Iraqis caught ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’
Editor’s note: Mohammad Douglah, a faculty associate in Life Sciences Communication, was 19 when he came to the United States from Iraq in 1958 in pursuit of higher education. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at California State Polytechnic University. He was awarded a Ph.D. in cooperative extension from the University of Wisconsin in 1965, when he became an assistant professor of agricultural and extension education here. In 1974, he resigned as professor and chair of his department, and went back to Iraq, where he started a similar department at the University of Baghdad.
In the summer of 1990, Douglah, his wife and one of their daughters returned to the United States for a visit that became a one-way trip. While they were here, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the family decided it was not safe to return to their homeland. They have resided here ever since.
Douglah has been a U.S. citizen since 1969. He and his wife have two daughters, a son and four grandchildren, all living in this country. The following are excerpts from an interview conducted in late February.
Mohammad Douglah, faculty associate of continuing and vocational education in the Department of Agricultural Journalism, says Iraq needs to be liberated by Iraqis, with help from the United States. (Photo: Jeff Miller)
A. I call them every once in awhile. It’s still possible to call on the telephone. I have two remaining brothers, and they each have large families. There are many, many relatives spread all over the world, as refugees in exile, a few in this country, some in Canada, many in Europe, some in Australia, Asia... you name it. Quite a few in Middle Eastern countries.
Q. What was it like to live under Saddam Hussein?
A. It was not pleasant. It was a totalitarian regime. The regime had instituted policies, practices that, when you look at them collectively, had one aim, and that was to instill fear and horror.
Q. As a faculty member (at the University of Baghdad), how did it affect you?
A. It was nothing like the UW! Obviously every sector of life is affected. Education is not an exception. Curriculum is top-down, policies are top-down. There is nothing like what we here call academic freedom. Not only that, you really feel that every move you make is being monitored by the regime.
Q. What are your brothers telling you?
A. They really don’t say much, because they can’t. No Iraqi living in Iraq today — and to a great extent, even people living outside Iraq — are totally free to say everything. One of the policies that this regime has adopted is not only to punish an individual whom they consider to harbor thoughts, ideas, plans against the regime, but also punish their families.
Q. How do the Iraqi people feel about the current situation?
A. I thought I might use a common expression in the English language to describe how Iraqis feel today — “caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.” The devil, of course, is Saddam Hussein. Ever since this regime came into power in 1968, the level, and kinds of crimes and atrocities that they have committed against the Iraqi people are unspeakable.
I can say to you without any doubt that perhaps there is not a single Iraqi family — and that includes Saddam Hussein’s own family — that has not suffered in a major way, by either having young men die in wars or through forced deportations, imprisonment, torture, rapes, you name it. So let there be no mistake about it. Perhaps with the exception of several thousand supporters of Saddam — the people who have linked their fate with his — the vast majority of the Iraqi people pray every day, waiting for the day that Saddam and his regime are no longer there.
Q. How do you feel about an attack on Iraq by the U.S.?
A. That brings me to the deep blue sea. I sense that most people in Iraq view America’s claim that it is going to liberate Iraq with extreme suspicion and skepticism. Unfortunately, the U.S. has not left a good track record, especially in its behavior toward Iraq, but also in its policies toward the Middle East in the past, and more recently some of the things that have happened post-9/11 toward Muslims. These are the kinds of things that are vividly recollected by people when they try to make up their minds and take positions.
Iraqis still very clearly remember that it was the United States that fully supported Saddam Hussein throughout the ’80s. I’m referring to that period of war with Iran. They provided him with military and economic support, and technological aid, which included chemical and biological information and materials. They provided him with aid that enabled him to undertake a research and development program of weapons of mass destruction that we are so concerned about now.
A very good case can be made that without U.S. and other Western support for Saddam in the ’80s, we would not have a Saddam Hussein today … or at least a Saddam with his present capabilities. That’s number one. That’s why they feel America is the deep blue sea.
Number two: In 1990 or ’91, father Bush made that famous statement, “Let the Iraqi people arise to depose Saddam and chart the course of freedom for themselves.” Then, when a cease-fire was declared, and the Iraqi army was defeated, the people took Bush on his word and actually did arise. There was a genuine people’s uprising against Saddam Hussein, from the south and the north.
There are 18 provinces in Iraq, and 13 of these provinces fell — they were under the control of the people. It was just a matter of days before they advanced to Baghdad, and then the Bush administration decided to allow Saddam to use his latest helicopters armed with heavy gunships. According to the cease-fire, he didn’t have the right to do that. They were not to fly any kind of aircraft. That was the only way they could bring down the uprising, and they just annihilated the people.
When the question comes up about why the administration didn’t get rid of Saddam during the first Gulf War, the usual answer given to the American people is “We didn’t want to get into a quagmire, to commit 200,000 — 300,000 American troops in Iraq.” Well, I think they’re not really telling the truth. I believe it was not necessary to send any American troops. The Iraqi people would have taken Saddam.
The Iraqis vividly remember and say, “Why didn’t you allow us to take care of him? When we took you on your word, Mr. Bush — when you asked us to rise and bring him down, we did, but at that crucial moment, you allowed him to annihilate us.”
Third: During the Iraq-Iran war, Saddam Hussein gassed what is believed to be 5,000 men, women and children in northern Iraq. Only after a long period of investigations and so forth, the U.S. declared that it was an act committed by the regime. But they really didn’t make too much out of it, because they were still needing him to put down the Iranian regime. I could cite many other incidences that make Iraqis skeptical of the motive for war in Iraq — if it truly is going to be a war of liberation.
When you add to this the question of oil, it just so happens that Iraq is sitting on a sea of oil. Apparently the earlier estimates we used to hear about the oil reserves in Iraq were not very accurate. Now it’s becoming clear that Iraq may be sitting on, if not the largest, one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Some people even mention the figure 50 percent. The question of who is going to be in control of that oil makes people very skeptical.
Q. Do you think the U.S. government needs to send in a stabilization force to help Iraq get back on its feet and create a new government?
A. When Bush took the question of disarming Iraq to the U.N., ever since then he has used the argument that the U.N. can become what he is calling “irrelevant” if it does not stand behind its resolutions. The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims for years have been using the phrase “double standard” to describe America’s policy in the Middle East in general and in regard to the Palestine/Israeli question in particular. Since that speech in the U.N., that phrase “double standard” has taken on an entirely new meaning. It has become vividly illuminated in the minds of Muslims, Arabs and all people of conscience.
They say, “Mr. Bush, if you’re so concerned about the U.N. not becoming irrelevant and standing behind resolutions it has passed since 1991 about Iraq, how about those other resolutions that the same U.N. has passed since 1967?” Since 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, resolution after resolution condemning Israel and asking Israel to get out of the occupied territories, stop building settlements — these are resolutions that the U.S. supported.
Why is it so important for the U.N. to uphold its resolutions against Iraq, when, frankly, Iraq hasn’t done anything with its weapons of mass destruction yet against America? The settlements are unlawful; the occupation of the West Bank is unlawful.
I don’t need to say much about the recent happenings after 9/11 — immigration registrations, denials of visas and families being separated. I know families here in America where a husband or wife went home to visit and they cannot get back in now.
Q. What’s better? Saddam or a U.S. attack?
A. It will not be better to invade Iraq with a force that is certain to bring about death and destruction to a country that for 22 years has experienced deaths, destruction, wars, embargoes. Iraqis hear about the shape of that force that is being put together. They hear about 3,000 bombs being dropped, perhaps on the first day of war. Is that the only way to do it? Is that the human way to do it?
Q. What do you think should be done?
A. The alternative is to provide support for the Iraqis. This ultimately has to be a job for Iraqis — to get rid of a regime that has oppressed them for three decades plus. Now, I grant you, Saddam Hussein has done away with most kinds of opposition. There is hardly any opposition to speak of internally. There are lots of opposition groups and forces outside of Iraq.
I will admit that Iraqis, by themselves without some help, will not be able to bring down Saddam. But there is a difference between trying to support Iraq to liberate itself and to invade Iraq on the pretext of liberation. That’s what the Iraqis don’t want.
Q. Have you been participating in the protests?
A. Yes, I have. But I’m one of those who say that a protest against the war should not be interpreted as support for Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, there are people who support protesting against the war, meaning that they approve of what is happening in Iraq. I know otherwise. I know that the Iraqi people are just waiting for the day to be liberated. What I’m really against is killing more Iraqis to liberate them — by an external force.
There are some values that are age-old. When people die in the process of liberating themselves, just like Americans died to preserve their unity in the Civil War, that is cherished. It was a necessary thing to happen, to keep these United States of America. If it goes down in history that 10,000 Iraqis had to die to liberate themselves, that would be cherished. But if 1,000 Iraqis die because of American bombs coming down on them, that will go down in history differently. Of course we want to be liberated. But how?
A lot of people are asking, why this urgency? Why now? Does it really have to be between now and before the heat? Is this how you calculate the value of life? If we go past March, it’s going to be too hot to launch a war? Is that a good enough reason to go and kill people, drop bombs? Continue the policy of regime change, but like the French are saying now, don’t be so gung-ho about it. Americans are saying behead Saddam, so to speak, right now! The French are saying there are other ways. If we really make up our mind as a civilized world to bring down one man, one regime, we should be able to find other means.
Q. Any final thoughts?
A. It’s really complex. It’s the kind of thing that does not lend itself to do/not do, either/or, good/bad. There is a lot of room. If there is one thing that we really know in this world, it’s that history matters. It is very, very unfortunate that this country doesn’t have a shining history when it comes to foreign policy.