LONDON, 11 April 2003 — The US and British leaders launched a new TV service into Iraq yesterday with a pledge to Iraqis that they would control their own future once the “nightmare” of Saddam Hussein was over.
“You deserve better than tyranny and corruption and torture chambers... Your nation will soon be free,” President George W. Bush said in a pre-recorded message. “The nightmare that Saddam Hussein has brought to your nation will soon be over,” he added.
The messages from Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were being beamed into Iraq via a new Arabic TV network, produced by the US and UK governments, called Nahwa Al-Hurrieh or “Toward Freedom”.
Due to be launched yesterday afternoon with the messages, it will be broadcast for one hour a day from a US Air Force plane flying over the country, providing news and “coalition public service announcements”, British officials said.
Fronted by Iraqi journalists, the content for the new US-UK TV service has been agreed following discussions with the Iraqi exile community in London, they said.
But with no television or electricity, Iraqis failed to receive the messages Bush Blair tried to send. Baghdad is currently suffering a power outage and its three television stations, including the main state-run channel, have not broadcast for several days after coalition warplanes targeted telecommunications centers in the Iraqi capital.
The leaders’ joint initiative was a bid to reassure ordinary Iraqis of Anglo-American intentions and hasten the full collapse of Saddam’s power structure. They repeated familiar lines on Saddam and his alleged of weapons of mass destruction.
“Saddam Hussein’s regime is collapsing and the years of brutality, oppression and fear are coming to an end,” Blair said.
The two men recorded their messages two days ago at a summit in Northern Ireland.
Aware of suspicions throughout the Arab world of American and British “imperialist” pretensions, they promised troops would leave Iraq as soon as a new government was set up to replace an interim authority due to take over from the military. “Iraq will not be run by Britain or by the United States, or by the UN. It will be run by you,” Blair said.
Bush added: “You will be free, free to build a better life instead of building more palaces for Saddam and his sons ... the government of Iraq and the future of your country will soon belong to you.”
Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart told a briefing at Central Command in Qatar US-led forces are looking for Iraqis to start a new radio and television operation in the country.
“We’re working very aggressively to find the contacts with the country and within the city who would like to begin an Iraqi broadcast network ... to allow free Iraqis to begin to broadcast their own TV and radio throughout the country,” he said.
Blair and Bush promised UK-US forces would help maintain law and order, deliver aid and respect Iraq’s religious diversity.
“We will respect your great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq’s future,” Bush said. Blair added: “Our forces are friends and liberators of the Iraqi people, not your conquerors and they will not stay in Iraq a day longer than is necessary.”
The British leader acknowledged many Iraqis feared a repeat of the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War when Washington urged them to rise up against Saddam but did not back them with troops. “You thought Saddam’s rule was being ended, but he stayed, and you suffered. That will not happen this time. This regime will be gone and ended.”
Blair promised money from Iraqi oil would be kept for Iraqis, and lambasted Saddam’s abuse of resources. “Saddam Hussein and his regime plundered your nation’s wealth. While many of you live in poverty, they lived lives of luxury. Saddam became one of the richest men in the world, his money stolen from you the Iraqi people.”
Meanwhile, the retired US general poised to head up a postwar interim administration for Iraq looks unlikely to head up to his offices in Baghdad until next week despite calls for his immediate deployment.
Jay Garner, the head the US Defense Department’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for Iraq, will remain in Kuwait until he receives word from the military that the capital is secure, a spokesman for his office said.
The delay has angered Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, who has received strong backing from the Pentagon.
“Where is Gen. Garner now?” Chalabi asked on CNN from Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq where he has set up base. “The people need assistance here in Nassiriyah. Why are they not here? Why don’t they work to rehabilitate the electricity and water?”
But Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Garner did not need to be in Iraq to work. “It really doesn’t matter where Gen. Garner and his group is because they are, in fact, acting now,” he said.
