Signs of Turmoil and Hope in Postwar Iraq

Re “Rescue the Effort in Iraq,” July 13: Your editorial sadly misses the point. When you assert that “bitter grumbling grows because Iraqis have yet to see fully restored services, like electricity and water,” you underestimate a people’s pride and nationalism. Invasion and occupation by a foreign power will always trump malfunctioning services as reasons for bitterness. Simply reverse the equation. If a foreign power occupied us, would we be complacent, so long as the tap water flowed and we got all 200 channels working? Of course we wouldn’t. We would resist, in any way possible, including with armed conflict.

Why is it so hard for us to see this same simple truth from the Iraqis’ perspective?

Mike Farrow

Arleta

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The Arab League tells us that the new Iraq governing council, picked from a broad array of Iraqi society, lacks legitimacy because it was not popularly elected (July 15). It would, of course, be churlish to inquire how many of the Arab League’s member states allow their citizens to vote, or even how many attempt to represent all voices in their society, especially women.

The Arab League’s comment opens a rather dangerous vista for its own member states, for if the Iraq governing council lacks legitimacy for lack of elections, what can be said of countries whose peoples have been denied any right to participation in their governance for decades? Perhaps it is the Arab League and its member states that truly lack legitimacy in this context.

James A. Gorton

Pasadena

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Re “Tape Claims Al Qaeda Is at Work in Iraq,” July 14: So Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finally admits that finding Saddam Hussein is more important than finding Osama bin Laden.

Am I the only American who is outraged by this? The administration is more concerned with finding the ejected leader of a country that has not been connected to any acts of terrorism against the U.S. than it is with capturing the admitted mastermind behind a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans? How can this be? Particularly, in the face of claims of manipulated intelligence and that, as the article reports, Al Qaeda is threatening more attacks. Has Hussein threatened any attacks?

It speaks volumes about the motives for the war and the absolute neglect of the real threat to homeland security, not to mention the families and loved ones of the victims of 9/11. The Bush administration has egg on its face and blood on its hands.

Karen J. Pordum

Marina del Rey