Iraqi humanitarian plan is about kids, not politics

When Chris Jones interviewed me about the project I started with Laura Hillenbrand, Operation Iraqi Children, I thought he was writing an article to let people know about our effort to bring school supplies to the children of Iraq. Imagine my surprise when I read the piece and discovered our humanitarian work was “part of a burgeoning involvement of conservatives in the traditional liberal enclave of the American arts world” (“On the Right, and Into the American Arts,” June 25).

Unfortunately, this article misleads readers into thinking we are a conservative program. Nothing could be further from the truth. Operation Iraqi Children is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical effort and aims to include anyone and everyone who is willing to help.

I have gone out of my way in interview after interview not to politicize our effort here. We are neither conservative nor liberal. Neither Republican nor Democrat. Our program is an effort to support the troops who help defend our country no matter what party is in the White House, and we are just trying to help make things better for our soldiers and the children in Iraq.

Jones noted that I have appeared as a guest on conservative talk shows, which is true, but he failed to mention that I’ve also done interviews with an equal number of “liberal” and “neutral” news and entertainment outlets, such as “Today,” CNN and “Good Day Live,” to name a few.

Operation Iraqi Children was started after my second trip to Iraq, where I saw firsthand how our soldiers were working very hard to help the Iraqi schoolchildren, and where I witnessed the goodwill between the soldiers and the Iraqis. I felt that perhaps by sending school supplies for the soldiers to distribute, we could send a message to the Iraqi people that Americans care and to our troops that we are not forgetting about them.

Whether you were for or against the war is not the issue now. The fact is that we are there, and, as a country, we need to look for ways we can help make this a positive and successful mission, because its failure helps no one. Operation Iraqi Children is just one way that we can all do something positive. After all, there is nothing political or partisan about sending pencils to little kids.

We have had thousands of people from all over the country and the world contribute to this effort, and more and more supplies are coming in every day. We have partnered with four other nonpartisan humanitarian organizations, and FedEx is flying 800 to 1,000 school supply kits to Iraq every week for free. The kits include pencils, erasers, a ruler, scissors and notebook paper.

Operation Iraqi Children is a program that our soldiers feel good about, and every time another pallet of supplies comes in, it reminds them that we care and are thinking about them. Our program has nothing to do with “making waves in the arts world.” It has nothing to do with the arts at all. Why Jones painted the picture that we are “conservatives making waves in the arts world” is a mystery. We are simply looking for ways to help our soldiers build bridges of friendship with the Iraqis and their children.

I hope that in spite of the slant of this article, readers will still go to www.operationiraqi children.org to see how we can all help do something positive for the children of Iraq.