One town's test of Iraqi democracy
How the 'founding fathers' of Umm Qasr went from tyranny to town council in days.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
UMM QASR, IRAQ - Shortly after US and British forces pushed through this dusty port town in southern Iraq at the start of the coalition invasion, a school administrator got a crazy idea.
It was the kind of inspired thought that might have gotten him jailed, beaten, even killed a few days earlier. But now, Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party operatives were on the run, and in Umm Qasr, Najim Abed Mahdi could suddenly think the unthinkable. He and a handful of other Iraqis banded together to form their own town council.
They did it because their community needed fresh water, electricity, ice, garbage collection, security from looters, and other essentials. But by taking up the mantle of leadership in a fashion banned by Hussein, the Umm Qasr council may have made history - creating what US officials see as the first Iraqi model of a grass-roots democracy in a once-barren political landscape.
It is an example they hope will be replicated across Iraq. And, analysts say, it is the essence of what must happen for the US and Britain to win the peace.
"We are the first," says Mr. Mahdi, sitting at a conference table with the nine other members of the newly formed Umm Qasr town council. "Now we are the capital of free Iraq."
How the 'founding fathers' of Umm Qasr went from tyranny to town council in days.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
UMM QASR, IRAQ - Shortly after US and British forces pushed through this dusty port town in southern Iraq at the start of the coalition invasion, a school administrator got a crazy idea.
It was the kind of inspired thought that might have gotten him jailed, beaten, even killed a few days earlier. But now, Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party operatives were on the run, and in Umm Qasr, Najim Abed Mahdi could suddenly think the unthinkable. He and a handful of other Iraqis banded together to form their own town council.
They did it because their community needed fresh water, electricity, ice, garbage collection, security from looters, and other essentials. But by taking up the mantle of leadership in a fashion banned by Hussein, the Umm Qasr council may have made history - creating what US officials see as the first Iraqi model of a grass-roots democracy in a once-barren political landscape.
It is an example they hope will be replicated across Iraq. And, analysts say, it is the essence of what must happen for the US and Britain to win the peace.
"We are the first," says Mr. Mahdi, sitting at a conference table with the nine other members of the newly formed Umm Qasr town council. "Now we are the capital of free Iraq."
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