Why They Fight

Outskirts of Kuwait City

IN A QUIET MOMENT some three weeks before the United States sent 40 Tomahawk missiles and several 2,000-pound bombs into Baghdad, an Iraqi-American man named Hakim contemplated his mission. He had graduated that day from a training course that the U.S. military had provided to Iraqis to prepare them for the work they are now doing, side by side with American soldiers near the Iraqi border. Why, Hakim was asked, did he choose to leave a comfortable life in America to join U.S. troops in Iraq?

Our story is the story of the 22 million Iraqis. They spent the last 35 years in total dictatorship, stripped [of] their dignity and freedom. Our mission is a mission of liberation for a free and democratic nation, got to be part of the world.

When did he leave Iraq?

I live all my life, I born there. I left the country in 1974, when I realized at a very early age that the country gonna go down the hill under such management--they are a gang rather than a leader.

Moments later, another question. "You've just completed your training of approximately one month. Do you feel as dedicated today as when you first came here?"

In fact my mission started 26 years ago, I never lay down, I never sleep. But the training within the last four weeks has just bringed that dream back to reality. And the closer I come to the mission, the more I get fired up and the more I get emotional. In fact, I think it's still with me. Every time I look at a friend here with me at training, I see a brother suffering there in the prison or torture or disappear. I see a piece of child lost his happiness and smile for years. I see a face of woman has been stripped out of their dignity for the last 35 years. I see a waste of resources of a great country and cradle of civilization has been waste. Today is the day where the mission start and I'm comforted more than ever.

This exchange comes from a series of exit interviews taped by the U.S. government and obtained by The Weekly Standard. The interviews were conducted by government personnel, and some of the questions, perhaps those above, could fairly be described as leading. But any doubt that Hakim expressed the beliefs of a great many Iraqis was shattered Friday, when Iraqis greeted American soldiers with dancing, handshakes, and hugs. Kuwaiti television captured the scene in the southern Iraqi city of Safwan, a town notable because it's where coalition and Iraqi military leaders signed the cease-fire that ended the first Gulf War in 1991.

Some cheered and chanted "Ameriki! Ameriki!" when U.S. Marines ripped down the omnipresent, oversized portraits of Saddam Hussein. One man pounded Saddam's face with his shoe. Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein started another cheer, and several Iraqi men joined in. "Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!"

An Iraqi named Ali Khemy spoke to Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press. "Americans very good," he offered. "Iraq wants to be free." A young man concurred. "No Saddam Hussein! Bush!"

Earlier, on Thursday, the United Nations secretary general had expressed his disappointment that the war had begun. Twelve years and seventeen U.N. resolutions hadn't been enough. "Perhaps if we had persevered a little longer Iraq could yet have been disarmed peacefully," he had said.

Then, he had changed the subject, saying, "My thoughts today are with the Iraqi people."

If Kofi Annan is now thinking of the Iraqi people, they might be forgiven for asking, What took you so long? The Iraqi people have officially been in the thoughts of the U.N. Security Council since April 5, 1991, when that body declared itself "seized of the matter"--the matter, that is, of the mass slaughter of the Iraqi people by their outlaw leader. The words of Resolution 688, one of the first U.N. resolutions passed after the Gulf War, were strong. The Security Council, it said,

Condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, the consequences of which threaten international peace and security in the region; Demands that Iraq, as a contribution to remove the threat to international peace and security in the region, immediately end this repression, and expresses the hope in the same context that an open dialogue will take place to ensure that the human and political rights of all Iraqi citizens are respected.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.N. made that dramatic and worthless paper proclamation. Some, perhaps as many as one million, perished from causes related to U.N. sanctions imposed because Saddam would not disarm. Others died directly at the hands of the Iraqi dictator--by political assassination, random execution, or mass killing.