Prometheus 6

The American Enterprise Institute's best spin on Iraq is pretty pathetic.

BROWN: There was word from the Pentagon today that the number of troops in Iraq will be kept at the current level, 135,000 give or take, possibly through the end of next year. In addition, commanders say replacement forces rotating into the country will be more heavily armed in recognition of the dangers these days.

Needless to say this is another unwelcome bit of business, along with the prison pictures and Fallujah and so on but does it and the rest also hide a larger, some would say less dire, reality?

Michael Rubin is an adviser to the Pentagon on Iraq and Iran. He recently returned from a long stretch in Iraq working for the CPA. We're pleased to have him on the program tonight. It's nice to see you, Michael. Thank you.

MICHAEL RUBIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me here.

BROWN: Let me start with the hanging curve and then we'll go to a few fast balls here and there. But take 30 seconds and tell me what we're missing, what we don't see.

RUBIN: One of the things which I always looked at when I was in Baghdad is what people were investing in. If people are willing to put down tens of thousands of dollars into a new house, for example, that shows they have some confidence in the future. [P6: As long as people are spending money it's all good, isn't it?]

When I got to Baghdad back in July there were very few women on the streets and those that were, were fully veiled. People said it wasn't out of religious conviction. It was more because they were worried about security.

But by the time I left in March you had teenage girls walking without escort down the streets in Baghdad and Nasiriyah in Iraqi Kurdistan basically enjoying the nightlife, window shopping into the new boutiques and everything like that. It did show some improvement. [P6:Spending money and teenaged girls partying all night is the good news. Sounds like perverts run the AEI.]

BROWN: Would you say it's fair to say that what you have is a very complicated picture in Iraq that on the one hand clearly things are better, whether it be newspapers and satellite dishes and Internet cafes and all the rest that's going on and, on the other hand, you have a reality that 135,000 Americans, more, 20 percent more than anticipated, are going to be there for another year at least?

RUBIN: Exactly. I mean it is a very complicated situations. Sometimes actually we talk past each other when we talk about security. When Americans talk about security, of course, we mean force protection. When Iraqis talk about security they often mean freedom from violent or random crime.

They're two different issues. The freedom from violent or random crime from an Iraqi perspective security has gotten better. When you actually go down the streets, you see electrical appliances stacked on the sidewalks. The age of looting and the age of just random violence is over but Iraqis are still worried about terrorism and we need to be worried about force protection.[P6:At last. Someone recognizing that Iraqis see the different problems than Americans do, and that we will not solve our image problems by focusing on our desires to the exclusion of their needs.]

BROWN: Is that -- is terrorism the right word? Is that what they're worried about?

RUBIN: Yes. It is the right word because what's been going on with many of the car bombs, for example, is that they're trying to maximize civilian casualties. When I lived in the Mansoor district of Baghdad, or the Korada district of Baghdad outside the Green Zone, there were a couple car bombs that were clearly they killed 50 people in Baghdad lining up in a market.

In Karbala and Haramia (ph) you had car bombs and in Erbil you had suicide bombings. They were going after civilians. They were going after civilians for political gain. That's terrorism.

BROWN: What do you make, if you believe the polls, sometimes people don't and I'll get that too, the polls that show that the Iraqis really want the Americans out now that they've had it and that they really do see this as a hostile occupation at this point?

RUBIN: I think the polls can be rather volatile and when you actually look into the details of the polls many of them are just based on a sample of a couple hundred to maybe 3,000 or so. There's a large silent majority in Iraq. [P6: I have always wondered how people know what "the silent majority" wants when they haven't said anything. But…]

They haven't come out demonstrating in favor for us but after having lived there, not just eight months with CPA but eight months before working in the university system, they very much want us to stay.

The reason they're not coming out is they fell that in 1991 we cut and run and left them to Saddam Hussein and the thugs and they're worried we're going to cut and run again. Until they're sure that we're going to see it through to the finish, they're not going to put their necks out on the line for us again. [P6:…this is a fair (if somewhat obvious) assessment.]

BROWN: Michael, it's very good to have you on the program. I hope you'll come back from time to time. It helps, I think, paint the broadest picture which is good for all of us. Thank you.