVC, officials from Iraq's third largest city will visit Philadelphia to learn about democratic governance. Committees in both countries will work to improve humanitarian conditions in Mosul.

"The IVC of Philadelphia is eager to partner with Mosul's leaders and citizens to support their transition to a democratic society," said Nancy Gilboy, President of the IVC of Philadelphia. "We've spent 51 years administering democracy-building programs and the past eleven years working with the former Soviet Union. That experience means we can hit the ground running with Mosul. We have humanitarian aid waiting to be shipped and a committee of Iraqi-Americans and generous citizen diplomats ready to help. For years, citizens in the Philadelphia area have shared their professional expertise and opened their offices and homes to guests from emerging democracies. We now look forward to engaging them with this important Mosul partnership."

The United Nations, meanwhile, is supporting Iraqi civil society:

With 4,000 new non-governmental and civil society organizations (NGOs) mushrooming in Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s one-party rule, the United Nations is holding a three-day workshop for some 30 Iraqi human rights defenders in Amman, capital of neighbouring Jordan.

The workshop, from 27 to 29 June, seeks to strengthen the capacity of NGOs for advocacy work and human rights promotion at the national, regional and international levels, help to develop strategies for past, current and future human rights violations, and build a network for sharing information and developing collaboration.

USAID is meanwhile supporting the development of better financial practices throughout Iraqi bureaucracy:

To assist the Government of Iraq (GoI) to meet generally accepted standards in budget execution, USAID is working through partners under the Economic Governance II program to implement a state-of-the-art Financial Management Information System (FMIS) that will provide tools for federal financial management. Under Phase I of the project, 57 FMIS sites will be established at Ministries, spending agencies, and governorate treasuries by the end of June 2005. Under Phase II, a further 128 FMIS sites will be put in place.

FMIS orientation and computer skills training courses have been completed at 55 out of 57 of the Phase I sites while hardware has been installed at 44 out of 57 sites. By June 30, it is anticipated that all equipment will be installed and tested at Phase I sites.

And the Japan International Cooperation Agency has commenced statistics and economics training in Amman, Jordan, of employees of various ministries and government agencies. Jordanians themselves are conducting environmental awareness training for employees of several Iraqi ministries.

Out in society, after decades of censorship, Iraqis re-discover the escape of books:

In a narrow alley off Mutanabi Street, Baghdad's main book market, the Dar al-Bayan bookshop is full of dust and classics. Old men sip tea in the back and talk of times past, before dictatorship, when poets and intellectuals made life here bright.

On the street outside, the new Iraq presses in. Card tables covered with computer manuals, cell phone booklets and how-to guides compete for space on the sidewalk. A vast array of religious books, banned under Saddam Hussein, pack the stalls.

As Iraqis struggle to make sense of the chaos and violence that has consumed their lives over the past two years, books offer some solace.

"Reality now is very strange," said Mufeed Jazaery, who was Iraq's culture minister in the recently departed interim government. "People are trying to put their feet on the ground, but they find themselves still hanging in the air. Is it quiet, or will there be another storm? Is it black or is it white? Is it moving, and if so, in which direction?"

But as well as showing a changing Iraq, books also reveal a dividing line between those who grew up before the years of dictatorship - who reach for history texts to understand what has happened to their country - and younger Iraqis straining to find answers to more immediate questions about their lives in self-help and how-to books, romance and religious titles.

"Chaos and violence" might have indeed "consumed" Iraqis' lives over the past two years, but prior to that their lives were hardly examples of normalcy. The difference is that back then they didn't even have books for consolation.

In dealing with the legacy of the past and returning back to the Iraqi people some of their stolen national wealth:

The 170 palaces of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein are to be turned into cultural centres, research institutes and libraries, Iraqi Culture Minister Nuri Farhan al-Rawi said...

"We have already put an appropriate request to the American cultural attache," al-Rawi told delegates to a UNESCO conference on stolen and illegally exported cultural objects.

At the present, most of Saddam's palaces are occupied by American and British soldiers of the occupation force in Iraq, al-Rawi said.

And in another aspect of dealing with the past, "the Human Rights Committee in Baghdad province council of has established a Social Liability Fund to support the families of martyrs through designating a sum of 50,000 dinars for each family and 10,000 dinars for each child of the martyr families, who were executed during the former regime, in addition to the terror martyrs."

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