EVERETT – In the back room of the Colby Halal Market on Monday, Ali Al-Tuky and other Iraqi immigrants spend hours watching the news.
This week it was good news for a change, said Al-Tuky.
He was glad to hear of Monday’s impromptu ceremony in which the United States handed over control of Iraq to its interim government.
The switch in power was none too soon, even though it occurred two days earlier than planned, he said.
“They should have returned power a long time ago,” he said.
He believes the transfer of power in Iraq will ease tensions, fears and fighting because Iraqis are better equipped culturally to help their own – more than the American soldiers.
Al-Tuky said the United States helped Iraq achieve freedom, but it’s the Iraqis themselves who need to learn what freedom means.
“Iraqi people – they don’t have experience with freedom,” he said.
They think freedom is the right to own a weapon or fight with whomever they please, he said.
Al-Tuky had to learn himself what freedom was when he came to America eight years ago.
“Freedom is following the law. Anyone can give his opinion,” he said. “If you just stay away from doing anything bad you can have a good life.”
Hayat al-Zohairy is also optimistic that the hand-over of Iraq’s government from the United States to Iraqis will help calm her volatile homeland.
“All the Iraqi people want is to have their own government,” said al-Zohairy, 36, of Everett. “Then they will feel that the U.S. really came to liberate their country and not take it over. People will trust the U.S. more.”
Al-Zohairy and others among the estimated 1,300 Iraqis in Snohomish County interviewed last week said they have no illusions that the shift in power will halt the violence.
Auda al-Thalabi, 34, of Lynnwood, believes that the attacks will continue unabated over at least the next few weeks, as insurgents try to undermine the new administration. But the Iraqi-led government is a crucial step toward normalcy, he said.
“Baathists and their people will fight back because they don’t want this,” al-Thalabi said, referring to Saddam Hussein’s political party. “They want to get back in control. But the majority of the Iraqi people don’t want them in power. In the long run, this will be a good thing.”
The new Iraqi administration is only temporary. National elections for a transitional government are not scheduled until January. A referendum on a new constitution is planned for October 2005.
Although some in Iraq are leery of the U.S.-backed government, Ahmed al-Mahana doesn’t think the country is stable enough to hold direct elections.
“There’s too much terrorism,” said al-Mahana, 43, of Everett. “We need the Americans to stay with us. We need them for security. We can’t do it on our own.”
Al-Mahana hopes the new government will close Iraq’s borders for at least several months. Many of those wreaking havoc in Iraq are foreign militants, he said.
Al-Mahana praised the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, a former Baath Party member who spent decades in exile after he split with Saddam Hussein.
“I think he’ll try to be a hard guy with the terrorists,” he said. “That’s what we need.”
Imad al-Turfy agreed. He favors harsh treatment of those perpetrating the attacks.
“They need to be hung in the street, so everyone can look at them,” al-Turfy said as he sat in his Everett living room watching an Iranian satellite television image of Kim Sun-il, the South Korean beheaded in Iraq last week. “These people understand just one language: blood. Islamic rules and the Bible say an eye for an eye.”
Al-Turfy, 43, believes an Iraqi-led government will find it easier than a U.S.-led one to take a hard line against insurgents, because world opinion would be less likely to condemn Iraqis.
And with Iraqis in charge of security, more attackers will be caught, he predicted.
“Iraqis know better than Americans what is going on,” he said. “They know who is their enemy and who is their friend.”
Fundamentally, Americans and Iraqis are the same, he said. The only difference is that Iraqis have lived for decades under “bad government.”
He would like to see a public inquisition of Saddam Hussein, the man he blames for the country’s former lack of freedom.
“Put him on TV to explain to people,” Al-Tuky said. “We need to know why (it happened) and move past it so it doesn’t happen again.”
Reporter Jennifer Warnick contributed to this story.
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.
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