Bush Visits Arab-Americans in Michigan
Monday, April 28, 2003
WASHINGTON — President Bush will travel on Monday to Dearborn, Mich., home to the nation's largest Arab population, in hopes of garnering support for plans for a democratic Iraq.
The president is acutely aware of the Detroit suburb's large Arab community -- about 30 percent, according to the latest census -- and its backing of the administration's efforts in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq will also help him during his re-election next year.
About 90,000-150,000 of Dearborn (search) residents are Iraqi-Americans, mostly Christians and Shiite Muslims.
The president is not expected to declare combat in Iraq over yet, but that proclamation could come later this week.
What Bush will discuss Monday is an "optimistic vision of a liberated Iraq, and how Iraq can live in peace with its neighbors and become representative of an Islamic democracy," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in previewing the trip.
The president will also likely thank the Iraqi exile community in America for its courage in standing up against the Iraqi regime.
Helping craft an "Islamic democracy" is tricky business, however.
The United States has promised democracy for Iraq, but has ruled out the kind of Islamic government that democracy could yield. Some of Iraq's highly factious population wants a government run according to Islamic law, which could close the doors to democratic activities and produce a system like that in Iran, formed by anti-American Shiite clerics during the 1979 revolution.
Shiite Muslims (search) form more than 60 percent of Iraq's population, and although there is no love lost between Iraq and Iran, Bush administration officials say Iranian agents are inflaming anti-American sentiment within Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that the United States will not allow a religious government like Iran's to take hold in Iraq.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said Rumsfeld's position "demonstrates the kind of quagmire that we are potentially going to be in Iraq."
"If you talk about a democracy, which means that people vote and select the political leadership that they desire, then you can't say, 'But there are certain segments of the population that are off-limits,"' the 2004 presidential hopeful said Sunday on ABC's This Week.
Soon after U.S. troops rolled into the center of Baghdad virtually unopposed on April 9, Iraqis in Dearborn and other Iraqi enclaves celebrated in the streets, many promising to return to their native country to help restore their beloved land.
A group in Michigan wrote a communique outlining its hopes for Iraq, and planned to deliver it to Bush on Monday. The communique asks that "Iraqis be allowed to be the masters of their own destiny," said Jafar al-Musawi, a Dearborn-based Iraqi writer.
Efforts to reach out to the Arab-Americans in Michigan are not new. Two months ago, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz convened a town hall meeting of Iraqi-Americans in Dearborn, and asked the audience to help oust Saddam.
Wolfowitz said about 150 Iraqis who have been living in the United States or Europe have volunteered to go back to help establish a democratic government. Some already have gone.
Among those returning is Emad Dhia, who left Friday. He is an engineer who has been living in Michigan and heads the Iraqi Forum for Democracy (search), a political action group formed in the United States in 1998. Dhia will be the top Iraqi adviser to retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who is overseeing reconstruction efforts.
But others declined the offer, among them al-Musawi, who said the Pentagon asked him to accompany Dhia.
"What was I supposed to tell the people in Iraq: 'Listen to me, I've lived in America, I know?"' he asked. "No one would listen to me, or to the others, because we don't have the kind of clout the clergy do."
The 2004 presidential campaign looms as Bush meets with the Arab community in Michigan to discuss Iraq.
The president is visiting battleground states -- like Michigan, which he lost to Al Gore in 2000 -- in an effort not to repeat the past. His visit Monday is the ninth to the state.
Earlier this month, he visited Missouri and Ohio, also considered crucial states to carry.
Monday also marks the first time in more than two months that the president is holding a domestic speech outside of a military base or defense plant. He is speaking in Dearborn at a performing-arts center.
The nonmilitary venue reflects Bush's broadened focus on matters beyond Iraq, such as the economy. Michigan's February 2003 jobless rate, released this month, was 6.6 percent, a nine-year high.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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