10/03/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10167

U.S. SUPPORTS DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ

The United States says that the dangerous regime of Iraq's Saddam Hussein must be replaced. But the U.S. has no quarrel with the people of Iraq. As President George W. Bush has said, "They have suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal."

President Bush has not decided that military force is the only option available to remove Saddam Hussein from power. But if a military operation becomes inevitable, the United States and its international partners are committed to helping the Iraqi people reconstruct their nation. And that reconstruction will further the cause of Iraqi liberty. As U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says, "Great democracies could do no less."

According to Ms. Rice, the United States and its allies would help work for an Iraq that was "on the road to democratic development, that was unified, that maintained its territorial integrity, that had a broad-based governmental structure that allowed the various ethnic groups in Iraq to be fairly represented, but clearly a unified Iraq that was. . . .moving toward freedom for the Iraqi people."

The U.S. experience in ousting the Taleban from Afghanistan is a model of how the United States acts on the difference between a country's people and its corrupt regime. As Ms. Rice says, "Everything we did was to make sure that it was clear that this was not a war against the Afghan people, this was a war against the Taleban regime. . . .We would have the same spirit toward the Iraqi people."

Now the United States and its allies are helping Afghanistan reconstruct their country. They are helping to maintain security; they are building roads; they are providing seed and fertilizer for planting. And they are working to help strengthen fledgling political institutions and lay the groundwork for a vigorous civil society, the rule of law, and accountable government.

President Bush has said, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between freedom and totalitarianism ended. . . .with a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise. These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society." The United Sates is helping the people of Afghanistan construct a society where these values can thrive. It is committed to working toward the same goal with the people of Iraq.