Molly Ivins: Just Fix It

[Dudley_DUright]

It is insufficient to stand around saying, "I told you Iraq would be a disaster." Believe me, saying, "I told you so" is a satisfaction so sour it will gag you when people, including Americans, are dying every day.

I think our greatest strength is still pragmatism. OK, this isn't working, now what? In an effort to be constructive, even in the face of a developing catastrophe, I have been combing the public prints in an effort to find something positive to suggest.

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There seems to be general agreement on a second step, as well -- handing off power to the Iraqis themselves. I wince to report this is already being called "Iraqification." Trouble is, we seem to be setting about it backasswards, by creating a national Iraqi council of our hand-selected choices and now giving some authority to these cabinet-level types. Wouldn't it make more sense to start at the local level? Why can't the Iraqis hold mayoral elections and go from there? (I know, they tried to do it in Najaf in June, but Paul Bremer stepped in and cancelled the election -- another mistake.)

A mistake we can avoid is Ahmad Chalabai. Chalabai, head of the exile group the Iraqi National Congress and also a convicted swindler, was the neo-cons' darling before the war. He is the right-wing's oddest foreign enthusiasm since the time they took up that dingbat killer Jonas Savimbi in Angola. Chalabai is widely reported to be the source of much of the massively bad intelligence the administration relied on concerning weapons of mass destruction and other subjects. Apparently, no one in the administration had ever come across the common wisdom about not trusting exile groups. One would think that Chalabai's untrustworthiness would be clear to all by now, but there are still a few true believers.

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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=15565