CONFERENCE

American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research

October 3, 2002

Proceedings:

MR. DeMUTH: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Christopher DeMuth, and I'm President of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. I'm delighted to welcome all of you to this AEI Conference: The Day After: Planning for Post-Saddam Iraq. And I must say that my colleagues and I are very honored among the many distinguished experts on the Middle East and Iraq to have assembled here at AEI today such an important group of Iraqi expatriates and emigrees to take part in our deliberations throughout the day.

The dramatic proposition and challenge that President Bush has laid before the American people and the free world has prompted spirited public debate over the threat that Saddam Hussein poses to our security and our civilization, and no doubt equally spirited private debates over the military and political exigencies of removing the tyrant from power.

The question we will be considering today and in subsequent sessions throughout the coming months is equally important, and although it has received less attention to date, it will move to the forefront as the political and military plans go forward.

That is the construction of a free and liberal and peaceable Iraq, one which in the hopes of many Iraqis and their friends in America and elsewhere will be much more than a reconstruction of what was before Saddam came to power, but the inauguration of a new political era for all of the Middle East.

I would like to thank my colleagues, Danielle Pletka and Reuel Gerecht, who have been laying plans for this conference for many months now, and who will be moderating the sessions throughout the day, and Elizabeth Bowen, our Director of Seminar and Conferences, who put together all of the logistics for the event in this newly redesigned conference center, which we just moved into last week.

Because of the very large response we have received and the many people who have come from around the country and around the world to the conference, I must introduce a small apology. The logistics of managing such a large crowd throughout the day may present some challenges, and in particular it's not going to be possible to have everybody sitting around large tables with linen cloths at lunch, and some of the arrangements will be somewhat informal.

But I think given the intensity of the matters we will be discussing, that I could ask your patience with some of these details.

I want to mention that following--well, today's session is going to be concerned with issues of great immediacy and overarching importance in the post-Saddam period, questions of political and constitutional structure, war crimes and justice, oil, and the immediate effects on politics, the politics of the Middle East--we will be holding a series of monthly seminars following up with more detailed issues.

This will begin with a session on Friday, November 15, on demobilizing, reforming and rebuilding the Iraqi Army. Subjects to be addressed in subsequent months throughout the winter and spring include de-Baathification, reform in the educational system, reforming the judicial system, questions of debt, reparations, sanctions, environmental rehabilitation, health care, and many others.

To provide introductory remarks, I am very honored that we have with us Ambassador Ryszard Krystosik, who was for many years a distinguished Polish diplomat with long service in Washington, D.C. and at the United Nations. Ambassador Krystosik was in the early 1990s, from 1990 to 1994, Deputy Director in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was then for many years and up through 2001 the Chief of the United States Interests Section in Baghdad.

Following his remarks, Danielle Pletka will introduce our first panel and moderate that panel. Please give a warm welcome to Ambassador Krystosik.

MR. KRYSTOSIK: Before I start, let me apologize for my Polish accent. A long time ago when first in the United States, I was traveling from New York to Washington, and I stopped at the roadside cafe, and a man sitting next to me asked me who are you? I said I am a Pole. What did you come to the United States for, he asked? I said I came to polish my English.

[Laughter.]

MR. KRYSTOSIK: He looked at me and then said you don't have to. Your English is already Polish.

[Laughter.]

MR. KRYSTOSIK: It is with a great honor and pleasure to deliver the introductory remarks today. I don't know whether I will be able to meet this challenge, but certainly I will try my best. First of all, let me sincerely thank the President of the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Christopher DeMuth and the members of the institute for their kind invitation.

Secondly, let me congratulate you for choosing the most topical issues to be discussed today and at the seminars that will follow the conference.

If there are to be changes on the Iraqi internal scene, there will be nothing of greater importance than a successful transition to a democratic system in Iraq. Not allowing the rebirth of present dictatorship in a different form with a different face will become politically indispensable.

Hence, without the democracy being established in Iraq, and the present ruler being toppled down, the international security and stability of the Middle East will always be threatened, and the Iraqi people will continue to suffer.

Since a few weeks, as we know, Iraq has been non-stop on the headlines. Almost everything has been said, written or broadcasted--the news on war plans, return of weapons inspectors, political struggles behind the scenes in the United Nations, moves by the decision-makers and policy planners. From time to time, there were reports on the air strikes carried out in the pursuit of policy of no-fly zone enforcement and the reply of the Iraqi air defenses.

On the TV screens, you could often see Saddam Hussein either presiding over the RCC and government meetings or shooting from the hip his Mauser rifle over the heads of parading Iraqi troops to prove his fitness and determination, both to his supporters and to those who sometimes question his health.

However, for obvious reasons, not that much could have been shown, written or sent about the realities of daily life in Iraq. Having spent six years in Baghdad, as a senior Polish diplomat, charged with protecting the interests of the United States, I had the rare opportunity to eyewitness many dramatic events.

I had a chance to see the sharp contrasts between the regime and the people; to compare the realities with the illusions; to recognize the differences between the wishful thinking presentations and real problems; to juxtapose some slipping on the surface reports with the true facts.

And I had a chance to deal with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and other government officials. So I could compare the official policy statements made on different occasions with the daily practice and true acting of the Iraqi state authorities.

As much as I can, let me share with you some observations, assessments and opinions on these facts of daily life in Iraq, which are less exposed and usually do not take much of the prime time in the media.

For overwhelming majority, life is extremely difficult in Iraq. To be really well, one has to belong to the top elite, be a prominent member of the government or Baath Party leadership, a wealthy businessman, possibly on government procurement contracts, or a chieftain of the clan. Also, a few writers, folk singers, and actors belong to the elite.

Even high ranking officers of the Iraqi armed forces, security and police functionaries, as well as the administration officials are not that well paid. They do not get special bonuses or rewards which occasionally are even paid in foreign currency.

Directors general heading big offices in the ministries earn approximately an equivalent of 20 to $25 per month. The university professor salary is approximately eight to $10 monthly.

Therefore, in Baghdad it is not uncommon to find out that it is the university professor who is driving his used car as a taxi you have just hired. Your driver might be telling you how much he heard before 1991. His salary was then two or even three times higher than that of his European or American colleague. Now, he must have some additional income to support his family.

Before he belonged to the elite, he was a strong supporter of the regime. Now, his life has been drastically changed. The same could be said about lawyers, medical doctors, architects or engineers and executives. Before, they maintained close contacts with the West. They traveled abroad every year, staying in best hotels, walking to the best restaurants. Now, they hardly afford a sidewalk restaurant in Baghdad. Only a few of them can keep the same living standard now.

The support of the middle class for the regime now is not as strong as it used to be. It's getting weaker and weaker day by day. Yet, there is in my opinion rather resignation than an active protest. It would be too difficult, too dangerous, openly to manifest even some dissatisfaction.

Still, the middle class is better off than the lower income group. A woman weaver in the state-run carpet factory earns 3,000 Iraqi dinars. That is US$1.50 per month. She depends on food rationing only. A rookie in the Baghdad police force is paid $2.50 monthly. He is better off as occasionally he takes some small bribes, an important addition to his income.

Anyway, life in Baghdad for everyone who lives there is much better than life in other places, even big cities like Masul, Ramadi or Basra, not to mention life in the countryside.

The city of Baghdad day by day deteriorates. Many houses are not properly maintained as the owners do not have enough money for repairs. Streets, quite clean before the Gulf War, are dirty now. The sanitation trucks are running on major streets and in the better neighborhoods, where the workers can get some tips for collecting the garbage. The sewerage system is really in a bad condition.

Of course, the authorities put the blame on the sanctions and the bombings, which, as they say, heavily affected the system. Not much is being done, however, to improve the situation. During the rainy season, parts of the city are completely flooded.

On the other hand, in some parts of the city, close to the riverbanks in Mansur and Adamiya or in Masbah, you can see not only family members' palaces, but also some other huge mansions built with Carara marbles, indoor and outdoor swimming pools with the top equality equipment that is brought from the Gulf, Europe or Asia.

Some of these houses are guarded by the soldiers and police, some by private security guards. Some stay unoccupied as the owner might have two or three mansions like that to be rented for hard currency to diplomats, the UN personnel, executives of international companies or businessmen from United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Syria or Jordan.

When you look at the city traffic, you have an impression of being in the junkyard of 1980s. Most of the cars are kept running thanks to the ingenious labor of Iraqi mechanics and spare parts imported, or better to say, smuggled from India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Taiwan, often as original General Motors, Japanese or German products.

From time to time, you can still see a Porche or Maserati roadster, maybe from the motor pool of Uday, allegedly burned by the order of Saddam Hussein.

However, with the Oil for Food program running already for five consecutive years, there are new cars coming day by day, not only the trucks which might have the dual use and the oil tankers. They are top models of Mercedes for the government and presidential ministers, luxury Toyota Lexuses and Avalons become a new standard for top ranking Mukhabarat and security officials, while Land Cruisers, Toyota Land Cruisers for higher operatives from these intelligence and security formations.

These models gradually replace white Chevy Celebrity sedans, notoriously known before in Baghdad as the secret police cars. Regular police has a small Hundai. The brass, bigger Sonatas. Occasionally, you can see young men, shortcut or skin-headed, Al Khass special security agents, in their BMWs, wearing designer sunglasses, fashionable knit shirts, brief leather jackets and blue jeans as they drive slowly Arasat Hindiya Street, known as the Champs Elysee of Baghdad, placed close to the palaces and mansions on the river where the family of Saddam Hussein lives.

This is the place full of boutiques, selling Gucci, Yves St. Laurent, Pierre Cardin and other designer dresses and South Korean top and fancy audiovisual equipment. There are also fashionable restaurants open by the Iraqi-Jordanese or Lebanese joint ventures. They are frequented by the regime, high society, and Baghdad international community, including diplomats, UN people and before '98, the UNSCOM inspectors.

However, there are other places in Baghdad, Saddam City for example, the taxi driver will refuse to take you there after the sunset. The cabbie knows that he might risk not only his car and money but even his life. Strolling Mansur or Arasat Hindiya, visiting restaurants and ice cream parlors is a popular way of passing free time for these Iraqis who can afford it.

There are not many cinemas. These which still exist are showing mostly karate and Indian drama movies. From time to time, there is a play staged on the National Theater or Chinese circus visiting town.

So you do not have much choice but to watch state TV or Uday's Shabab Television. Mostly, the news is broadcasted. It is illustrated with chronicles of the meetings held by Saddam Hussein. You are never sure when the chronicles were shot, a day, a week, a month or a few years ago.

Although you may notice that the news coverage of international events has been broadened, the political censorship remains unchanged or became even tighter. The rest of the program is limited to propaganda, and clips with pop-folk songs. In the evenings, the feature movie might be shown.

One must admit sometimes it could be a top-Oscar winning movie or a blockbuster like Titanic or Speed. I don't believe the Iraqi TV spends a lot of time to buy screening rights. I presume they save, either buying or making themselves the pirate copies.

If you don't want to watch official television, and you own a CD or DVD player, you may easily buy a pirate disk with most recent Hollywood production, uncensored and sometimes technically almost perfect, made on Chinese or Malaysian digital recording equipment.

The satellite TV formally is not forbidden. But you cannot have it. There is no law forbidding the installation of the antenna and possession of the receiver.

However, Saddam Hussein once has allegedly said that those who watch imperialistic propaganda and immoral entertainment should be punished. So, in practice, everything depends on your friendly neighbor. If he reports on you, your house will be searched and the equipment confiscated. Some other of your valuables might also be disappear. You will be arrested and put in jail for six months.

This will certainly happen unless the Mukhabarat official is one who understands, and after taking some money to lessen his doubts, he will file a report on your neighbor, charging him with disseminating false information, with purpose to mislead the security authorities. Your neighbor might then be in serious trouble indeed.

Of course, there are some who can watch the satellite TV. Some ministers, like Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Information and Culture, and I suppose in the Foreign Department of Mukhabarat as well as in the offices of presidential advisors, you can see the TV sets, tuned mostly on the CNN.

I may add that the network enjoys number one position in Baghdad. It is considered the most credible with the best access, maybe with the exception of Al Jazirah, the network which assisted the Iraqis in transmitting of Saddam Hussein's statements from his command post after the broadcasting power if Iraqi TV was destroyed by the first airstrikes during the Desert Fox.

The access to the internet is in practice forbidden. It is for official use only. There is an internet cafe in Baghdad, but as some people say, one must have top security clearance to attend it.

The particular role of keeping ordinary people fed with correct information is assigned to the press. The differences between the newspapers --the Government Al Ghumhuriya, the Armed Forces Quadasiya, or Baathist Al Thawra--are only slight. The different presentations could be noticed sometimes in the Babil, Uday's newspaper. Only there you may find editorials of articles criticizing the Iraqi foreign policy line, showing that the tasks for Mukhabarat are not correct. And some criticism in Babil may lead to the dismissal of government officials.

One might consider that the newspaper is reflecting Saddam's informal position as interpreted by Uday. The leading role of the newspaper diminished along with lesser political importance of Uday after the attempt on his life in December '97.

However, Uday still enjoys a lot of power and influence. His is actually the only person controlling TV, the newspaper and a dozen of magazines, and a special paramilitary force so-called Saddam Hussein Fedains.

He conducts special military camps, the booth training for youngsters where special agents look for gifted boys to be recruited for special security or intelligence apparatus. Uday still has a full access to university and cultural circles.

He leads the Olympic Committee and presides over lucrative sports organizations. It is not clear, yet it looks like he controls the finances of the family, banking and international trade. He owns the bus line to Amman, the fleet of GMC taxis used by all people visiting Iraq, but taxis shuttling between the two capitals, the oil tankers and the big trucks.

His people control the foreign currency exchange. To change foreign currency for the Iraqi dinars is a must. Tourists, diplomats, foreign journalists, businessmen have to pay their bills in dinars. You don't change money in the bank.

Banks use the official rate, approximately $3 for one dinar. In the commercial exchange in kiosks, you get the commercial rate, much, much better, approximately 2,000 dinars for one dollar.

[Laughter.]

MR. KRYSTOSIK: You may sell or buy foreign currency now in Iraq. Before it was a crime for which you could be even hanged. The price difference between selling and buying is only slight. However, it is a profitable business to run the exchange kiosk. Uday's people do that.

Certain changes, or better to say adjustments in the internal policy of the regime, do not mean that the grip has been loosened. Life remains to be fully controlled. The system of control is total and complex. There is no chance that something could escape attention of the authorities if they want to know, and usually they do.

Political control is carried out on the first level by the Baath Party domestic affairs department which prepares reports on the internal situation. Every Baath Party member is obliged to inform in writing of the situation in his community, the place he lives and works. Such a report is then analyzed, compared with other reports. Then the recommendation is conveyed to the higher level. Police do have their own reports. All the information is being checked by the internal security division of Mukhabarat, and reported to the Palace, to the Saddam Hussein advisors and the big boss himself.

From the organizational point of view, the system is very efficient in this respect. The branches of local administration are obliged closely to cooperate with the security, and they eagerly do. They exact and very precise lists of people prepared for food distribution and rationing purposes are also used for balloting. They are subject to the security verifications. From time to time, your house in Baghdad certainly will be visited by the Troika, a local administration representative, Baath Party delegate and a security officer.

Let no one be misguided seeing old people on bikes with old useless or almost useless Kalashnikov rifles, good only for shooting in the air, who patrol the city at night or sit at the checkpoints in faded party uniforms. This does not reflect the real power and efficiency of the system of control in Iraq.

Perhaps it is difficult to notice the state security officers in their plaincloth. However, dark olive uniforms you could see everywhere, sometimes mixed with the camouflage combat dress or red bandanna scarf of the Republican Guards, and red berets of the notorious military police branding foreheads of the deserters with the hot iron.

Well-known, dreadful effectiveness of the security force is based on extreme brutality. The security troops are ready to shoot to kill just to disperse the crowd.

The Toyota or Mitsubishi pick-ups with machine guns mounted on platforms could be always seen rushing to the places of trouble. They are very practical to use in other sense as well. You can place the dead bodies on the platforms, drive away and discard, dump, them in the other parts of town, far away from the place of trouble. It will be difficult for the family to find the body and to bury it. Given the religious traditions, it is so-called second punishment. It does have a tremendous psychological terrorizing impact. That was exactly what happened during the Shiie rioting in Saddam City in March 2000.

Sometimes, quite seldom, instead of security force, Saddam Hussein Fedains are being used to pacify the rioters. This was the case in Najef and Kerbala, the Shiie holy places.

In all such cases, the Mukhabarat and the Al Khass, special security organizations, are engaged. All security force including the elite Republican guards is coordinated by Little Brother, Qusay. He is now considered possible successor to Saddam. The number of his followers and supporters in Tikriti family and in other Sunni clans steadily grows. He does not have the rank of general. He's not a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and cabinet member either.

He does not hold any position in the Baath Party and never sits close to Saddam during the official ceremonies. In the media, he is addressed as Warrior Qusay. He is the one who enjoys the real power. He profited from the long battle for control over the security force and intelligence community fiercely fought between Uday and Saddam Hussein half brothers, Barzan at Tikriti, Watban and Sabawi, who once were in command of Mukhabarat, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police force.

Political control of the people does not mean that common crime is eliminated. On the contrary, the number of criminal acts, murders, armed robberies and thefts grows. There are, of course, bloody family feuds and acts of violence. People are afraid. They cannot count on police protection. Although it's not uncommon to have a handgun or Kalashnikov at home, for ordinary people using it, however, might mean a serious trouble.

From time to time, the people are shocked by the circulating stories of young people kidnapped and killed to have their life organs removed for sale, for illegal kidney implants. Or gangs robbing the houses and killing whole families. There is the drug traffic, gambling and prostitution, of course, with the proper Mukhabarat and police connections and protection.

This is very well illustrated by the murky story of beheaded corpses of Baghdadi prostitutes found in front of their houses.

Everyday life is extremely difficult in Baghdad for an average Iraqi. His old car might be broken and there will be no chance to repair it. There could be limited food based only on rationing basket consisting mostly of cooking oil, flour, sugar and some eggs. There might be a power cut so his TV set and air-conditioning split unit will be off. And when power is back, he might find out that his TV set is broken as there was a high voltage surge of returning power. There might be worker shortages or a difficulties to buy proper medicine in the drug store.

However, he will not complain loudly. He will put the blame on the sanctions in accordance with the official line. He will do that to protect his family and himself. He knows that to be engaged against the regime means often a special court where the names of prosecutor and the presiding judge will not be known. They will be kept secret. There will be no record of the court proceedings and no verdict in writing.

Actually, only two sentences are possible: death or life imprisonment. The only document, though not always received by the family, would be the act of demise signed by the ward doctor after the execution.

Saddam Hussein's presence everywhere dominates the daily life of everyone in Iraq. He managed to survive the previous crisis. His days seem to be numbered at the end of the Gulf War. It looked like no way out for him, yet he found the escape routes. He was able to strengthen his domestic position after weathering very serious family storms.

Whether or not, for how long and how, he will be able to grapple with the situation now, whether he will be able to cope with the present crisis? Will he only be prevented from rebuilding his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and using them as a threat in the major struggle for regional security, while he continues to stay in power?

Or he succeeds in changing the face of the regime, replacing himself with some other family member? Or the Iraqi people, who will pay now the heaviest price for his dictatorship, will be able to start a new life on the road of democratic changes? One doesn't know yet, but one might learn quite soon what will happen.

I thank you for your attention.

[Applause.]

MS. PLETKA: Good morning, everybody. Welcome. I'm Danielle Pletka from AEI. I'd like to make a few program notes, first of all. The first is my own omission. We owe a great debt of thanks to, and I'm looking for him right now, Dr. Michael Rubin, who talked into AEI some months ago to help arrange this conference, and immediately abandoned us for the Pentagon, where he is now. He did wonderful work and we are very grateful to him.

[Applause.]

MS. PLETKA: There's his fan club. Okay. Moving on, if I may, I need to tell everybody that there is no luncheon speaker today, and we will probably start lunch a little bit late, because we're running a little bit late already.

Despite the fact that invitations were extended throughout the administration, AEI was informed on Tuesday afternoon that no senior Bush Administration official would be comfortable in speaking on the question of Iraq post-Saddam.

Of course, we are disappointed. Calling for an Iraq for the Iraqis is not a substitute for a genuine foreign policy towards a new Iraq. If the United States wants a democratic and representative Iraq, we need to start work now, and to jump-start that process, we have a group of wonderful speakers with us today.

And I'd like to get our first panel up here, if I might. Don't fall off the dias. This is our largest panel. Sorry, we'll take a moment. I'm just going to give a very quick and brief introduction of each of speakers today.

Our first presenter on the question of how ambitious we should be for a future Iraq is Kanan Makiya. Mr. Makiya is a scholar-in-residence at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and a past convener of the Human Rights Committee of the INC.

Each of our speakers, by the way, today has a full biography which is contained in your folder.

Ahmad Chalabi is president of the Iraqi National Congress.

Rend Rahim Francke is a founding member and executive director of the Iraq Foundation.

Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies.

Siyamend Othman is an independent media and IT consultant, and an expert on Kurdish issues.

Richard Perle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, co-chairman of Hollinger Digital. He is also chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board.

Thank you for being here.

MR. MAKIYA: Thank you, Danielle. Thank you for inviting me to this very well attended event. My comments are going to be somewhat different vein than that of the Ambassador's who dwelt on the, very observantly, on the miseries of life under Saddam. I am going to try and do the opposite, to paint a picture of what a future Iraq post-Saddam might look like or could look like.

And I should say at the outset that while the ideas I am dealing with take as their starting point Iraqi realities, they are not self-evident. And by this, I mean that they do not take as their point of departure what I call the lowest common denominator of Iraqi politics.

They are feasible, they are doable, but their feasibility requires imagination. Iraqi imagination and American imaginative leadership, the kind of leadership that has a long-term political vision for the area, a long-term political vision, I should add, not only for Iraq but for the whole Middle East.

Now, in addition to this all important question of leadership, the feasibility of what I'm about to suggest rests on a number of assumptions, which I had best get quickly out of the way because without them, what I am about to say will sound no doubt like pious hopes and dreams without any chance of being realized in the short term.

So my first assumption is somewhat obvious one, but nonetheless has to be stated, that the government of the United States actually proceeds with its stated policy of regime change in Iraq.

Secondly, that the unseating of the Saddam Hussein regime does not take place at the cost of large scale civilian casualties, Iraqi or Israeli, which could introduce consider volatility and unpredictability into the political situation.

And my third assumption is that these ideas that I'm presenting or some such variation and amendment of them are actually adopted at a large and representative meeting of the Iraqi opposition to be held in the medium or short term.

And my fourth assumption is that the government of the United States as the partner of the Iraqi people in liberating Iraq sees its role in Iraq as being again for the long term for democracy and reconstruction, i.e., for nation building.

Now, in making this assumption, this last assumption, on nation building, I am comforted by the words of Condoleeza Rice last week--I think it was last week or ten days ago--when she was quoted by the Financial Times that this time around, she said the United States will be, quote, "completely devoted" to the reconstruction of Iraq as a unified democratic state in the event of a military strike.

Ms. Rice suggested that the U.S. was willing to spend time and money, rebuilding the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein. She said that the values of freedom, democracy and free enterprise do not "stop at the edge of Islam." That was her phrase. And she underlined U.S. interest in the, quote, "democratization or the march of freedom in the Muslim world."

I said I am comforted by these words, but I am unfortunately by no means persuaded that Ms. Rice was stating what is the position of the United States government in this regard at this point in time.

My fifth assumption, last assumption, I promise you, is that the government of the United States further to a treaty with a new duly constituted Iraqi government agrees to keep a military presence inside Iraq for whose purpose it is to guarantee the territorial integrity of the country.

And it agrees to do so for a period measured in years, not in months. Now this having been said, it should be emphasized that nothing in what I am about to say requires the United States to police or to manage into existence on a sort of hand-to-hand basis the new and budding institutions of the country. That is a challenge that I believe the people of Iraq can and will face up to on their own.

So, given these rather numerous, I admit, assumptions, I want to suggest that the, and I think the gist of my remarks are, that the removal of this regime presents the United States in particular with a historic opportunity that I believe is going to prove to be as large as anything that has happened in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the entry of British troops into Iraq in 1917.

Iraq is not Afghanistan. It is rich enough and developed enough and has the human resources to become as great a force for democracy and economic reconstruction in the Arab and Muslim world as it has been a force for autocracy and destruction in the past.

But for the rest of the world to be able to see the challenge in this way, it is necessary to change the terms of the debate over this coming war with Iraq, and that has not happened yet. And that is why I said I am merely comforted by the words of Miss Rice to the Financial Times and not yet convinced that it is going to be the actual position of the United States government, not yet at any rate.

Now, unfortunately, much of the debate--I don't know if you are hearing me very well--is this reaching--okay. Much of the debate over Iraq that has taken place in Europe, in the Arab world and even in this country has been what I would call a selfish one, centered on the threats to the West and its friends on the one hand, and on the moral issues arising out of so-called American hegemony on the other.

It has been all about quote "us" in the West and not about those who have to live inside the grip of one of the most brutal dictatorships of modern times.

I should say here that it has been a thousand times more selfish among non-Iraqi Arabs, if there can be said to have been any kind of a debate at all on the possibility that this war might end up being something that is actually a force for good in the Middle East as opposed to the unmitigated disaster that almost all non-Iraqi Arabs seem to think it will be.

The spectrum unfortunately of what it is possible to talk about in Arab politics these days runs from Palestine at one end to Palestine at the other with no room for the plight of the people of Iraq, the overwhelming majority of whom believe that military action is the price that has to be paid for the removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The change that has taken place in American policy towards Iraq is, of course, driven by strategic American considerations post-September 11. This change has been heartily welcomed in Iraqi opposition circles, even as it is feared and criticized in the rest of the Arab world.

But as I say this is not the time to pay attention to those Arab fears. They will come to nothing in the end, as they came to nothing during the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. The 1991 divide inside Arab politics is still alive for understandable reasons.

But what might become of it in the months and years to come depends on how willing the United States is to follow through with nation building as opposed to mere regime change. To be blunt about it, there is a great deal more at stake than what we are addressing, all of us together, at this conference today than the subject of the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the removal of Saddam Hussein, important and fundamental as these also are as considerations.

And it is in that spirit of interesting you in what is possible in Iraq that I would now like to share with you the kind of thinking that is going on in some Iraqi circles with which I happen to be involved and which are working closely, intimately, in fact, with some agencies of the government of this country.

[Sound system difficulties.]

MR. MAKIYA: So I said I was going to share with you some of the ideas that are being discussed among a group of Iraqis working on these questions of the future of Iraq. But I also wanted to add before we got interrupted by the sound system that nothing that I am going to say is in any way, shape or form the policy of the United States government, not yet at any rate, or even that of the Iraqi opposition, although the whole point is to make them so.

So let me begin first with a question, an issue that has for historical reasons, assumed an inordinately large role inside the Iraqi opposition, and that is the idea that the new Iraqi state that would emerge out of the ashes of the Ba'thi regime should in some way or another be federal in structure.

Now the origins of this idea began in 1992 when the, first of all, the Kurdish parliament voted for it, and then a few months later the Iraqi National Congress adopted this policy in its historic conference in Salahuddin, northern Iraq, an event which I was privileged to attend and where I was asked to deliver a keynote talk on the subject.

I came down strongly then in favor of the idea as I am in favor of it now, as a solution to the problems of the Iraqi state. Incidentally, the INC later reaffirmed the position of federalism at its 1998 conference in New York--1999, sorry.

These votes were the first of their kind in the modern history of Iraq. Taken together, I submit they break the mold of Arab politics. There is no literature in Arabic on this idea of federalism to speak of, just as there is no experience of federalism, and yet today, and this is what I mean by breaking the mold, most Iraqi organizations that oppose the regime in Iraq, whether they are in the INC or not, advocate one interpretation or another of federalism.

No Iraqi political organization in fact can afford not to these days, especially not one that calls itself democratic. That is an immense gain for the people of Iraq, one which should not be frittered away by the disagreements which have also broken out naturally over what this moveable feast of a word might actually mean.

Now, two features unite all definitions in play in the Iraqi political arena at the moment on this question of federalism. The first is the idea that federalism, whatever else it might mean, is a form of division of power, of separation of power from the center, Baghdad, towards the regions.

And the second is that no future state in Iraq can be democratic if it is not at the same time federal in structure. Now, the novelty of federalism is a reflection, I argue, of that of the novelty of the whole phenomenon of the post-1991 Iraqi opposition, an opposition grounded not in issues of, quote, "national liberation" and, quote, "armed struggle" and the struggle against "Zionism" and "imperialism," the catchall phrases that you all know of that have become part and parcel of Arab politics since 1967, but an opposition in Iraq whose be-all and end-all is hostility to its own homegrown dictatorship.

Now, admittedly, this opposition has not always been easy to deal with. It encompasses many diverse traditional and modern elements of Iraqi society. It is fractious. It is prone occasionally to in-fighting. Nonetheless, I say it is remarkable that virtually all constituent parts agree on the need for representative democracy, the rule of law, a pluralist system of government and federalism. Federalism, therefore, should be a cornerstone of the new Iraqi body politic.

Unfortunately, however, neither the Kurdish Parliament nor the INC have yet developed in detail what they mean by this new idea. We are in the course of doing so in the INC and amongst Iraqis in general. Nor have we yet as an opposition developed the practical implications of this idea with regards to the mechanics of power sharing and resource distribution.

For Kurds, as we know, the word "federalism" has become a condition sine qua non for staying inside a new Iraq, and not trying to secede from it. Without a federal system of government, in which real power is devolved towards the regions, the currently autonomous predominantly Kurdish north will sooner or later opt for separation, and rightly so. After all that has been done to the Kurds in the name of Arabism, no Iraqi should expect otherwise, and certainly no one who calls him or herself a democrat.

As a result of this, there has arisen a purely utilitarian argument for federalism, one derived from a pragmatic calculus of what the balance of power in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's overthrow is going to look like.

One must concede federalism, the argument goes among some Arabs, in the interest of getting rid of Saddam, and because the Kurds are today in a position to force it upon us.

On the other hand, on the Kurdish side, the argument goes, we must accept federalism, not because we really want it, but because the regional situation does not allow for us to secede and have a separate state in northern Iraq.

Now, I want to say that I don't think that the project as big as restructuring the state of Iraq on a federal basis should be undertaken on the grounds of this kind of utilitarian calculus. No ordinary Iraqi citizen can be expected to opt for it as an idea on such grounds of mere expediency.

Federalism, if it is to become the founding principle of a new beginning in Iraq, must derive from a position of principle, and what might that be?

To begin with, federalism is an extension of the principle of the separation of powers, only this time power is being divided as well as separated. The divisions I'm talking about are those of the regions from one another. Without the divisions of powers, there can be no federalism worthy of the name. Because the regime of Saddam Hussein was never willing to relinquish power except under duress, for example, in the 1970 accords, none of its past concessions to the Kurds could ever be taken seriously.

They were here one day and gone the next. By contrast, a truly federal system of government is a structurally new system in which power itself is from the outset both separated and divided.

From this point of view, federalism is what you might call the first step towards a state system, resting on the principle that the rights of the part or the minority should never be sacrificed to the will of the majority.

The fundamental principle of human rights surely is that the rights of the part, be that part defined as a single individual or a whole collectivity of individuals who speak another language and have their own culture, that these parts of inviolable by the state. Federalism, therefore, becomes, is about the rights of those collective parts of the mosaic that is Iraqi society.

Now, how should these different parts of the new Iraqi federation be defined? One important approach or argument rests on the idea of ethnicity as the basis of the constituent parts of the federation. An idea at play in the Iraqi arena at the moment is to have Iraq composed of two regions, the first Arab, the second Kurdish.

Ethnicity is, according to this point of view, the most fundamental basis for federalism in Iraq. Not illogically and for understandable reasons, the Kurds are the driving force behind this definition.

By and large, non-Kurdish Iraqis have three problems with this formulation:

First, it will cause ethnicity to become the basis for making territorial claims and counterclaims especially with regards to high profit resources located in one region and not another. The fight over Kirkuk, for instance, is already moving in this direction with Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman claims fighting with one another over this oil-rich city.

Second objection is that when a federation is defined as being about two ethnic groups, then clearly all the other ethnic groups who do not have a share in the federation are being to some degree or another discriminated against. Why should an Armenian or a Chaldean or a Turkoman citizen of Iraq have any less rights as an individual than an Arab or a Kurd in a post-Saddam Iraq? Such discrimination in favor of the two largest ethnic groups in Iraq is inherently undemocratic.

The third objection is that we cannot, we simply cannot map out on the ground a federation that included all the different ethnic and religious groups in Iraq. These groupings are not all territorially concentrated. There are Kurds in Baghdad and Arabs in Sulaymaniyya and there are Turkomans and Armenians and Chaldeans mixed in with Arabs and Kurds everywhere in many locations.

Therefore, a federation of many ethnic groups would be no improvement on a federation made up of only two large groups.

Now, the clear alternative to ethnicity is territoriality in which each separate region receives its share of national resources, for instance, oil revenues, according to the relative size of its population.

That is what is in effect going on in northern Iraq at the moment through the Offices of the UN's Oil for Food Program. A good argument can be made, as I believe Michael Rubin has made in a recent article that I read. In fact, I took the idea from his article, that for the extension of this UN formula to the whole of Iraq.

The future all-Iraqi federation should not be one of different ethnicities but one of different geographically defined territories within which different ethnicities may form a majority.

The point becomes not to dilute or diminish the Kurdishness of a Kurd or the Arabness of an Arab. It is to put a premium on the equality of citizenship for all.

Now, if we follow this way of thinking to its logical extreme, we end up with a corollary of territoriality as a basis for federalism. And that is a very important new idea for the Middle East, namely, that the new Iraqi state cannot be thought of any longer in any politically meaningful sense of the word as an Arab entity.

This is a novel idea for the region. And one that it will take some time for it to assimilate. But it follows inexorably from a territorial definition of regions as opposed to an ethnic one. Israel is today a Jewish state in which a substantial number of Arab Palestinians, more than a million, have Israeli citizenship, but are not and cannot in principle ever be full-fledged citizens of the state.

The fact that they live in better conditions than their brethren in the West Bank and Gaza, or certainly in better conditions than those in refugee camps all over the Arab world, is not an argument for second-class citizenship. In principle, because they are in a religiously or ethnically defined state, they are in some sense on a different status and it seems to me that one day in the future, perhaps a very long way down the line, these two principles upon which the modern state of Israel was founded, ethnicity and democracy, are probably going to have some form of, come to some sort of conflict with one another.

I argue we should not want such a formula for Iraq. Iraqis deserve to live in an area in which a Kurd or a Chaldean or an Assyrian or a Turkoman, be they male or female, can all in principle be elected to the highest offices of the land.

That means that even though the Arabs form a majority in the country, their majority status should not put them in a position ever to exclude anyone else from positions of power and influence, as has been the case in a regime led by a party that calls itself the Arab Baath Socialist Party, and that views itself as part of a larger Arab nation.

A democratic Iraq has to be an Iraq that by definition exists for all its citizens equally, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion, and that means, let's face it, a non-Arab Iraq.

Which brings me to the third precondition of a genuinely democratic state in Iraq, its relationship to religion.

I said before that I was speaking only for myself and I emphasize on this subject especially I am only speaking for myself.

Nothing has so diminished Islam in recent times as its politicization. The quality of Islamic education, scholarship and spiritual guidance declined dramatically once the nationalist secular regimes of the post-colonial period came into existence and took over these functions.

Nor has the resurgence of political Islam from the 1970s onwards improved matters. On the contrary, the youth of Iran today are turning against the very clergy whom their parents had helped bring to power a generation ago. One hears criticism on the streets of Tehran these days coming from some of the more enlightened ulama who played a leading role in the '79 revolution.

Nonetheless, Iran has to be counted a success story in comparison with the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of Islam and among Muslims in Algeria and until recently in Egypt and the Sudan. Or in comparison, needless to say, with September 11, and the name of Osama bin Laden, and what that has done to the image of Muslims throughout the world.

The substitution of jihad for worship is the gravest travesty perpetrated upon Islam in modern times. It will take much, much work by Muslims to undo its deeply pernicious effect. And when Saddam Hussein hails the "martyrdom"--so-called--of Palestinian suicide bombers and distributes large sums of money to their families or when he uses the resources of the Iraqi people to build mosques as propaganda during the Iraqi-Iran war, he too is degrading Islam by using it to further a political agenda.

The cumulative effect of these decades of abuse has served ultimately to conceal from Muslims and Arabs, in particular, Muslim Arabs in particular, the immense and still unexamined terrain of their own great contribution to human civilization. Culture and the life of the spirit have been degraded in Iraq by action of the state. To guard against the resurgence of such abuse, Iraqis need to invent a concept of statehood that will give all religions in the country the opportunity to flourish once again.

Christianity and Judaism have very deep roots in Iraqi history. The Babylonia Tlmud was written just south of Baghdad. And the many, very many branches of the Eastern Church, which flourished in Iraq, predate Islam and are among the very earliest churches in the history of Christianity.

So what, if any, is the relationship which ought to exist between the new Iraqi state and Islam, and religion, specifically the religion of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, Islam? That is something which ultimately, of course, only the people of Iraq can decide upon in the course of their deliberations during a transitional period.

But one way of thinking about these issues is to pose them in the very way that Iraqis have experienced this abuse of Islam by the regime of Saddam Hussein, and I would do that not by asking Iraqis the simplistic and somewhat ideological question, do you want a secular state or not, but by asking more concretely something like the following:

Do you want your future state to be involved in any way in your religious beliefs either by way of compelling or persuading you towards a religious belief?

Do you want your future state to define individual citizens as members of different religious cases, as is the case, for instance, in the confessional system in Lebanon?

Do you think, in other words, one should ask in Iraq that an individual's religious beliefs are relevant to his or her rights as a citizen, rights and obligations as a citizen?

Do you, fellow Iraqi, want your future state to promote, regulate, direct, or otherwise interfere in matters of religion through, for instance, the Ministry of Awqaf, which has a long history of such involvement?

Do you trust your Iraqi politicians enough, given your experience with them, to give them any kind of influence of control over your religious affairs?

And finally, do you think Iraqi clerics, or ulama, in their religious capacity, not as individual citizens, have the knowledge and experience required to decide upon your political affairs?

Now, if you put the question that way, I think that--but this is just a supposition--that Iraqi experience would suggest that the answer to all of these questions is no. And if I were to hazard a guess, that is how I think they would vote. That, in effect, means that the Iraqis have chosen to keep matters of politics and matters of faith separate from one another.

But I want to move on to the fourth precondition for what I consider a genuinely democratic experience in Iraq, and that is the demilitarization of the Iraqi state.

Now, I have left what is perhaps the most important question of all, given the history of Iraq's wars of aggression and build up of weapons of mass destruction until the end. And perhaps that's because my views on this have not changed since 1991, when I joined up with more than 400 other people to put my name--and by the way, 400 other Iraqis, of course, from every ethnic and religious domination, and from all walks of life, to put our names on to a document called then Charter 91. And the relevant passages of that document in relation to this question of demilitarization read as follows:

Quote: "The notion that strength resides in large-standing armies and up-to-date weapons of destruction has proved bankrupt. Real strength is always internal, in the creative, cultural, and wealth producing capabilities of a people. It is found in civil society, not in the army or in the state. Armies often threaten democracy. The larger they grow, the more they weaken civil society.

"This is what has happened in Iraq. Therefore"--the document calls--"conditional upon international and regional guarantees which secure the territorial integrity of Iraq, preferably within a framework of the overall reduction in the levels of militarization in the Middle East, a new Iraqi constitution should:"

(a)"Abolish conscription and reorganize the army into a professional, small and purely defensive force which will never be used for internal purposes."

(b)"Set an absolute upper limit on expenditure on this new force equal to say two percent of Iraqi National Income."

(c)"Have as its first article the following, quote: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Iraqi people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. The right of the belligerency of the Iraqi state will not be recognized."

Now, this last paragraph, no doubt many of you will recognize is an adaptation of the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, and it's highly significant, I think, that so many people put their names to that idea.

I am convinced that if the territorial integrity of the country were to be guaranteed by treaties and by an outside power, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, certainly its Kurdish and Shiite populations, will vote for such a far-reaching completely transforming program of demilitarization.

Quite understandably, some sections of the Iraqi population will worry about the implications on them of such of a loss of an institution that has been important in guaranteeing some stability in the country. Those fears, particularly those of the Sunni population in Baghdad are legitimate fears, and they need to be properly addressed. The country will after all, like post-war Germany, need very powerful internal law and order institutions.

But like Germany and Japan, after World War II, Iraq's future lies in unshackling itself in no uncertain way from the burden of its past and focusing all the creative energies of the country on reconstruction and renewal, and cultural renewal.

I began by talking about regime change providing a historic opportunity for the United States government and the Iraqi opposition, an opportunity I said that was as large as anything that has happened in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

By that, you now know I meant a federal, non-Arab, demilitarized Iraq. This vision or something approximating it is achievable. Moreover, an Iraqi leadership able to work in partnership with the United States to bring it about exists. The question that I cannot answer, however, is: Will the new resolve that America has found in itself post-September 11 rise imaginatively to the level of the opportunity it is itself about to create in the Middle East?

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MS. PLETKA: I'm a little bit afraid to speak into this now, but thank you very much. That was wonderful. We're going to move on to our discussants. We have at different times asserted that the shape of the peace may determine the shape of a war, and I invite our discussants to comment on Mr. Makiya's presentation and/or to talk a little bit about how peace such as the one that he describes could shape how the United States and the world moves forward.

Each discussant will take up to five minutes, and then we will have Q and A, and I apologize. We are slipping on time. Rend, perhaps you would be kind enough to begin?

MS. RAHIM FRANCKE: Thank you. I have to speak up because my voice is real low. Kanan, thank you very much. Of course, as you know, I wholeheartedly agree with almost everything you said, or everything, not almost. I have two cautions. One of them is Kanan was rightly skeptical about U.S. resolve to follow through on this kind of vision and a commitment to democracy.

And I want to say that the signs right now are absolutely inauspicious. It seems to me that the U.S. should now and not after the fall of Saddam be thinking in terms that Kanan outlined in terms of a democratic Iraq, a federal Iraq, and Iraq which is demilitarized and so on, and unfortunately, I see no signs of that.

I was very disappointed to see that the resolution, the congressional resolution, neither in the shape that it went to Congress from the White House nor in the shape that it was rephrased by the Gephardt caucus, had any mention of the U.S. contributing to establishing democracy in Iraq.

I find myself perhaps even more skeptical than Kanan on this issue, and the reason I judge that is because of the way that I see the U.S. administration working with the Iraqi opposition, which seems to me to entrench anti-democratic tendencies in the Iraqi opposition rather than the democratic tendencies.

One of the problems that the American administration will not face up to is that it has enormous leverage with Iraqis. It has now and it will have later, and that any vision that it espouses is going to influence the way that the Iraqi opposition works now and that Iraq is going to be shaped in the future.

Unfortunately, the way that the U.S. administration is working is against such democratic vision rather than for it. And one example that I will give is this extraordinary reluctance of the U.S. administration to endorse the formation of some kind of transitional authority that would be able to handle at least civilian affairs in Iraq on the day that Saddam falls.

In fact, before Saddam falls. And to actually announce its endorsement for such a transitional authority. So that we do not go into Iraq in a complete vacuum of security and a vacuum of command and authority control, which I anticipate happening.

I find that the administration is very coy in endorsing the democratic elements and the democratic vision of certain segments of the Iraqi opposition, and much more inclined to endorse what I will call in the next two minutes the regressive forces in Iraq. This leads me to my next fear in terms of actually bringing about Kanan's vision, and that is if you look at Iraq, there has been an absence of politics for 35 years. Politics really froze in 1968 in Iraq.

And what we see now, in fact, in the Iraqi political scene, there is no such thing as the Czech Civic Forum, for example, in Iraq, and this is an enormous gap, a hole, in fact, in our thinking. What do we have instead? We have political parties or political groups, political thinking, that emerged in the '60s and froze in 1968-1970.

This is the kind of political thinking that I think called extraterritorial. In other words, we have Arab nationalism. We have Islamists. We have communists. These are the sort of major culls. Of course, there are variations on these themes, but all these themes are themes that emerged in the '50s, in the '60s, and essentially froze in time, ossified in time. And there has been no injection except for the attempts by people like Kanan to inject any new type of political thinking in this Iraqi opposition.

And I think this is a very dangerous situation because when we talk about the balance of power in Iraq on the day that Saddam goes, what we have ready-made are these ossified extraterritorial ideologies with an insufficient momentum of new thinking, of modernizing thinking, that can actually emanate from the reality of Iraq and for Iraq's present and from Iraq's needs in the future.

In other words, an Iraqi politics and not an extraterritorial politics. I feel very concerned because this is a great disadvantage, and we are not going to have very much time. This kind of formation, political formation, needs to begin now, and needs to be done by Iraqis and needs to be supported by the U.S. administration, and this is where I see the administration sorely lacking.

I will stop here, Danni, and give time to other people. Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. OTHMAN: Kanan and Rend have left little for me to add. Being the only Kurd on this panel, I am culturally tempted to think this is a conspiracy designed to sideline the Kurdish people.

[Laughter.]

MR. OTHMAN: But seriously, though, I think it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that Iraqis of all hues are both skeptical and apprehensive about U.S. commitment to democracy in post-Saddam Iraq. After all, it's not long ago that it was official U.S. government policy to keep the Iraqi people locked in a cage with their tormentor.

I think over the last decade, we Iraqis have come to understand that the battle of Baghdad can only be won after winning that of Washington. In the latter case, and my remark here is going to be very brief, we are in dire need of the help of all Americans who believe that U.S. national interests lie in promoting democracy and human rights beyond its borders.

And I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, that if such assistance was forthcoming, Iraqi democrats could take care of the rest.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. CHALABI: I think we should not line up Iraqis one after the other.

MS. PLETKA: Okay. Richard, can take care of you.

MR. PERLE: As I've listened to our Iraqi friends, my thought has been that the disappointment that the failure of the senior administration officialdom to show up is not so much because of what he or she might have had to say, but because of what he or she might have had an opportunity to hear. And we've heard some important and I think greatly encouraging views, because despite the criticism, which seems to me entirely justified, of the lack of vision that has thus far been demonstrated with respect to Iraq after Saddam, that challenge ultimately is in the hands of Iraqis.

It's in your hands, Kanan, and yours and yours. And whatever deficiencies may exist on the side of the liberators, one can't help but be impressed about the strengths of the liberated. And I have little doubt that the people of Iraq will be liberated, will get through the discussions at the United Nations, and will come to understand that inspections are not enough, won't work anyway.

And we will ultimately be driven from the default position to which governments invariably retreat, which is to alter the status quo as little as possible. It is, in fact, the natural posture of governments to accept the status quo, and when it becomes monstrously inconvenient, to change it to the minimum extent necessary.

But the liberation of Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, can't be a halfway measure. It can't stop with a short-term objective, however important, of removing from his hands the weapons of mass destruction. Can one imagine sending the Chicago police into take Al Capone's weapons away, and leaving him there? Can anyone imagine that if the weapons of mass destructions were disgorged tomorrow, we could be confident with Saddam in place that we wouldn't face the same problem again?

Of course not. The only solution in Iraq is the substitution of the thugs who now run the place with the kinds of people you see at this table.

I want to make only a couple of very brief additional comments. One of the more dangerous ideas that is already around is the idea that in the immediate post-Saddam situation, power will flow to Iraqis who are now in Iraq. One hears this notion about the Department of State. It's based on, it seems to me, the idea that people who have labored outside Iraq for the liberation of their country somehow have less credibility than those who have found a way to get along with Saddam's regime.

I think this is profoundly mistaken, and it is yet another example of the magnetic attraction of the status quo. I think it will turn out to be nonsense. The people of Iraq are not going to empower those who have lived among them as part of the oppression that they will be determined to root out.

So it is people like the people on this panel who will return to Iraq, and Iraqis in an Iraqi diaspora, who in large numbers I believe will return to Iraq, to work together with those millions of Iraqis who have been the victims of Saddam Hussein.

A second notion that it seems to me is all too readily accepted around the diplomatic establishment, but needs to be challenged, is the idea that the whole of the Arab world is somehow going to align itself with Saddam Hussein, that if military action against Iraq takes place, Arabs everywhere will associate themselves with what is one of the most vicious regimes in human history.

I think that is a demeaning, condescending view of Arabs. And I think in the event, when it becomes clear that the end result of military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein will produce the opportunity, the kind of vision you've heard around this table, the Arab world or most of it, and certainly most of the Muslim world, will consider that their honor and dignity has been restored by removing from among them a regime that they have every reason to despise along with the rest of us.

[Applause.]

MR. CHALABI: I hope that the brave, well structured and novel ideas that Kanan has put before you and the comments of both Rend and Siyamend about the future of Iraq should put to rest any notion that Iraqis have not thought about the future and that there is going to be a vacuum of ideas and of leaders after the removal of Saddam Hussein.

I hope that this also will put to rest the notion that because people cannot identify concepts and leaders that nothing should be done to remove Saddam Hussein. Democracy and freedom in Iraq are not the enemy of stability in the region. This vision of how Iraqis will behave that is composed and discussed many times in the press and in policy circles here and in European countries and in Arab countries is not true. It is not accurate.

The concepts that Kanan has put before you are well developed ideas for a modern democratic federal state in Iraq. They may not be universally accepted now. There may be dissensions among them, but this dialogue, this discussion, is reminiscent of a discussion for nation-building in a society, in a modern society, which one must nurture and encourage to develop.

I am particularly pleased to say to you that President Bush's speech in the United Nations on September 12 was a galvanizing influence for Iraqis. Iraqis were ecstatic that the President of the United States in his speech before the United Nations adopted the program and the grievances of the Iraqi people alongside the threat of Saddam to international peace and security and his possession of weapons of mass destruction.

He spoke about genocide that Saddam has perpetrated in Iraq. He spoke about torture, about the lack of freedom and about the Iraqi people deserving a better government. This was a very strong message to the Iraqi people that finally the United States is not only concerned with Resolution 687 about disarmament, but the president was speaking about Resolution 688, which said that the government of Saddam Hussein should stop the oppression of the Iraqi people before all other United Nations resolutions in his speech.

I am also particularly gratified that after a decade of struggle, the principles that were adopted by the Iraqi National Congress Conference in Salahuddin, in 1992, have come to be seen as the unifying principles for a future Iraq. All Iraqi opposition forces accept them. The United States has come around to accepting them, and this process now is enshrined in law in the United States, which is referred to in the new congressional resolution.

And I speak of that liberation act that was passed by Congress in 1998. Rend made a very important point here. Iraq according to the prevailing political ideologies that have done battle on the Iraqi people for power are--all of them do not see Iraq as a final country. Arabism sees Iraq as part of the Arab world. Islamists see Iraq as part of the Islamic Uman [ph]. Kurdish nationalist parties see the Kurds as part of a larger Kurdish nation, and as if all those political parties and competing ideologies who have fought on the Iraqi body politic do not, are telling the people that Iraq is not worth preserving.

Of course, this is patently not true. Although Iraq was carved out of the remnant of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious allies after the First World War, the Iraqi people are an ancient people living in this society. The borders of modern Iraq are not so important as the fact of cultural continuity that have prevailed in this land since the first structure of modern societies, of society and human experience.

Iraqis are heirs to the tradition of the Sumarians, to Hammurabi's legal code, are heirs to the Jewish intellectual tradition that prevailed in Iraq, are heirs to the Muslim renaissance that prevailed in Iraq, and are heirs to the struggle of the Iraqi people in the 20th century, and the Iraqi people can move forward. I think now the way to move to translate those ideas into action and to satisfy the prerequisites that Kanan has put forward for a successful outcome in Iraq must be that the United States is engaged fully now in enabling Iraqis to seize political control of the debate now and transform this.

As soon as free Iraqis can land on any part of Arab Iraq, that this landing will be simultaneous with the proclamation of a provisional coalition government in Iraq which will seek to assert sovereignty and authority over any territory of Iraq, evacuated by Saddam, and those pieces of Iraq that continue to be under Saddam's control, and then this government should be the ally of the United States in the coming military conflict, which we don't see as a war between Iraq and the United States, but rather as a war of national liberation that the Iraqi people are waging and that the United States has now for its own purposes decided to support and to win.

This provisional coalition government will be the focus of any defecting units of the Iraqi military that do not want to defend Saddam and want a place to go, a home to go to. It will be charged with dealing with the horrendous humanitarian situation that may arise. This government will provide people with food, with emergency relief, and also with increasing the purchasing power of the Iraqi dinar to immediately improve the quality of life of the Iraqi people.

All these are possible to achieve, and then this government would then at a later stage draw up, call a constituent assembly and draw up a constitution, put to public referendum, and have elections on the basis of this constitution. The engagement of the United States is essential. The fears of Iraqis now cannot be addressed by going into the past, but rather by coming to a settlement through future hope for democracy.

And I want to emphasize also now that Iraq is a rich country. Iraq has more oil reserves than any other country in the Middle East, in the world, including Saudi Arabia. Iraqi oil is available, close to the sea and close to the ground. Iraq can pay for all those things, and Iraq with the assistance of the United States must be able to transform its underground oil wealth into readily available cash now.

This can only be done through an international economic conference that is called by the United States to deal with the issues of sanctions, reparations and Iraqi debt. These are essential components for the stability of a future Iraq.

The neighbors of Iraq are afraid of the vision that has been articulated today. They're afraid of democracy. They're afraid of federalism. They're afraid of an Iraqi state which does not proclaim a national ideology or a national identity in terms of ethnic and egregious nationalist concepts. Those fears do not stem from any misconception about the Iraqi opposition's ideas about the future of Iraq. They stem from the successful example of the implementation of those ideas in a country, in the Middle East as central as Iraq is.

I think that the United States must take stock of these potential contradictions, and I think the United States must follow the vision that is commensurate with its own values and its own ideas. The United States cannot support dictatorship over democracy, and the United States will not do that, and I don't think the United States can support tyranny over freedom in Iraq.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. O'HANLON: It's an honor and an inspiration to be on this panel today, and it makes me regret that my first comment may not go over so well, but I'm going to try to get beyond that quickly into a couple of other comments that may go over a little better.

The first point I'd like to make simply is that I do believe we have to continue with the President's September 12 UN strategy, putting a firm multilateral ultimatum before Iraq, putting the onus on Saddam Hussein to have the last final chance to accept international inspections and disarmament or otherwise have war as the outcome.

There is the very real chance that war will be the outcome; there is also a very real chance that war will not be the outcome. And we will ultimately accept a rigorous disarmament inspection process in my judgment.

I think this is, from my point of view, as looking at this from an American national security perspective, despite the unfortunate consequences for the Iraqi people, this is still an outcome that I could accept.

But also, perhaps more importantly for this audience today, I think it's an outcome that we have to be willing to risk in order to make sure we have the kind of support we would need to go to war if that becomes the outcome. I agree partially with Richard Perle's point that Arab countries will be supportive of this campaign regardless.

But I don't think the support is yet sufficient. The Saudi support, for example, is soft right now. If we go to war without Saudi bases, airspace and infrastructure, we are not preparing properly in a military or political sense for the kind of campaign that I think is needed. So I think you have to go through the formalities and the effort of trying to get a tough inspection disarmament process going before you make the decision to go to war.

And I think if you do that, there's a very real chance actually that you will not go to war, but if you do go to war, you will not have one hand tied behind your back.

Why is that important, getting into comments that I hope will go over perhaps a little better? If we're going to do this, we have to do in the spirit that's been articulated this morning, viewing Iraq's long-term future as a democratic state, as a core American national security interest.

We have to go in and win this war quickly, and then be prepared to help stabilize Iraq over an indefinite period, five to ten years, at a minimum, I believe, using a large fraction of American forces. This is a major undertaking. It's going to require a number of steps that among other things make the importance of Saudi bases and international participation central.

We have to assume, for example, that we will have civilian casualties that could very much and could very plausibly be large in number inside of Iraq, given the nature of the fighting, should Republican Guard Forces put up even a couple weeks of resistance. To sustain and tolerate that kind of civilian casualty toll, we need strong international support, and we need a decisive force that can win as quickly as possible, so you get beyond that phase of combat as quickly as possible.

We cannot afford a gradual war that essentially allows Iraq to become torn up and descend into a sort of civil conflict that endures or to have what I might describe as an Al Jazera effect where you have Iraqi civilians being unfortunately and inadvertently killed on TV screens around the region and the world because of American military action and have this process drag on.

If we go in, it has to be win the war quickly and then be prepared to occupy and stabilize for an extended period of time. Because I agree largely with the points that have been made by my fellow panelists about the importance of democracy and the importance of getting beyond dictatorship.

So just to wrap up, what this really means is we as Americans, as we look ahead, as much as I support the September 12 strategy and hope there will not be war as a result of a tough multilateral ultimatum to Saddam, I also think that if there is war, we have to be ready for a major undertaking. And what this means is not just the possibility of real substantial American casualties that could be several times the number from Desert Storm, it will not be an astronomical number, and it won't be a quagmire, but it could be several times as many American casualties as we suffered in Desert Storm.

We have to be ready for Iraqi civilian casualties that could be ten times that number into the many thousands, even the low tens of thousands, in the event of war, and we have to be prepared then for a military occupation that could start at 150,000 total international forces and could stay above 100,000 for several years, based on the precedents and the models that I've seen in the Balkans, in the U.S. military occupations in Germany and Japan after World War II, and in the general need to help restore stability in this country.

That means we're going to need a lot of American effort. We're also going to need a lot of allied help. One more reason why you have to do this thing as a patient ultimatum strategy through as many multilateral channels as possible because in the end, we can't keep 150,000 American forces in Iraq for ten years. We don't want to. We want to have our European allies and some of our other allies helping us very much, and that means crafting as much of a consensus as possible in advance to do this thing right.

Because if we go to war, it has to be with the intent of winning quickly, minimizing casualties, and then helping Iraq stabilize itself for perhaps a decade thereafter.

Thank you very much.

[Applause.]

MS. PLETKA: We're going to move to questions and answers right now. We figured out what our problem which is that our wireless microphones are picking up radio frequencies. So, yes, so we're going to give it one last shot, and if they work, then that's really good, and if not, what I'm going to as you to do is stand up and say your question, and I'll repeat it into this microphone so everyone can hear.

Lauren, do you have the mikes? Okay. Why don't we go ahead. And if you would like to identify yourself, please do.

MS. RUBIN: Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Inquirer. There has been a lot of talk about the German and Japanese models of occupation as being relevant to post-Saddam Iraq. I wonder if some of you, particularly Kanan and Rend, and also Mr. Othman, could just focus on this and say whether you think we are looking or we need a substantial occupation, something like Michael O'Hanlon talked about with 150,000, whether that occupation would be responsible for remaking institutions or whether something much less is needed?

And if you could also speak to the issue of what should the U.S. do to prevent a conflict over Kirkuk between Turks and Kurds?

MS. RAHIM FRANCKE: I'll hazard this, Trudy. In my view, I don't agree at all that we need 150,000 troops for five to ten years and even more. This is, I'm sorry to say it, I think a grotesque misrepresentation of the situation.

Certainly, I believe, and I speak very personally here, I believe a certain U.S. presence, military presence, is going to be needed and is desirable in Iraq for a number of years.

However, I also think that a very high presence of civilian institutions, both governmental and non-governmental American institutions, and European for that matter, is going to be needed. The military presence should be there. It should be discrete, barracks and so on. It should be really largely used to secure Iraq's territorial integrity.

And in the meantime, and this is why I find the experience in Afghanistan so disturbing, in the meantime I think there has to be a much, much more serious effort rebuilding the police force, purging the military, in a sense remodeling the military along apolitical, non-ideological modern lines, and a great deal more has to go into Iraq that is now going into Afghanistan. So it does worry me.

But I certainly don't think that an occupation by 150,000 troops, American troops, is needed for five to ten years or even more.

MS. PLETKA: Anybody else have anything to add?

MR. CHALABI: We agree, I think, with what Rend says.

MS. PLETKA: Okay. All right.

MR. OTHMAN: Well, I think on the issue of Kirkuk, so long as there is no outside interference and so long as there is no mettling and so long as Turkoman and Arabs and Iraqis and Kurds see themselves foremostly as Iraqis, then I think this problem can be resolved internally.

MS. RUBIN: Could I just pursue that a bit more? Because specifically if Kurdish forces go into Kirkuk, I mean there might not be the time to resolve this peacefully. So does it need to be resolved in advance by perhaps declaring Kirkuk off limits, having U.S. troops there? I mean is that something that should be resolved now before war starts?

MR. OTHMAN: I obviously cannot speak on behalf of the Kurdish leadership but what I can say is that I think there are tacit agreements that the Kurds will not go into Kirkuk, but having said that, from a Kurdish point of view, we perceive another danger, and that is of Turkish mettling and interference in Iraqi affairs, and we are very worried about that as Kurds as a whole.

MS. PLETKA: Bring the microphone. This gentleman here, please, if we could pass the microphone to him, and I promise we'll look at the sides as well. I apologize. Thank you.

MR. LEWIS: Before I get to my question, may I make a brief comment on the previous one, and my memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall that the large military presence in Germany and Japan had something to do with a Cold War against an entity called the Soviet Union, and if I'm not mistaken, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the Cold War has terminated. So that particular reason for a large military presence no longer applies.

My question relates to the issue of federalism, sort of federal, con-federal institution, and I wonder whether something like devolution might not be more appropriate, the kind of arrangement which exists within the United Kingdom, rather than the complex and often difficult kind of institutions required to operate federalism, particularly where, as in Iraq, the definition of the federal entities is not all that clear?

On the Kurdish question, I am reminded of a conversation I had some time ago with a Turkish friend. I suggested that the solution might be something like the arrangement which exists between the English and the Scots in the United Kingdom. His reply was the Kurds are not Scots, they're Irish.

[Laughter.]

MS. PLETKA: Which particularly not-Irishman is going to take this? Perhaps Michael O'Hanlon would like to defend.

[Laughter.]

MR. MAKIYA: Can I comment on the devolution idea? My understanding of devolution is that it is something that is given up by the states but can be taken back again very quickly. It's not built into the--

MR. LEWIS: In theory, yes; in practice, no.

MR. MAKIYA: In England, in practice, no, but I mean I just--whereas federalism is something that from the outset you separate out. So that was the--I worried about that example. After all, Saddam Hussein offered something he called autonomy, which was viewed at the time, in March 1970, as a format. He was really very generous by Kurdish standards, but of course it meant nothing. So that was my only comment, why I chose the word "federalism" instead of the notion of devolution.

MR. LEWIS: It was a question, not an objection.

MR. MAKIYA: Oh, no, no. I understand.

MR. O'HANLON: I just wanted to make one quick comment on the ongoing debate about occupation requirements. As you know, Professor Lewis, there were a period of years when in both Japan and Germany when we did have to worry about getting rid of the influence of the Nazis and getting rid of the influence of the Tojo regime before the big post-war anti-Soviet occupations began, or not occupations, but deployments, and that was a period of roughly five to ten years.

Now, I hope very much we can figure out a clever way to do this in Iraq that requires fewer forces. It would be wonderful, and maybe the number is 100,000, maybe the number if 75,000. I don't know what the number is, but you have to worry about deterring neighbors of Iraq from encroaching.

You have to worry about how much of the Iraqi military is still, not necessarily going to be loyal to Saddam, but is going to be of questionable loyalty to whatever new government you're trying to create. You would know more about how to think about that than I do, but in the first year to two, at least, I would rather err on the side of big numbers, and maybe that's a risk in and of itself, but that seems to me the prudent course for these reasons. You don't know what part of the Iraqi military is going to want to be supportive of the new regime.

It's going to take you awhile to build up these new forces, and you have to worry about the neighbors in the meantime, so I tend to think you want to stay relatively big. Go in with a couple hundred thousand coalition forces in the initial warfighting effort, and leave a large fraction of those people in place for one to two years. But I'm very glad to hear that you're more optimistic about the numbers possibly being lower.

MS. PLETKA: Over here. Oh, Richard, were you going to add? Sorry.

MR. PERLE: Yes. I do want to make a brief comment. I can't help but observe first of all that in all the talk of quarrelsome fractious Iraqi opposition, there is a bigger disagreement between the two Americans on this panel than there is among the Iraqis.

And I share Rend's view. I don't believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary. The analogy with Germany and Japan it seems to me ignores the difference between an ideology in both places that had captured the allegiance of a significant number of people spread throughout the country in both cases.

There's no ideology that sustains Saddam Hussein, and it seems to me the situation is likely to be rather more like that which emerged in Romania after Ceausescu. I mean there was no support for Ceausescu the moment he was gone. There wasn't much support in Italy for Mussolini after he was gone.

I think Saddam has earned a unique position among the Iraqi people, which is there will be no one fighting for him or his memory, once it becomes clear that he is going to be defeated, and so the question of civil order under those circumstances is entirely different.

Secondly, to come back to the other point on which I disagree with Michael, and I don't want to let pass, I can't imagine an inspection regime in Iraq that could give us any confidence at all that we had Saddam's weapons of mass destruction under control, and it seems to me ironic that Michael envisions 150,000 Americans to police a post-Saddam Iraq.

The number of inspectors that Hans Blix intends to produce in Iraq is, I believe, 220, for a country the size of France. It is not only inadequate, it is a farce, and I think we should face the reality. There is no realistic prospect that an inspection regime anything like the one that Hans Blix has in mind could unearth Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

And I'll take it a step further. I can't even design in my own mind an inspection regime that would be effective unless it begins to look like the occupation force that Michael O'Hanlon has in mind. So inspections are not a serious alternative. If we are concerned about weapons of mass destruction, to say nothing about the importance of supporting the democratic aspirations that we've heard around this table, inspections cannot remove weapons of mass destruction.

And the belief that they can is one of the reasons why we haven't faced up fully to the importance of post-Saddam Iraq.

MS. PLETKA: I'm sorry. I was calling on that gentleman. I'm sorry.

MR. ENGINSOY: This is Umit Enginsoy with Turkey's NTV Television. And my question is for Secretary Perle. Mr. Secretary, do you think Turkey's concerns about the creation of a Kurdish state in a post-Saddam Iraq are justified, and do you think that the United States will dispel this, and persuade Turkey to cooperate with them in one way or another? Thank you.

MR. PERLE: You've heard today from Iraqis unanimity on the point that in a post-Saddam situation, the ambition is for a nation, perhaps with a federal structure or something like it, but in any case, a nation in which the central authority of a central government for, and I'm elaborating here, for defense and foreign policy and the like would exist, and that seems to me inconsistent with the idea of a separate Kurdish state.

The Kurds have every right to a degree of self-government that is entirely consistent with that vision of the unitary Iraq. So I'm pretty confident that having eliminated Saddam Hussein, we are not going to see the region torn by yet another conflict over a Kurdish succession.

None of the Kurdish leaders have said that that's what they want. You haven't heard anyone here say that that's part of their vision, so I'm pretty comfortable about that.

And I think the Turkish leadership is increasingly comfortable with that, as they've made progress in dealing with the PKK and that threat has subs