Re Emad Dhia and Iraqi Reconstruction:
C-Span didn't have this AM's transcript, but the State Department provides one from an interview with this gentleman from yesterday....Well worth reading.
Part 1 of 2--
08 July 2003
Pentagon Briefs on Iraqi Reconstruction, Development Efforts
(Iraq/U.S. casualties, Baghdad/city council, Bremer/meeting, Saddam
Hussein/not returning, CENTCOM/command change, Franks/military
service, Abizaid/CENTCOM tenure, Emad Dhia/Iraqi perspectives,
Iraq/media, Iraq/services, Iraq/security, Liberia/U.S. assessment,
Saddam Hussein/video, Baghdad University/shooting,
Iraq/anti-Americanism, Ba'athist/holdovers, U.S. troops/Iraq
assessment, Iraq infrastructure/sabotage, Iraq/U.S. engagement rules)
(5510)
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Larry DiRita and Emad Dhia,
director of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council briefed
the media July 7 at the Pentagon.
Following is the transcript of the Pentagon briefing:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of Defense News Briefing
Larry Di Rita, Acting ASD(PA)
Monday, July 7, 2003 - 2:00 p.m. EDT
(Participating were Larry Di Rita, acting assistant secretary of
defense for public affairs, and Emad Dhia, director, Iraqi
Reconstruction and Development Council.)
Di Rita: Good afternoon. I hope you all had a fine holiday weekend and
had a chance to think about all those great Americans out there
defending our freedoms every day.
Our condolences, first of all, go out to the families of those troops
killed and injured in Iraq and, really, throughout the U.S. military
over the past days. We remember them and their families today.
Before taking questions, there's a couple of things I wanted to
highlight that might help put some context into what we are doing in
Iraq, in particular. Today Ambassador Bremer met for the first time
with the newly selected Baghdad interim city advisory council.
Ambassador Bremer describes this as the most important day in Baghdad
since April 9th, which was the day that coalition forces entered the
city and that the regime came to an end.
This council will provide a forum for Baghdad's citizens to discuss
important local issues. The 37-person council will also offer advice
and suggestion to the coalition and to the city's municipal and
ministry administrators as they manage basic services for the
residents of the city.
Without question, there's a lot of work for Ambassador Bremer and his
team in Iraq, for the United States government and the coalition
generally. And there's going to be more violence and other setbacks.
There's no question about that. But make no mistake: Saddam Hussein's
regime is gone and it is not coming back. All of Iraq's main cities
and a large number of smaller towns now have councils, administrative
councils, and slowly but certainly, Iraqis continue to take
responsibility for their own circumstances in Iraq.
I have one other point, and then I would like to ask our guest to say
a few words, and I will introduce him to you.
Today, as we speak, I think, General Tommy Franks is being relieved of
his command in Tampa. I think that's happening right now. General
Franks has served the nation with great distinction, and I don't need
to repeat the many accolades he has earned, on behalf of the Central
Command and on behalf of the United States. We wish him and his family
the best as he moves on.
The president has chosen an officer of unique capability, in John
Abizaid, to continue with the mission of leading the Central Command.
And we wish General Abizaid and his family the best and Godspeed.
Earlier today, I think, some of you may have heard from General Carl
Strock from Baghdad, as well as Andrew Bearpark, his British
colleague, counterpart. And he talked a great deal about what the
circumstances are in Baghdad, gave you a little bit of a sense of the
sort of technical conditions in the city, in the infrastructure, et
cetera.
I wanted to also offer the opportunity for you to speak to another
gentleman today, a very special guest we have with us, Mr. Ahmad Dhia.
He has recently returned from Baghdad. He spent the past several weeks
there with the Coalition Provisional Authority. He is returning to
Baghdad, was actually supposed to have departed Sunday. We prevailed
upon him to remain for an extra day or two to brief some people here
in the building, as well as to spend a little bit of time with you.
Mr. Dhia founded the Iraqi Forum for Democracy several years ago in --
here in the United States. He is a mechanical engineer and former
project manager on a variety of engineering projects in Iraq. In 1982
he left Baghdad and has lived in the United States since then.
Earlier this year he put his life on hold to organize a global network
of Iraqi volunteers, who made themselves available to go to Iraq after
the conflict and to assist in the reconstruction and the
post-hostility period. This group, known as the Iraqi Reconstruction
and Development Council, consists of some 120, 130 Iraqis, and they
are now sort of assigned across the ministries in Baghdad and across
the regions in Iraq, offering technical expertise in fields as wide-
ranging as agriculture to the various technical -- health ministries,
et cetera, culture -- the Culture Ministry, things such -- of that
nature. They bring energy, knowledge, skill and, most importantly, the
firsthand knowledge, in most cases, of life under Saddam Hussein.
We've asked Ahmad to offer some of his reflections in these early
weeks and months since the end of the major combat phase of this
operation. Mr. Dhia.
Dhia: Good afternoon. I would talk first about the Iraqi people that I
talked to and lived with for the last eight weeks in Baghdad. I would
talk about the freedom. The people of Iraq, for the first time in 34
years, they feel free. There's no question about that. This is the
truth. You can see it. You can feel it. And you can notice, when you
talk to the Iraqis, they are speaking their minds. If they don't like
something, they go in the street and demonstrate. That never happened
under Saddam regime.
Also, in the street of Baghdad, you see over 50 newspapers, all these
newspapers representing different parties and political (Inaudible.).
They write with no fear of prosecution or imprisonment. And that's the
first time happening in Iraq.
Then I talk about the Iraqi living conditions: how they make their
whole lives, and what's -- if there is any improvement happen in the
Iraqi lives. The average government employee income multiplies between
the time before the war and after the war, after liberation. Before
liberation, an average employee monthly income was about 10,000
dinars, which runs about $5. The first advance that they received to
cover their living expenses was $40 for the government employees and
for the retirees. Some of the retirees, actually the military
retirees, they received $60. And that runs about 60,000 dinars to
80,000 dinars. That's compared to the 10,000 Iraqi dinars they used to
receive as a monthly salary on average. And that's not counted as a
salary. They also start receiving (Inaudible.) salary. An (Inaudible.)
salary itself is substantially more than the original salary or the
average salary the government employee used to receive before
liberation. That, coupled with stabilities -- stability in prices of
the good and groceries, some of the prices stay put; some of them,
they went down.
On the services. The Iraqis now have better access to electric power
with all the challenges we have on the distribution side.
Unfortunately, the remnants of Saddam's regime, they are shooting our
high-tension lines, which they run in Iraq for hundreds of miles. They
also go and throw a grenade on a switching station or a transformer to
sabotage the process of providing electricity to all Iraqis. And this
is happening at the middle of the summer, and the environment of 130
degree outside, and at a time when the average Iraqi student in
Baghdad trying to sit down and read and get ready for his final exams.
So Iraqi families are really frustrated by what they are doing. And
that exactly tells you which side those remnants of Saddam regime are
standing on. Definitely it's not the people's side.
And I will talk about the general security issue. The security in Iraq
continue -- the situation will continue as long as those Saddam's
remnants exist, and, as the president said, that these Ba'ath Party
officials and the security officers of Saddam regime, they will not
stop at -- they will stop at nothing to regain their power and their
privileges.
Their privileges during Saddam regime was extensive, up to we've seen
salaries of his people, between the grants he gave them and between
their truthful salaries, up to 100 times their peers; you know, the
guy sitting next door to his office. He receives 100 times more money
than what his peer receives. That's how Saddam was employing those
people. Those people they lost those privileges, they lost their
power, and they are fighting back. We understand that. And we're going
to fight them back and we're going to defeat them.
Di Rita: Thank you, Ahmad. And do you have more, or do you want to
just take some Q&A?
Dhia: Just one point I'd like to mention here. The objectives of those
people, the remnants of Saddam, are different from the objectives of
the Iraqi people. The objective of the Iraqi people is to enjoy
liberty and start the democratic process. They are looking forward to
have a free and just Iraq, and they try to enjoy the new future that
the United States are helping to build in Iraq. And unfortunately,
those remnants will be there until we take them out. I think Iraqi
people, once they realize Saddam and his sons are either dead or
captured, we will have much more cooperation from Iraqi people in this
process.
Di Rita: Thank you.
Again, I will take a handful of questions. I know there's a lot of
current issues of the day. I'd like to try and take advantage of the
fact that Ahmad remained back for a day or so, if you want to get some
of his reflections.
Go ahead, Charlie.
Q: Very, very briefly, aside from this issue, there are a lot of
questions about Liberia. Could you tell us how long you expect the
assessment team to take to complete its assessment? And while we
understand the president's made no decision yet, what kind of -- what
size force and kind of force is being looked at in terms of
peacekeeping --
Di Rita: I will emphasize that the president's made no decisions, and
therefore it would certainly be premature for me to discuss any
speculation on your part.
With respect to the humanitarian assistance team that's out there,
it's not operating against any particular time line. It's going to
conduct the assessment that it needs to see -- get an on- ground sort
of situational awareness and be able to report that back through the
chain of command, for the decision-makers to continue their own
assessment. So it's -- I certainly am in no position to speculate
about what the next steps would be, other than at some point this team
will report.
Q: What specifically, briefly, are they looking at?
Di Rita: Well, they're looking at the circumstances on the ground in
Monrovia and what exactly the conditions are, so that -- as -- again,
as the president continues to deliberate, he can have the benefit of
very firsthand focused insights from people who have recently been
there.
Yeah?
Q: Larry, the new tape of Saddam Hussein appeared. The CIA says they
believe that in fact it is highly likely that it is him. Mr. Dhia just
made the point that until Saddam Hussein is either dead or captured
and his sons are, the situation is not going to resolve itself. How
much havoc is his apparent still being alive causing in problems for
the U.S. in Iraq?
Di Rita: Well, I won't say any more than what the secretary has
already said, which is it's not helpful, to the extent that people
believe that there is -- that there are individuals who are -- hold
out hope that Saddam Hussein may be alive -- and again, I wouldn't
speculate as to whether he's alive or not. I simply don't know. But
it's -- as long as -- as Ahmad said, as long as there are sort of
holdouts from the Ba'athist regime that have hope that they may be
able to restore their privileges or have their privileges restored,
they'll be very unhelpful to the Iraqi people. And that appears to be
what's happening.
Q: Is there some sense, either directly or indirectly, that he is
guiding what is going on over there now, the violence directed at U.S.
forces, particularly incidents like the soldier being shot while he
was buying a soda at the university, or another GI being shot while he
was buying some sort of CD?
Di Rita: Well, again, remember -- and General Abizaid has spoken to
this at some length; I think General Myers spoke to it over the
weekend -- there's -- there are a number of strains of activity that
we think we see. We see these Ba'athist holdouts who sort of -- as the
secretary has described them, dead-enders, who hope that there will
one day be another Saddam Hussein regime. There will not be.
We see hard-line Islamists who want to cause mischief, some of them
from inside the country, some of them very likely from outside the
country. We see criminal elements.
And so you see a number of strains, and it -- nobody has been able --
nobody has indicated or has a sense whether there's any sort of
regional or national organization level behind these. There's a lot of
different strains of activity, and we're going to take them as they
come.
Yeah?
con't |
