Nation's Memory of 9/11 Colors the Debate on Iraq
By BLAINE HARDEN with PETER KILBORN
The right poo-poos the notion of terrorist repercussions should we attack Iraq. They are wrong People said they hungered for a coherent explanation from the president — stripped of what one woman called his recent "yippee-ki-yay" rhetoric — that laid out why Iraq was suddenly such a threat. There was also widespread apprehension about terrorist repercussions.
SOUTH BEND, Ind., Oct. 5 — As it echoed down a highway that straddles the continent from suburban New Jersey to San Francisco, the national conversation about war in Iraq was dominated this week by images of smoldering buildings in New York and Washington.
"We have seen what happens when we let things slide," said Chris Federico, 20, a junior here at Notre Dame and sports editor of the campus newspaper.
In scores of interviews along Interstate 80, in cities and small towns, on farms and a college campus, last year's attacks framed the debate about a war in Iraq, with many people insisting that America should never again be caught unaware.
"Sept. 11 showed us we can't sit on our duff," said Jerry Ryan, a retired Army colonel, retired school principal and mayor of Bellevue, Neb.
Still, the Americans interviewed were rarely enthusiastic. Many sensed hidden motives behind the drumbeat of war.
Election-year politics, nearly everyone agreed, have accelerated the rush to attack Iraq, in the White House and in Congress. Many talked, too, about how President Saddam Hussein had eluded the first President Bush and later tried to have him killed. Personal vengeance, they speculated, is almost certainly on the mind of the second President Bush.
People said they hungered for a coherent explanation from the president — stripped of what one woman called his recent "yippee-ki-yay" rhetoric — that laid out why Iraq was suddenly such a threat. There was also widespread apprehension about terrorist repercussions.
But in interview after interview, Americans seemed unwilling, indeed unable, to discuss Iraq without bringing up Sept. 11. Although the sentiment was far from universal, many said they trusted President Bush on Iraq because of his resolute action against terrorism in the past year.
The interviews along the 2,909-mile highway were not a scientific opinion poll. But they were a geographically broad and demographically diverse sampling of argument, fear and conjecture about a war many Americans now view as inevitable.
'Everybody Here Is Not Saddam'
Not far from the eastern terminus of I-80, in a Muslim neighborhood of Paterson, N.J., Musleh Ahmed Siddiquey lingered inside the Bengal Grocery.
He had finished midday prayers at the mosque next door and was explaining why it was a bad idea to go after Iraq.
"Bush is maybe a little crazy, like his father," Mr. Siddiquey, 49, a businessman, suggested gently. "If he wants to remove Saddam, there is a way to do it peacefully."
Mr. Siddiquey quickly added that he supports the United States. Like many of the men who spilled out of the mosque here, he said no one should mistake his disagreement with Mr. Bush for a lack of patriotism.
"This country is giving us food and shelter," said Mr. Siddiquey, who is from Bangladesh. "In our country people are going to bother me, but here we are getting all kinds of freedom."
Muslims in this corner of northeast New Jersey have felt uneasy since last fall, when the community became a footnote to 9/11. Several of the hijackers rented an apartment here as they planned their attacks.
In the end, there was little trouble besides taunting. But Muslim leaders here advise followers to express patriotism to all who ask, and to tell anyone that a religious life means devotion to America.
The other day, a non-Muslim friend of Mr. Siddiquey's was teasing a mutual friend.
"He kept calling him `Saddam, Saddam,' " Mr. Siddiquey said. "I told him, I know that you are joking, but that is not good. He is not Saddam, and everybody here is not Saddam."
Mr. Siddiquey said he feared that if the United States did go to war, many Americans would lose sight of this distinction.
A Distasteful Topic at Lunch
Dessert was a 40-layer cashew tart and chocolate banana bread pudding. But the main lunch course for five women from Shaker Heights, Ohio, was war. In particular, they chewed on the ethics of pre-emptive war in a time of terrorism.
"I think if you lead with scruples, you are at a disadvantage," said Amy Handel, 52, a retired social worker with two grown children. She argued that Americans were learning what Israeli Jews have known forever: They are vulnerable, and sometimes must break the rules to stop murderers.
No one at the table disputed this, though all seemed to find it vaguely distasteful.
These were liberal-leaning women from an affluent Cleveland suburb. They found Mr. Bush's positions on social issues abhorrent. But they were unanimous in their belief that Saddam Hussein was a monster who would use weapons of mass destruction — unless he was stopped.
They agreed, too, that Mr. Bush was earnestly trying to protect them. They had heard the cynical argument that the president was as interested in Republican control of the Senate as he was in a regime change in Baghdad. But they did not buy it.
Still, they wished the president would at least try to sound smarter.
"He really needs to do a better job of presenting a more cohesive and cogent rationale for this war," said Beth Curtiss, who is active in Cleveland's Jewish community.
Mrs. Handel said the president must learn "to sound less like a vigilante than he does." She added: "After 9/11, the yippee-ki-yay stuff was what we needed to hear. But now I think we need to hear how he is working with other countries against Saddam."
The women said the American public had been told too little about the precise nature of the Iraqi threat. They wondered if the White House merely wanted to scare Mr. Hussein into obeying orders.
"Is it a game of chicken?" asked Susan Seitz, 52, a retired lawyer raising four children, ages 11 to 22. "The more we talk about it, the more it seems like it." |
