The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 4 Making a Difference in Iraq The American public rarely gets a look at what FSOs actually do on the ground in the various countries in which they are deployed around the world. So an article by Anthony Shadid in the Feb. 16 Washington Post ( www.washingtonpost.com ), fo cus- ed on the work of 29-year-old Tobin Bradley organizing elections in a remote province of Iraq, was good news — despite the fact that one had to get two-thirds of the way through the article to learn that Bradley was a member of the Foreign Service! Datelined Chebayish, Iraq, the arti- cle, “In Iraqi Towns, Electoral Experi- ment Finds Some Success,” throws light on the Coalition Provisional Auth- ority’s work organizing elections in Dhi Qar, a province some 230 miles south- east of Baghdad. There, residents vot- ing as families on the basis of valid ra- tion cards will have elected city councils in 16 of the 20 largest cities by March. Tobin, a fluent Arabic speaker and political advisor for the CPA in Nasir- iyah, organized 11 of the elections. “With a knack for improvisation and little help from Baghdad,” writes Shadid, Bradley “carried out what may stand as one of the most ambitious democratic experiments in Iraq’s his- tory, a project that goes to the heart of the debate about how Iraq’s next gov- ernment should be chosen.” In each election, Bradley started with a preparation committee of unaf- filiated residents. A month before the vote, the committee drew up condi- tions for candidates: a minimum age, no Ba’th Party affiliation and an often- contentious education requirement. The electoral rolls were based on ration cards, with two votes — one male and one female — for each fam- ily. Each voter chose between five and 10 names from the list of candidates. The actual voting was run by judges from outside the town, with Iraqi NGOs playing a growing role. The process didn’t always go smoothly. The preparation commit- tees often struggled over things like candidates with suspected ties to the Ba’th Party and strong factional and other pulls from fellow villagers that took rounds and rounds of Pepsi and tea to resolve. Shahid reports that Bradley’s father was a city manager, and Bradley says his own job now is “dealing with the same problems, but in a different place.” The results, however, have been sig- nificant. First, the ration card system worked well (Bradley says 95 percent of the families in the province have them). Second, voter turnout was 30 percent to 40 percent, with women’s participation growing from zero to about 20 percent of the voters. And, significantly, voters typically elected professionals as opposed to tribal or religious leaders. The elections have guaranteed the councils’ legitimacy, but, according to Bradley, what is lacking is something he cannot give: credibility. He views the Iraqis’ frustration with the lack of improvement in their lives as the great- est threat to the democratic experi- ment in Dhi Qar. “It’s been nine, 10 months, with no results, really,” Brad- ley says. “There’s no point in having elections if there are no tangible results after them.” Bradley, who never expected to find Iraq “such a broken society,” has no illusions about the challenge. He recalls working in State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research for four nights after the attacks of 9/11. He was angry, he says, and, with a bent of idealism, determined to bring about change. “We have an opportunity to start something good here. Whatever you think of the war, I have the opportuni- ty to build a stable democracy here in Iraq,” Bradley says. “It doesn’t matter whether you were for it or against it. C YBERNOTES A s president, if necessary, I will use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military — but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds. To do all this, and to do our best, demands that we work with other countries instead of walking alone. For today the agents of terrorism work and lurk in the shadows of 60 nations on every continent. In this entangled world, we need to build real and enduring alliances. — Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Democratic presidential candidate, Feb. 27, www.washingtonpost.com .