On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi addressed a joint session of Congress and thanked the American people for freeing his country from the cruel grip of a ruthless dictator.  He began by saying he had “seen some of the images that are being shown here on television.  They are disturbing.  They focus on the tragedies….”  Allawi conceded, “the costs now have been high.  As we have lost our loved ones in this struggle, so have you.  As we have mourned, so have you.  This is a bitter price of combating tyranny and terror.”

Allawi then spoke of the things not covered by the media.  He began with the vision of democracy in Iraq, one “shared by the vast majority of the Iraqi people… [even though a ] tiny minority… will kill anyone… to prevent Iraq… from achieving this goal.”  Allawi observed, “There are terrorists, including many from outside Iraq, who seek to make our country the main battleground against freedom, democracy and civilization…  [Iraq’s struggle] today is not about the future of Iraq… [but] about the worldwide war between those who want to live in peace and freedom, and terrorists….  The insurgency in Iraq is destructive but small and it has not and will never resonate with the Iraqi people.”

Continuing his optimistic assessment of Iraq’s government, Allawi reported his government “commands almost 50,000 armed and combat-ready Iraqis.  By January it will be some 145,000.”  Economic progress in Iraq also continues.  “Oil pipelines are being repaired….  The homes are being rebuilt.  Schools and hospitals are being rebuilt….  There are now over 6 million children at school….  Last week, we completed a national polio vaccination campaign, reaching over 90 percent of all Iraqi children….  And so today, despite the setbacks and daily outrages, we can and should be hopeful for the future.”

Finally Allawi directly confronted the criticisms of those in the world, especially from within the United States, regarding the forthcoming January elections.  “I know that some have… doubted whether [the date] can be met….  At every step of the political process… the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people has proved the doubters wrong.  They said we would miss January deadline to pass the interim constitution….  They warned that there could be no successful handover of sovereignty by the end of June….  They doubted whether a national conference could be staged this August.  We proved them wrong….  In 15 out of our 18 Iraqi provinces we could hold elections tomorrow. Although this is not what we see in your media, it is a fact.”  Allawi reiterated his insistence that the January elections will be held on time.

His presidential campaign tied to the success or failure of our military in Iraq, Senator John F. Kerry immediately attempted to spin the speech to his benefit.  “The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story.”  They tell a different story because the media fails to report both sides of it, though.  Despite Allawi’s statements to the contrary, though, Kerry nevertheless insists that the “United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq.  There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can’t hold an election in a no-go zone.”  Kerry insisted instead that President George W. Bush, and Allawi by association, was “living in a make believe world.”

For many in this country there remains this belief that Allawi is nothing more than a shill for Bush.  Partly this is because Kerry’s campaign focuses on Iraq as the dividing issue for the electorate in this coming election, but also because the media do not report the whole story in Iraq.  To allow an optimistic picture to be broadcast to the world about the media’s precious “quagmire” would devastate Kerry’s candidacy.  Is everything perfect?  Of course not, but the media needs to report on the good and the progress, not just on the negatives that the Democrats adore.

For Kerry and the Democrats, Allawi’s credentials as Iraq’s elected prime minister are not enough.  There remains the mad conspiracy that he is a CIA plant whose sole job is to help Bush in his reelection campaign.  They believe Allawi is nothing more than Bush’s puppet, who is of course Vice President Dick Cheney’s puppet.  That must make Allawi a puppet’s puppet whose purpose is to gloss over the problems in Iraq so the puppet can be reelected president of the United States and the puppet-master can continue to maniacally rule.
 
One wonders who actually lives in that make believe world.

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