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US a 'steady friend' to Iraq
29/04/2003 08:26 - (SA)
Dearborn - President George W Bush vowed on Monday to see Iraq through to democracy and said that the US-led occupation there was already improving the lives of Saddam Hussein's former subjects "hour by hour".
"Iraq can be an example of peace and prosperity and freedom to the entire Middle East," he said in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Centre, under a banner that read "Renewal in Iraq" in English and Arabic.
"It'll be a hard journey, but every step of the way, Iraq will have a steady friend in the American people," he told a cheering crowd in this primarily Arab-American enclave.
The speech and an earlier roundtable discussion with Arab-Americans seemed aimed as much at the Middle East as to his immediate audience. The White House opened the roundtable to several Middle East-based news media but their US colleagues had to protest to get access.
During the discussion, which included dozens of Iraqi-Americans, Bush put a swift end to an incipient debate that foreshadows the challenges Washington faces as it works to forge a democratic, unified, Iraq.
Iraq-born Dr Asad Khailany, a computer expert who witnessed Saddam's chemical weapons attack on Halabja in 1988, was suggesting that Iraq should become a federation comprising three autonomous or semi-autonomous regions when Tarik Daoud, a car dealer who was born in Basra, rose to object.
"We're not going to have a debate on the form of the government," the smiling US leader broke in forcefully. "This debate is going to take place within Iraq."
In his speech, Bush said the United States "has no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture" but will ensure that Iraq's new government "will protect the rights of all".
"Whether you're Sunni or Shi'a or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkemen or Christian or Jew or Muslim. No matter what your faith, freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation," he said, drawing a standing ovation.
Some Bush advisers have said that toppling Saddam and helping Iraqis create a democratic government in his place would serve as an example to the entire Middle East and help eradicate terrorism.
"We've always said that there can be an Islamic democracy - not an Islamic theocracy like Iran, but an Islamic democracy," White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said earlier aboard Bush's official aircraft Air Force One.
Bush worked to banish any perception that Iraq's humanitarian troubles stemmed from the US-led military campaign that ousted Saddam after just three weeks of fighting, adding that American troops and relief workers from all over the world were striving to undo the harm Saddam did to Iraq and his people.
"Day by day, hour by hour, life in Iraq is getting better for the citizens, yet much work remains to be done," said Bush, who was poised to declared combat over in Iraq during a Thursday speech aboard an aircraft carrier.
In one example, the president said that whereas Saddam "treated himself to palaces with gold faucets and grand fountains, four out of ten citizens did not even have clean water to drink".
Under Saddam, Iraq exported food but left its people hungry, Saddam let medicine and much-needed supplies rot in warehouses as hospitals grew run-down or vanished outright, said Bush.
"These problems plagued Iraq long before the recent conflict. We're helping the Iraqi people to address these challenges, and we will stand with them as they defeat the dictator's legacy," he said.
Bush renewed his appeal to the United Nations to lift the "pointless" crippling economic sanctions on Iraq "so the Iraqis can use their own resources to build their own prosperity".
"America pledged to rid Iraq of an oppressive regime, and we kept our word. America now pledges to help Iraqis build a prosperous and peaceful nation, and we will keep our word again," he said. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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