Bombs Over Baghdad
The terrorist bombings in Iraq are causing fits in Washington and Europe. On the ground in Iraq, it's a different story.
by Fred Barnes
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Baghdad
THE STRONGEST REACTION to the deadly terrorist attack on a hotel here last night won't be in Baghdad. Here, the explosion was no surprise. The U.S. military and Iraqi police responded quickly and professionally. A bigger reaction may be felt in Washington and Europe, still reeling from the Madrid attack that killed several hundred and prompted Spain to look to pull its troops out of Iraq.
The huge explosion on a very soft target is what the Iraqi insurgency has come down to. The consensus is the attack was the work of radical Islamists, perhaps al Qaeda or an affiliate. They are the only folks capable of pulling off such an attack. Angry Iraqis either couldn't or have lost the desire to.
The American military has already turned back part of the insurgency. The diehard supporters of Saddam Hussein have largely been stymied, leaving the fight against the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council to foreign terrorists.
THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS. The bad news is that military leaders believe the attacks by outsiders will continue through the handover of sovereignty on June 30 and probably for months afterwards. For the time being, they are a fact of life in Iraq. The country seems inured to occasional bombings with significant death tolls.
If the terrorists hope to ignite a civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslims, they are failing. If their strategy has a goal of expelling the United States or an ally, it's not working. And if their aim is to bring normal life in Iraq to a frightened halt, they're not making much of an impact on that score either.
Rather than hunker down, Baghdad is bristling with activities. Traffic jams are a routine problem now, Iraqis having brought hundreds of thousands of used cars into the city since the fall of Saddam. Most were purchased in neighboring countries and driven into Iraq without any worry about paying tariffs or duties, which have been eliminated entirely.
As the first anniversary of the American-British invasion nears--it's March 20--the Coalition Provisional Authority has been holding press briefings to tout the improvements in Iraq since Saddam's fall. There's plenty to brag about, including the return of the oil industry to prewar production levels. Unemployment has been cut from roughly 60 percent a year ago to an estimated 25 percent today. Of course, economic figures are only educated guesses in Iraq because of the lack of solid information from the Saddam era.
THE BIGGEST GAINS are political. Just yesterday, CPA chief Paul Bremer met privately with the Iraqi Governing Council and persuaded its 25 members to seek the United Nations's help in creating an interim government after June 30 and in creating a process for a democratic election in early 2005. Bremer believes the United Nations can provide legitimacy for both the interim government and the government which will be elected next year.
Here's a few other things Iraq has now that it didn't have last year: an independent central bank, a top tax rate of 15 percent for companies and individuals, free trade, a bill of rights attached to an interim constitution and signed by all parties, a new currency that's actually taken hold, rising economic activity, no price controls, and the right of all companies, domestic and foreign, to begin operations.
There's still a lot to do, such as privatizing the 200 or so companies owned by the government and ending the expensive subsidies on food and energy. The elected government will have to handle those problems.
For now, it's the gains in creature comforts and political freedoms that are most striking in Iraq. Terrorist attacks are a serious concern, but they aren't a showstopper. The bombings, bloody as they are, will surely cause more far more heartburn in Washington and in queasy European capitals than here.
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