Emerson's journal - Part 3

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau recently visited the Middle East. She kept a daily journal. Here is the third installment.

By Jo Ann Emerson

Sunday, Nov. 9: At Saddam's palace, we met with Paul Bremer, who leads the Coalition Provisional Authority; General Sanchez; and David Kay, who is in charge of the search for weapons.

They tell us they are focusing on five areas: security, essential services, the Iraqi economy, strategic communications and resolving the internal politics of Iraq and its different ethnic groups.

Bremer also detailed some of the security problems they are facing in Iraq: Baathists loyal to Saddam who are responsible for almost all of the attacks currently taking place. They pose no long-term strategic threat. Then there are professional terrorists, like al-Qaida and al-Islamists. And finally there is organized violent crime, mostly from prisoners who were released before the war.

The CPA is always trying to improve its intelligence.

As part of its success so far, it has all of the 240 hospitals working, there is no pharmaceutical shortage and 95 percent of the health clinics are working, although some are very rudimentary.

All the schools and universities are open.

A longer-term challenge is building the economy. The CPA has started a new central bank and is starting to use a new currency. There are thousands of new companies started up in Iraq, and the next step in converting to a free market is for the Iraqis to decide what they will do with state-owned enterprises.

The CPA also needs agricultural commodities, and I am very interested in the opportunities for agricultural products from America, specifically southern Missouri. Unfortunately, the most fertile land in Iraq is also where Saddam was the most repressive. In those parts of Iraq, the water infrastructure is poor, the markets are distorted by uneven, heavy subsidies and good land is underutilized.

This system indicates a larger problem in Iraq: the food production system needs to be modernized. During Saddam's regime, through the oil-for-food program, Iraqis got certain food for free, which they picked up at distribution centers around the country. But in the transition in economies, we must turn the 44,000 distribution centers into retail centers.

Governmentally, the Iraqi people need to have a constitution, and the goal is for them to have the framework for one by late December. The decision-making process is difficult for them, as they are grappling with new freedoms for the first time.

For example, when the Iraqi Governing Council was asked to come up with a system for a presidency, it came up with nine individuals who would rotate being president every month. The cabinet ministers are doing a good job though.

The CPA will not write the constitution for the Governing Council, but it does have certain principles in mind it wants the Iraqi constitution to include: rights for every citizen, a defined role for religion, freedom of worship, federalism and some kind of established electoral process.

I can tell this is going to be a challenge.