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Interview: Entifadh Qanbar Discusses Conditions in Iraq Under Saddam Hussein's Rule and Whether the Iraqi National Congress Should be Part of a Post-Saddam Democratically Elected Government
All Things Considered, November 18, 2002
Bioterrorism
LYNN NEARY, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Lynn Neary.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
Entifadh Qanbar is an engineer by training, an Iraqi expatriate, a veteran of the Iraqi army and of Iraqi prisons. When I remarked that his name Entifadh sounds like the intifada, the Arabic word for an uprising, he said that's because he was named for one, an uprising in 1959 in Iraq that his father commemorated with his son's name. Mr. Qanbar is the Washington representative of the Iraqi National Congress, a big expatriate group which has both admirers and detractors in Washington. The INC has not been able to topple Saddam Hussein despite several years of American support. But the group is adamant that Iraq with an educated, mostly urban population, can be held together post-Saddam in a democratic federal system. Mr. Qanbar says that to launch such a system Iraq would need US forces based in the country, but not a US military governor running it.
Mr. ENTIFADH QANBAR (Iraqi National Congress Washington Representative): That's not what we want. What we want is a war for Iraq. It's not a war against Iraq. We should not make this war between America and Iraq. The United States has a great opportunity to help Iraqis to liberate themselves. Iraqis are well-informed intellectuals. They know how to use weapons. They could be trained to create a liberation army which can occupy or expel the occupiers, Saddam's family occupying those cities in Iraq and establish a democratic regime. Before that, we can have a transitional government and a referendum for a constitution, then naturally an election process.
SIEGEL: Let's say for a moment right now that I am a State Department official or a White House official and I'm trying to figure out what role your group, the Iraqi National Congress, should play in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. You've made very good points as to why you represent a democratic future for the country, but here are the skeptical points I see. By your own version, Iraqi democracy at the beginning of the century was undone by the strength of the military. If I'm a realist, maybe I should make sure that the military is on the right side of things this time and that they are inside the tent rather than outside the tent. So perhaps I should look more at this other group which consists of a lot of dissident Iraqi officers and not make the same mistake of installing your government or your system which may be inherently weak for lack of being drawn from the military. What do you say to me on that score?
Mr. QANBAR: I say that the US should not treat the Iraqi army as a political faction in Iraq. The Iraqi army should be included, and you can easily make the Iraqi army switch sides and fight on the side of the liberators rather than fight on the side of Saddam, but at the same time, don't look at the Iraqi generals as potential leaders of Iraq. The message is, nobody becomes president of Iraq but a person who is democratically elected.
SIEGEL: The other question I have for you in my role here as the skeptical US official is, look, it's been 10 years. I mean, we've been dealing with the Iraqi National Congress for 10 years and during that time, we just didn't see the--we didn't see the uprising. We didn't see the domestic opposition courageous enough in Iraq to do something to undermine Saddam Hussein's regime.
Mr. QANBAR: This is really overlooking the facts. In 1995 the Iraqi National Congress was able to launch a very successful attack on the Iraqi army and captured thousands of Iraqi army officers and soldiers, some of it without fighting. Unfortunately, the US backed out. The US sent a telegram to us telling us you are on your own only a few hours before the attack which was supposed to happen. And the US knows about it. The second thing, '96, Saddam invaded Kurdistan. This is another show of power, of struggle between the Iraqi National Congress and Saddam. And since then we have not received any funding or any help from the US that is sufficient to put us in place to fight Saddam unless we start to receive help from the US last year of Clinton administration and with the Bush administration.
SIEGEL: You and all of your colleagues in the Iraqi National Congress and, in fact, in the other Iraqi groups are in the odd situation of saying, `America, please come and make a war against Iraq right now. Attack.'
Mr. QANBAR: America, please come and help us to liberate our country. We cannot do it by ourselves and nobody can help us but America.
SIEGEL: You were in prison in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Mr. QANBAR: Yes.
SIEGEL: What was that like?
Mr. QANBAR: Hell. It's a small cell with 20 people naked, extremely malnutritioned and about to die.
SIEGEL: Brutalized?
Mr. QANBAR: Brutalized, violated. I remember I saw one person who told me--I asked him, `How long have you been here?' He said, `I think four years.'
SIEGEL: He'd lost track of how long...
Mr. QANBAR: He lost track. And he never saw the sun in four years.
SIEGEL: And what was it you had done to land you in prison?
Mr. QANBAR: Gathered with friends of mine and making jokes about Saddam. That was enough for me and my brother to be imprisoned, all my friends and my brother's friends, and execute seven.
SIEGEL: Was it a good joke at least about Saddam Hussein that landed you in prison for that time?
Mr. QANBAR: It was a funny joke, actually.
SIEGEL: Do you ever see people who were imprisoned with you during that time?
Mr. QANBAR: After that, no. I was transferred quickly. And the two people who were with me, they were both executed.
SIEGEL: Both executed.
Mr. QANBAR: Both executed. And this is something I will never forget.
SIEGEL: Did you know that you would not be executed when you were in prison?
Mr. QANBAR: No, I didn't. I thought I would be executed for sure. I was extremely shocked when they released me.
SIEGEL: You had no idea what the extent of your sentence really would be...
Mr. QANBAR: The impression that you get the first day you arrive, the minute they arrest you in the car, that you will be executed. They tell you, `We are going to take you to be executed.' And the word `execution' becomes the daily soup of every morning.
SIEGEL: Do you remember the people who guarded you when you were in prison?
Mr. QANBAR: Absolutely.
SIEGEL: Do you think they're capable of being law-abiding civilians in a post-Ba'athist Iraq, or are they war criminals in your mind?
Mr. QANBAR: Some of them, yes. Some of them, well, the criminality is deep rooted inside them. I remember well. Some of them I can feel they had not much choice. Some of them risked their lives to help me. And some of them were beating me for absolutely no reason.
SIEGEL: It's a very effective argument for people in the Iraqi National Congress and other Iraqi expatriates and opposition figures to liken Iraq to Nazi Germany since it's sort of the baseline in the US for how bad is a regime that even if it's not about to attack you tomorrow, should you go and attack it. Is it a fair comparison, really?
Mr. QANBAR: To be accurate, I think Iraq is a mix of Nazi Hitler and Stalin. I think every--a lot of aspects of the modern state used to kill its own country's scientific achievements, to be used for horror and evil, this is very much like Hitler. The Nazi Party is very much similar to the Ba'ath Party, or the Ba'ath Party is similar to the Nazi Party. But the role of the Ba'ath Party in penetrating every house of Saddam's regime probably coincides more with Stalin.
SIEGEL: With Stalinism.
Mr. QANBAR: Yes.
SIEGEL: You mean so that indeed if somebody in Baghdad were having conversation saying, `Look, this guy's a thug and a dictator and I hate him and I hope they overthrow them,' word would get back eventually to someone if he was had this conversation?
Mr. QANBAR: Look what happened to me. We're having a joke in my house with bunch of a friends. Seven of us were executed. My brother was tortured for a year. And I was lucky to get out in two months. This is a country where you should expect somebody's watching you, even if you're in your bathroom or your bedroom.
SIEGEL: Well, Entifadh Qanbar, thank you very much for talking with us today.
Mr. QANBAR: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: Entifadh Qanbar is Washington representative of the Iraqi National Congress, one of the leading Iraqi opposition groups.
LYNN NEARY (Host): This is NPR, National Public Radio.
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