American schoolchildren learn that civilization began in Mesopotamia, where people first sowed the land and lived according to a written code of law.

The Iraqis are a gifted and great people, with an ancient culture. They, like people everywhere, deserve freedom from tyranny.

Working with the international community, the United States seeks over the long term to establish a broad-based representative and democratic government in Iraq. This future Iraq would be a united — and unified — nation, with a government that would renounce terror and weapons of mass destruction, respect international laws and norms, give all religious and ethnic groups a voice, adhere to the rule of law, and become an example of peace and tolerance for the region as a whole.

The winding minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra, constructed 848-852 A.D. (AP Photo/Jassim Mohammed)

"Our mission in Iraq will be to serve the interests and the hopes of the Iraqi people," according to Zalmay Khalilzad, senior adviser to President Bush on Middle East and South Asian affairs. In Iraq's transition from dictatorship to democracy, the United States will provide the necessary resources to meet any immediate humanitarian needs, maintain Iraq's territorial integrity, and invest in the reconstruction required to put Iraq on the path to greater economic prosperity.

A free Iraq would also find itself in a transformed international environment. As outlined in a new book from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, How to Build a New Iraq After Saddam, regime change in Baghdad would give the international community a chance to work collectively to heal the wounds of the past 11 years and help Iraqis rebuild their political and social life for the benefit of all of Iraq's citizens, now and in the decades to come.

A new Iraq would be a welcomed partner within the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic States, and by the development, human rights, and civil society organizations anxious to see it progress.

Two Iraqi Kurdish men walk at sundown in the city of Irbil, which is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party and protected by U.S. and British warplanes. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

To help the Iraqi people prepare for the transition to a free Iraq, the United States has supported the creation of a series of Iraqi working groups known as the Future of Iraq Project, which bring together free Iraqis — those living outside the country and those in northern Iraq who are protected by coalition forces. The Future of Iraq Project gives them an opportunity to discuss and plan transition issues ranging from democratic principles and practices and rule of law, to the economy, oil and energy, and health and education matters.

The city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq. (Michael Rubin)

As a State Department official said at a conference in June 2002: "The role of the U.S. government is to see what the Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans want. The impetus for change comes from you, not us. This is the job of Iraqis inside and outside [Iraq]."

These topics — from democracy and justice to water and agriculture — encompass a formidable list of challenges for a post-Saddam government. Yet the working groups have one enormous asset: a large, educated, and highly skilled population of free Iraqis who have lived for years outside the regime's control and who can contribute their knowledge and expertise to building a new nation. Many of the working groups have already met and started setting priorities and agendas.

A meeting on transitional justice brought Iraqi jurists, Iraqi-Americans, and international experts together in Washington in July 2002 to plan for the restoration of justice and the establishment of the rule of law in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Iraqis deserve the opportunity to decide what laws and police services are necessary for their public safety. Saddam's widely detested security apparatus, consisting of more than 400,000 agents, was created to protect him and his regime — and has no place in a future Iraq.

Surgery is carried out in Halabja with equipment purchased with Oil-for-Food funds. (Michael Rubin)

The democratic principles and practices group met outside London in September and October 2002. The number and diversity of the parties and organizations represented demonstrate their commitment to democracy and pluralism. Among them: the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi National Front, the Iraqi National Accord, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Constitutional Monarchy Movement, the Iraqi Turkoman Front, the Iraqi National Movement, the Alliance of Iraqi Tribes, the Iraqi Forum for Democracy, the Iraqi National Coalition, and representatives of the Assyrian community.

Iraqi experts are also discussing the essential elements of establishing a strong, respected economic system in Iraq.

Iraq's economic prospects in a post-Saddam era are both challenging and promising. Economist Patrick Clawson suggests that if Iraq were able to increase oil production to at least 6 million barrels of oil per day within the first decade after Saddam's removal, it would return almost $33 billion annually — even at the modest price of $15 a barrel.

"The U.S. is committed to ensuring the Iraqi people's oil patrimony will be used to meet the economic and reconstruction needs of the Iraqi people," according to Zalmay Khalilzad. No one would be served by depriving a peaceful, responsible Iraq of its natural resources. Indeed, stability, not Iraq's oil, is the key to healthy economies on all continents.

Northern Iraq

The world does not need to imagine how a post-Saddam Iraq might manage the restoration of freedom. It need only look at northern Iraq today. This predominately Kurdish enclave is a product of Saddam's vengeful reprisals against Kurds in the north and Shi'a in the south who rose up after Saddam's defeat in the Gulf War.

In response to the humanitarian disaster created by Iraq's military attacks in March and April 1991, the coalition established both a no-fly zone and a safe haven north of latitude 36 degrees that prohibits all Iraqi military equipment and activity anywhere in the region.

The United States and Great Britain today enforce this northern no-fly zone and safe haven. (They also enforce an extended no-fly zone in southern Iraq to protect its predominately Shi'a populations.)

Beneath the wings of U.S. and British aircraft of the northern safe haven, two Kurdish political groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have established self-governing authorities characterized by levels of personal freedom, civic participation, and the rule of law unprecedented for the region. These societies, while not free of strife and economic hardship, can nevertheless serve as a harbinger of the benefits that freedom can bring to all of Iraq in a post-Saddam era.

According to New York Times reporter John Burns, who traveled through northern Iraq, opposition parties, independent newspapers, and satellite television all flourish. "All this is banned or restricted in Mr. Hussein's Iraq," Burns wrote. Equally important is what is missing: secret police buildings. These sites of torture and execution under Saddam, according to Burns, "sit abandoned now, or have been turned to benign uses."

Barham Salih, head of the PUK government in northern Iraq, described the transformation in an interview with New York journalist Asla Aydintasbas for the online journal Salon:

Thanks to the relative peaceful environment we have seen for some time now — and no doubt thanks to the protection accorded to us by the U.S. and British military facilitated by Turkish coordination — we have been able to embark on a process of self-government. Something tangible in terms of a civil society and the rule of law is emerging from the ashes of genocide. I am not going to tell you that everything is rosy. We do have our problems. Democratic institutions will take a long time to grow. But in this terrible geopolitics and with the history we have, it's remarkable what we have achieved.

English language classes at Sulaymaniyah University. (Michael Rubin)

Salih proudly notes that a region with one university and 804 schools in 1991 today has three universities and more than 2,700 schools. The universities — Sulaymani, Salahuddiniah, and Dohuk — have a combined enrollment of more than 15,000 students whose backgrounds are not just Kurdish but ethnically diverse, including Turkmens, Assyrians, and Arabs who have chosen to escape Saddam's oppression.

The number of medical doctors has more than doubled. And while the Iraqi regime blames international economic sanctions for increases in child mortality, the death rate for children in northern Iraq — which also falls under such sanctions — has dropped substantially.

A cement factory in Tasluja in northern Iraq. (Michael Rubin)

Michael Rubin, an American scholar who traveled and taught in northern Iraq from September 2000 to June 2001, notes the rise in commerce and economic prosperity as well. "Most of the villages have been rebuilt," he observed in a State Department interview, "and instead of people from northern Iraq going to Baghdad to go shopping, now it's the other way around."

In the town of Dohuk, he points out that the shopping center and university have been built on a former Ba'ath Party military base. "What they have done in the north," said Rubin, "is take prime land used only by the Iraqi army, and they have given it to the people for something they can use. The same thing is true in Sulaymaniyah, where a huge park, called Azadi Park (Freedom Park), has been built on the Republican Guard base in the center of the city."

Rubin points to another dramatic contrast between Saddam's Iraq and the north: the rule of law and independent judiciary are taking root. Remarkably, these developments have not meant throwing out old legal codes or writing new ones. "These developments have evolved not through some new Kurdish law," says Rubin. "Courts are basing their decision on existing Iraqi code. They are following the Iraqi Constitution."

Children enjoy a new playground in a modest housing area of Dohuk in northern Iraq. (Michael Rubin)

Heritage and Civil Society

Overcoming the legacy of Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship will not be easy. All Iraqis recognize that justice and reconciliation constitute a formidable challenge.

Nevertheless, Iraqi society and the Iraqi people bring some remarkable assets to this challenge. Rend Rahim Francke, executive director of the Iraq Foundation in Washington, D.C., reels off an impressive list of strengths that Iraq's history and heritage can bring to bear in building a new country.

First, she points out, Iraq has always had one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world, along with one of the highest percentages of university graduates. Second, Iraq has long had a relatively large and active middle class, coupled with a strong tradition of civil service and effective government institutions.

Over the last two decades, she says, "Saddam deliberately chose to emphasize differences and drive communities apart. We have to counter this effort and go back to building community tolerance and community relations."

As one sign of the questing spirit of the Iraqis, Rahim Francke points to the upsurge in interest in Iraqi history to capture an older and more enduring sense of national identity and culture.

"You can't imagine how many Iraqis are writing about their history — not Saddam's history — but recovering their own, earlier history." She cites the example of the 1920 revolution against foreign control, when Shi'a clerics and intellectuals rebelled against the British mandate and then reached out to the Sunni establishment. The 1920 revolt ended foreign rule and led to establishment of an Iraqi monarchy.

"People are now beginning to draw parallels between the 1920 and the 1991 uprisings," she says. "A growing historical awareness is taking place among the Iraqi people, which I think is a tremendous asset."

Rahim Francke says that Iraq, with its diverse ethnic and religious communities, is inherently a pluralist society, and building the concept and practice of civil society will be critical to the success of a post-Saddam nation. "We need to celebrate pluralism," she says, "rather than repressing and negating it."

Rend Rahim Francke is not alone in this view. The network structure of the Future of Iraq Project is designed to draw upon the impressive education and expertise of the expatriate community. "Many of them have reached significant positions in other countries," says one U.S. expert. "They're heads of corporations, doctors, lawyers, academics, authors, human rights experts."

Moreover, the community of free Iraqis will know best how to draw on the knowledge and capabilities of the mid-level experts and civil servants who are not responsible for the crimes of the regime, and who constitute an invaluable resource in restoring a civil — and civilized — society to a future, free Iraq.

Four million Iraqi exiles are waiting for the opportunity to see the sun rise in the land of their fathers and mothers. As Middle East expert Ellen Laipson observes in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy publication How to Build a New Iraq After Saddam, the reintegration of even a modest proportion of these exiles could have a wide impact on the post-Saddam transition, returning not only with financial resources but also ideas of tolerance and political openness acquired abroad.

Free From Fear

A long-time observer of Iraq has said on many occasions: "Nothing very good can happen as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power."

Iraqi women, followers of the Mandaean Sabian religion, sit in the sunlight after being blessed with the water of the temple pool in Baghdad in June 2000. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

But when his regime is gone, the Iraqi people will have an opportunity to reclaim their nation and build institutions of democracy and prosperity that they could hardly dare to imagine under the grinding repression of Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein is the tormentor of his own people, a threat to his neighbors, and a menace to international peace and stability. His removal will not only eliminate a grave and gathering danger to the region and the world, but will once again permit the Iraqi people to shape their own future, in freedom and without fear.

The United States will support the Iraqi people in this effort. In a September 2002 interview with the Financial Times of London, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that the United States will be "completely devoted" to the reconstruction of Iraq as a unified, democratic state after Saddam Hussein is gone.

On October 16, 2002, President Bush said:

I hope the good people of Iraq will remember our history, and not pay attention to the hateful propaganda of their government. America has never sought to dominate, has never sought to conquer. We've always sought to liberate and to free. Our desire is to help Iraqi citizens find the blessings of liberty within their own culture and their own traditions. The Iraqi people cannot flourish under a dictator that oppresses them and threatens them. Gifted people of Iraq will flourish if and when oppression is lifted.

When Iraq has a government committed to the freedom and well-being of its people, America, along with many other nations, will share a responsibility to help Iraq reform and prosper. And we will meet our responsibilities. That's our pledge to the Iraqi people.

Two decades ago, Iraq's history effectively stopped and became little more than the story of one man's brutal pursuit of power. But the Iraqi people can now look forward to a time when they will be able to renew their national story and recover their own identities — as a free nation and a free people.