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Reuters | Sky News |  PhotosSunday March 30, 04:48 PM |
"Uphill battle" to win Iraqi trust By William Maclean
KUWAIT (Reuters) - The U.S. and British war effort faces an uphill
battle to win the trust of Iraqis after military planners failed to take
sufficient account of Iraqis' deep fear of President Saddam Hussein, a
British general says.
"Winning their trust is going to be an uphill battle in the short
term," Major General Albert Whitley, who helped with preparations for the
war with Iraq, told a news conference in Kuwait on Sunday.
"The Iraqi regime has for many years ruled and controlled its people by
fear. That is something we did not fully comprehend... We did not
appreciate what 12 years of fear can do to people," he said.
He was referring to the period since an uprising in the south after the
1991 Gulf War was crushed by Saddam when the United States withdrew its
support for the rebellion.
"As our forces move in to liberate the country, it is not an
environment they (Iraqis) can easily adjust to...They are waiting to see
who hits them next," he said. "It's a mental environment I find it
difficult to picture and comprehend."
Whitley is deputy commander of what the invading forces call
post-hostilities operations, arranging the early stages of humanitarian
relief and trying to create conditions where U.N. and other aid agencies
can enter Iraq to feed and shelter civilians.
He was also involved in the planning of the war, in which winning the
trust of ordinary Iraqis was a central assumption.
Another of the planners' expectations, U.S. commentators say, was that
opposition to Saddam was so deeply entrenched that his government would
quickly fall. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney called Saddam's government
"a house of cards".
Answering questions, Whitley acknowledged that many Iraqis had not so
far put their faith in the invaders, apparently out of fear of reprisals
by Saddam loyalists who attack civilians who show signs of welcoming U.S.
or British troops.
An exiled Iraqi humanitarian official and scientist, Hussain
al-Shahristani, has said the reported reprisals have revived memories of
1991 among Iraqis and sown fears that Washington lacks the stomach for the
fight and may again abandon them.
Whitley said U.S. and British forces were having some success in
starting to build trust with ordinary Iraqis but it was a gradual process.
"We do it by showing we are going unequivocally after the bad men, not
after ordinary Iraqis, and by demonstrating bit by bit that we are going
to give Iraq back to the Iraqi people," he said.
He said oil workers in the Rumailah oil field, for instance, had
reported for work to invasion forces on Saturday and asked to be given
tasks. Some schools had reopened for the first time in the 11-day-old
conflict in areas controlled by U.S. or British forces, he added.
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