Winning hearts and minds of Iraqi people harder than just rebuilding

On Sunday, the Al Rasheed hotel, a temporary barracks for United States military and… On Sunday, the Al Rasheed hotel, a temporary barracks for United States military and civilian personnel, and which, at the time, housed U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, was hit by an early-morning barrage of rockets. Though the rocket launcher was crude – referred to as a “science project” in Associated Press reports – it was effective enough to wound 18 people and kill an American colonel.

In Baghdad on Monday, coordinated suicide attacks at the International Red Cross and four Iraqi police stations killed at least 34 and injured 200. The attacks came within a 45-minute period, as much as 10 miles apart.

On Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near the police station, killing at least four.

These are just a few of the total dead in Iraq. Pay close attention to the news or go to http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com, which collects Iraq casualty reports, and you realize how just how much blood is being spilled every day.

“Deputy mayor of Baghdad assassinated in drive-by shooting.”

“Suicide bomber kills six at electric station in central Fallujah.”

“Three U.S. and Polish soldiers killed in Karbala ambush.”

That’s just part of Tuesday’s entry.

President Bush’s response to the latest spate of killings is that, “The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react.” That certainly paints a rosy picture of the current situation, along the lines of “with all these bombings, we must be doing something right.” The implication is that continuing on this path – if, indeed, there is a path – will lead to the inevitable democratization of Iraq, with no need to adjust our approach. This kind of faith-based foreign policy makes it easy to avoid asking difficult questions about the future of Iraq.

One such question would be: What, exactly, are we doing right?

In the last six months, The Toronto Star reports, Iraqi sentiment has grown increasingly hostile. At the end of the war, 43 percent of Iraqis viewed foreign troops as liberators, while 46 percent saw them as occupiers. Now, those statistics are much more lopsided – 67 percent see them as occupiers, with only 15 percent believing them to be liberators.

It’s hard to argue with those kind of statistics, at least not when they’re borne out by the amount of explosions and sniper fire taking place on the streets of Baghdad. This is the most vital battle for the United States to win – the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. Without a concrete base of support within the Iraqi community, coalition efforts in Iraq will be plagued by guerrilla warfare. Right now, that base is speculatively, at best, one-third of the Iraqi people.

President Bush has argued that the situation in Iraq is more under control than the media “filter” leads us to believe. He’s complained that for all the media’s focus on dead Americans, they missed the bigger picture.

He’s not the only one complaining. Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., was quoted in his hometown paper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as saying, “The story of what we’ve done in the postwar period is remarkable … It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.”

Let’s assume they’re right – the American people are missing out on stories about the building of schools, the restoration of electrical power in urban areas, the availability of potable water. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume that Nethercutt wasn’t being especially callous in his remarks and that the progress in restructuring Iraq is obscured by the smoke from all those car bombs.

We’re still left with those dead soldiers. And those dead civilians. They point to a much deeper problem: the anger and resentment of a people who view their former liberators as untrustworthy occupiers.

Rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure is a – relatively – short-term project. It will take billions of dollars, but it’s a goal that can be accomplished with enough money and enough materials. Convincing Iraqis that we have their best interests at heart is a wholly different project. But it is vital to the success of those more tangible efforts.

In the Bush administration and on the ground, there seems to be very little understanding of this fundamental need to build trust. The President is content to slog ahead with the same old strategy, and according to The New York Times, is genuinely surprised to learn how poor the perception of American goals in Iraq is. Maybe that’s because he has his own filter: “The best way to get the news,” he says, “is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff.”

Jesse Hicks is a columnist for The Pitt News. He may be reached at jhicks@pittnews.com.