By JOHN F. BURNS
July 31, 2004
Lloyd Francis Jr./Associated Press
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell greeted troops and American Embassy staff members on Friday at the embassy annex in the Green Zone after a speech thanking the military and staff for sacrifices made in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 30 – Secretary of State Colin L. Powell used an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Friday to tell anxious and embittered Iraqis that the United States will stand by its pledge to bring “peace, freedom and democracy” to their country, and to issue a rallying cry against kidnappers, bombers and others who, he said, wanted to return the country to a “Saddam Hussein-like” past.
Mr. Powell’s visit, his third in the 16 months since Baghdad fell to American troops, appeared to be aimed in part at improving the uncertain morale of the Iraqi interim government. In its first month, the government has seen its hopes of drawing support from Iraq’s 25 million people blighted by a wave of kidnappings of at least 25 foreigners, four of which have ended in grisly, videotaped beheadings, and by bombing attacks like the huge blast on Wednesday in the city of Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad, which left about 70 dead. Bombings have killed many more Iraqis than American troops.
After a round of meetings with Iraqi government ministers, and with the two top Americans in Iraq, Ambassador John D. Negroponte and Gen. George W. Casey, Mr. Powell used a news conference to issue an emphatic reaffirmation of the American commitment here.
His one tangible promise was to speed up the flow of the $18 billion in American reconstruction aid, less than $500 million of which has been released so far, so that Iraqis could see the realization of long-promised improvements in water, electricity and other areas.
“Reconstruction and security are two sides of the same coin,” Mr. Powell said, because Iraqis who see their lives improving will be less likely to support or condone the insurgency. But he delivered what amounted to a stiff lecture for Iraqis, and for countries that have wavered or retreated from the American-led effort here in the face of the kidnappings and insurgent attacks, saying they should weigh their actions carefully before buckling to those who aim to frustrate American goals.
“These are killers and murderers who are killing innocent people who have come to Iraq to help the Iraqi people to a better life,” Mr. Powell said in answer to a question about the kidnappings and beheadings, the most recent of which involved two Pakistani truck drivers who were killed Wednesday. “There is nothing romantic about this; there is nothing justified about this. These are murderous acts, they are terrorist acts, and the world must stand united.”
Mr. Powell seemed incensed after an Iraqi reporter made what amounted to a statement in support of the insurgents in Falluja, the rebel-controlled city 35 miles west of Baghdad, saying their leaders were not foreign-based terrorists, as American officials have alleged, but Iraqis defending their homes and families against American military excesses. “The United States does not wish to be an occupying authority,” he said. “The United States wants to help the sovereign government of Iraq protect its people and build a better life,” adding that nothing it had done justified bombings, kidnappings and other “killings of innocent people.”
“Those who are setting off these bombs, those who are conducting these kidnappings, are doing them for the purpose of returning to the past, returning to the days of a Saddam Hussein-like regime which will fill mass graves, which will have rape rooms again, which will destroy the infrastructure which was destroyed by 35 years of dictatorial leadership, not by the conflict of last year,” Mr. Powell said. “I don’t think the Iraqi people want to go back to the past.”
One possible sliver of good news, though unconfirmed, was that the latest threat of a beheading, this time of an Indian truck driver, appeared to have been put off, at least temporarily, by the intervention of a tribal leader with influence in the Sunni Muslim area west of Baghdad, where many of the kidnappings have taken place. A shadowy group calling itself the Bearers of the Black Banners had videotaped the driver in an orange jumpsuit – a preliminary to several previous beheadings. They vowed to kill him by 7 p.m. Baghdad time on Friday if the Kuwaiti trucking company that employs him failed to abrogate its contracts to run food supplies to American troops in Iraq.
The tribal leader, Sheik Hisham al-Dulaymi, told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television channel by telephone about two hours ahead of the deadline that an executive of the Kuwaiti company, reversing the company’s previous stand, had “presented its apology” for dispatching seven Indian, Kenyan and Egyptian drivers held by the group, including the man on the videotape, on their missions into Iraq. The sheik, who is based in the rebellious city of Ramadi, 65 miles west of Baghdad, said the Kuwaiti executive had undertaken to make himself available for “negotiations” on Saturday.
Asked if he thought the Indian’s captors would suspend the threatened execution, the sheik replied, “If they hear my appeal through your channel, I am sure, in the name of decency and humanity, they will not behead the hostage who was supposed to be decapitated today.”
At midnight, five hours past the deadline, the kidnappers had made no further contact with the Arab-language news channels that had received telephone calls and videotapes confirming previous beheadings. At the same time, there were unconfirmed reports of at least one more kidnapping of a truck driver, this time of a Somali.
In the 12 hours before Mr. Powell arrived here from Kuwait, where he returned to spend Friday night before flying to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on Saturday, the scale of the fighting that continues to tie down 130,000 American troops – and its effects on Iraq’s civilian population – were underscored by a new battle in Falluja. Details were scarce, since the risk of kidnapping has deterred Western reporters, and even some Iraqi journalists, from entering the city for much of the past three months. But doctors at a local hospital said at least 13 people were killed and a dozen others wounded, when American troops and insurgents engaged in overnight clashes. Video from Associated Press Television News showed a wounded man lying in a hospital with his trousers covered in blood, saying that his mother and sister had been killed.
“What is our fault?” the man said.