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[olympian2004]

Courage plentiful in Iraq

By: Howard Kaloogian

BAGHDAD, Iraq ---- Courage. You know it when you see it.

"Speaking truth to power" is thought of as courageous. Lt. General Abdul Qader Jassim told Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi army could not withstand the coalition forces arrayed against it in the mid '90s. Then he spent the next 7 years, 4 months and 10 days in an Iraqi prison until being liberated by American troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Today he is the head of the Iraqi army. We met him in Baghdad. He talked to us through an interpreter whose hands appeared scared from chemical torture.

He described life in Iraq under Saddam as peaceful if you were part of the regime. Otherwise it held no hope and no future for the average Iraqi.

He described how Saddam trained terrorists and sent them into Lebanon and Israel and elsewhere; some are now returning to Iraq. He also believed there were 4,000 terrorists in Iraq before the coalition invasion.

We would ask about "the insurgents" and he would correct us: We were asking about terrorists who kill and maim Iraqi citizens. Terrorists want to make people believe they will never be safe.

Jassim is building an army to defeat them and protect his country. In terms of raw numbers, there are now more Iraqi security forces in the country than coalition troops.

Col. Ben Hodges, director of Joint Operations, described his plan to train that Iraqi army and rotate it into the responsibilities currently held by the coalition forces. We met in Camp Victory on the grounds of Saddam's Water Palace.

So far, he has closed 18 coalition bases throughout Iraq, giving security responsibility for those territories fully to the Iraqi army. There are 91 bases yet to go.

Benchmarks along the way toward complete Iraqi control include the referendum on the constitution this October followed by the December election of its representatives. But the terrorists learned from the January election that those events would push them away from power.

Everyone is bracing for more terrorist activity, more disruption of daily life and more indiscriminate death. Who is the enemy? Both men agreed, its Al Qaeda in Iraq. The same enemy that exploded bombs in the London transportation system; the same enemy that attacked America on 9/11.

Securing the borders so that terrorists don't continue to return to their training ground is another benchmark of Iraqi sovereignty. Smugglers on those borders have been moving goods and people for thousands of years. To end it now the Directorate of Border Enforcement is staffing forts to keep the uninvited out.

Col. Hodges has trouble understanding anyone who claims to support the troops but not the war; he does not believe that possible. The negative characterization from some in America that this process of transfer isn't happening fast enough, or not at all, that it's a "quagmire" doesn't seem to impact the Army, but he believes it does give support and hope to the enemy.

What will it take to overcome all these challenges? Courage. The Iraqi and Coalition forces have it in abundance. Tomorrow we will test our courage as we go out on patrol.

---- Former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian lives in San Marcos. He is visiting Iraq with a group of radio talk show hosts.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/07/13/opinion/commentary/17_28_497_12_05.txt

http://www.moveamericaforward.org/
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Tony in Boulder, Colorado