Iraq's Hidden Civil Soldiers
by Swanee Hunt, Scripps Howard News Service
May 21, 2024

The latest reports from Iraq do not bode well for U.S. civil administrators. Thieves are looting stores, homes and government buildings; snipers are shooting our soldiers. Roaming gangs are terrorizing the country's citizens and malnourished children are playing with abandoned weapons. Angry at the lack of security, not to mention water and food, everyday Iraqis are losing patience. The U.S. liberators are at risk of becoming an occupying army in a hostile land.

Danger is everywhere. Moving into the social vacuum, religious extremists with deep connections and wide networks within the society are assuming more control and centralizing power. As Iraqi women watch the growing influence of conservative Shiite clerics, many wonder what's next for them. If the U.S. fails to maintain order and establish a truly representative transitional government, half the country's adult population—it's women—may be silenced. Without their strong voices in a new government, the prospects for a free and democratic state will be muted.

Women expatriates and those living in Iraq are willing to be civil soldiers in their country's reconstruction. This, despite the risks of working in a post-war zone where human rights are not protected.

Here are some women to watch: Zainab Salbi is the founder and president of Women for Women International, headquartered in Washington D.C.

"In war," Salbi writes, "women are the ones left to bury their husbands, parents, children and friends. They lose their homes, their security, and their livelihoods.... Once the conflict ends, women stand alone, faced with rebuilding their lives, their families and their communities."

Forced into exile during the first Gulf War, Salbi disburses microcredit loans and direct aid to women starting their own businesses. In the past 10 years or so, her group has distributed more than $6 million in nine countries. Salbi is setting up an office in Baghdad to distribute emergency funds for women. She writes, "It's not safe for them to be out on the streets."

Another activist forced to flee Saddam's regime in 1991 is Zainab Al-Suwaij, now living in Massachusetts, where she has founded the American Islamic Congress, which advocates religious tolerance. She's part of the team redesigning Iraq's education system: Students must be enrolled, schools repaired, and politicized curriculum rewritten. Al-Suwaij was denied a diploma because she refused to join the Ba'ath party.

"The high school officials forced me to sign a document stating that if I joined any other political party the regime had the right to kill me." Al-Suwaij longs for democratic freedoms in her country and wants to play a role in its rebirth. She was one of a tiny number of women included in the transitional meeting hosted by the U.S. government, although she insists, "most Iraqi women, from many different ethnicities and religions, would like to participate and have a role in a new government."

The executive director of the Iraq Foundation, Rend Francke, is working with the U.S. planners to mobilize people at the grassroots to improve the country's economy. She offers sobering comments on the reconstitution of her country.

"We should not underestimate the potential for democracy in Iraq, nor should we overestimate the ease with which it will establish itself in the wake of decades of totalitarian rule," she told a forum hosted by The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies earlier this year. An ethnically and religiously diverse population may unite, she said, on the need for a representative and decentralized government. She notes that in the Middle East, this is "a radical idea," and the Ba'ath party has left a legacy of conformity and fear.

Esra Naama's father was one of the instigators of the uprising against Saddam. She was 11 when her mother and four siblings fled on foot. As they searched for the Saudi refugee camps, juice from cans that had fallen off US military trucks kept them alive. Today Esra lives in San Diego and works in customer service for a bank, but television images of Iraqi children carrying water bring her to tears. "I must do something to help those children, to give them hope, to give them a future." Naama is an activist with Women for a Free Iraq.

Armed with motivation, talent and smarts, these Iraqi women are prepared to deploy and help their country win stability and prosperity. They have a lot at stake, and they're ready to fight.

more articles by Swanee Hunt

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