After more than two decades of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis are used to bizarre television and radio broadcasts. But not even that prepared them for yesterday’s broadcast by the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to the Iraqi nation.
”Hello, I’m Don Rumsfeld,” he said, opening the broadcast. The personal approach would have baffled even the Pentagon press corps used to a more aggressive Rumsfeld.
But not as much as it would have baffled the Iraqis, cut off from the outside world for more than 20 years and unfamiliar with either Rumsfeld or American informality.
The first senior figure from the US administration to visit Iraq since the war, Rumsfeld stopped in Basra to thank British troops and then went on to Baghdad. Anxious to avoid triumphalism, he opted for a folksychat direct to the Iraqis recorded in Saddam’s presidential palace by the banks of the Tigris.
He said: ”Back home in America I have three children and six grandchildren. The youngest is just one year old. I want the same things for them that each of you want for your children and grandchildren — safety, security and a just society where they have freedom to pursue their dreams.”
That kind of sentimental approach might go down well with US audiences. It does not go down as well in a society mourning its military and civilian casualties and resentful of the US presence on its streets.
Rumsfeld’s broadcast went out on a special US television and radio network for Iraq. He finished by saying ”Thank you for listening.”
Not many Iraqis would have heard him. There are few radios and televisions working in Iraq because most of Baghdad and the rest of the country at night is in darkness because there is still little or no electricity.
And even those with access to generators and satellite dishes would have been listening to the Arab stations or the Iranian ones.
The formal announcement of an end to the war is expected to come today from the US president, George Bush, from a US aircraft carrier in the Pacific. But he let Mr Rumsfeld savour his own personal moment of triumph by entering Baghdad first.
”I am pleased to visit Iraq — your country — to witness your liberation. The American people share your joy that tyranny is gone, ” he said in the broadcast.
He said the US and Iraq shared a common purpose in creating a new Iraq ”where the country’s wealth is used to benefit the people, not to line the pockets of a cruel dictator”.
Nowhere in the speech did he mention that he had been in Iraq almost 20 years ago, a private businessman acting on behalf of the Reagan administration and dealing with Saddam.
He called in the broadcast for information about the whereabouts of those in the old regime still at large, but skipped over the failure to find Saddam or the elusive weapons of mass destruction.
He said there was more food, water and electricity in parts of Iraq than under the previous regime, remarks that might have been met with tortured laughter by anyone tuning in, given the lack of at least the last two throughout much of southern Iraq.
Seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was addressing one of the best-educated societies in the Middle East, with a big middle class, his tone was at times that of the colonial governor addressing the natives. ”Building a free society isn’t easy. It requires hard work and sacrifice,” he said.
Looking beyond Iraq, he called for information about what he referred to as ”foreign fighters”, by which he meant Iranians allegedly seeking to destabilise Iraq.
He claimed they were ”seeking to hijack your country for their own purpose”.
That at least would struck a chord as the same kind of conspiratorial line familiar from the old regime. – Guardian Unlimited Â