Senator Rick Santorum rumoured to be a member or close to Opus Dei.
I think it's sad that an old Atheist like me has to point this out, but practicing Catholics are allowed to be in office in this country. And still hold their beliefs, lousy as I think some of them are.
NEW REPUBLIC
KANAN MAKIYA'S WAR DIARY
April 18
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 04.21.03
[ Editor's Note: This column was written on April 18, but not posted until April 20. ]
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NASIRIYA, SOUTHERN IRAQ
On Tuesday, some 80 former Iraqi exiles and Iraqi tribal leaders convened to discuss the postwar political arrangement, under the auspices of Retired Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. The meeting took place in a large tent pitched on the grounds of the old city of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, some 100 yards from the steps leading up the ziggurat inside the holy precincts, which lie at the heart of the ancient city. Despite our being half a world away and steeped in Iraq's ancient history, the gamesmanship of the Washington Beltway was ever-present. After the opening presentations by coalition delegates--some of whom took hours to arrive--the meeting got underway with speeches from Hatem Mukhlis from Tikrit, who is much loved by the State Department, and then me, who is looked upon favorably by the Department of Defense. We are all, of course, on the side of the angels, but in the surreal world of this meeting, such protocols, occasioned by the Byzantine workings of what is known inside the Beltway as the interagency process, carry a great deal of hidden or potential meaning.
Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say at the end of the day that the conference--which had cost me $3,000 and much family grief to attend--was a good thing for at least four reasons:
1. The participants agreed on an excellent final statement, with a particularly good paragraph on the paramount importance of a thorough political and cultural de-Baathification program for Iraq. Only two people did not raise their hands when the crucial vote on this issue was taken: Mukhlis himself (a former schoolmate of mine at Baghdad College) and Nouri Badran, from the CIA-supported Al Wifaq organization, otherwise known as the Iraqi National Accord. Everyone else, including the tribal sheikhs picked for attendance by the CIA's representative at CENTCOM, was wildly in favor of substantive de-Baathification.
2. The much-vaunted divide between the so-called "exiles" and the so-called "authentic Iraqis" who never left Baathist Iraq, never materialized, as the near-unanimity on the de-Baathification question demonstrated. This was contrary to years of soi disant expert analysis from the State Department and the CIA. It turned out that many of the "internals" knew who Kanan Makiya was, and even, God forbid, liked a thing or two that he had to say. Why, they even mentioned his name in pleasant tones from the podium.
3. There was a general sense that the maintenance of law and order inside Iraqi cities and the rapid emergence of an all-Iraqi authority for political reconstruction was the paramount task of the moment. No disagreement on this score at all.
4. Garner was an enormous hit with the Iraqis present at the meeting. He wisely stayed very much in the background, judging that the key task at hand was having Iraqis speak to one another, rather than having them hear speeches from representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. When Garner did finally speak, it was to make a direct, honest, straight-from-the-heart appeal to the participants that won them over instantly. He said, simply, that his role was to support Iraqis in the reconstruction of their country, and that he plans on leaving as soon as Iraqis themselves find it appropriate. "He really means it," a businessman from Mosul said to me after the conference. "This man is the genuine article."
Additionally, the meeting gave me the cherished opportunity to visit southern Iraq for the first time since 1966, when I accompanied my father and his students from the Department of Architecture at the University of Baghdad on a tour of events of a much greener and more inviting south. A quarter of a century of warfare have ravaged the landscape and its people, in ways one has to see to understand. At Ur, we took preliminary but important steps to remedy the damage. |
