The Pennsylvania-based American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) stepped up its work in Iraq after a bombing campaign carried out by the United States and Britain against Iraqi targets in 1998, in the wake of the withdrawal of U.N. weapons inspectors. Peter Lems, programme assistant for Iraq, talked to Katherine Arie about the Quaker organisation’s relationship with Iraq and its attempts to mobilise U.S. public opinion against another U.S.-led bombing campaign.AN: What’s the history of the AFSC?PL: It was founded in 1917, during World War One. Initially it was an organisation that provided non-military alternatives, such as relief work in Europe, to conscientious objectors -- ambulance drivers, people who were involved in what was happening, but not in a military capacity. The organisation received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948 on behalf of Quakers for their work with refugees from the Second World War. We’ve diversified a great deal since then. We’re now actively involved in social justice issues in the United States and still have a very deep commitment to overseas humanitarian work.AN: To what extent does being a Quaker organisation affect the work you do?PL: Most directly, we are based on Quaker principles. We are committed to speaking to all sides in a conflict, for example. With regard to Iraq, that means we have relationships with the government and, of course, with our own government, and we try to advocate to both the same message.AN: How long has the AFSC been involved in Iraq?PL: We were one of the first NGOs (non-government organisations) to have an office in Baghdad in 1991, following the Gulf War. We were helping to coordinate efforts of international NGOs doing work in Iraq at that time.AN: What’s it like for a U.S.-based NGO to work in Iraq?PL: NGOs don’t work in Iraq the way we might think of them operating in Europe or the United States. There are parts of the government of Iraq that deal with NGOs, but NGOs do not have the type of independence or the ability to act outside the interests of the government. It’s a very centralised government, so any NGOs that work in Iraq have to work with the government. We’re able to go in and say, we’re able to go in and say: "We want to do x, y, and z project," and they will help us do x, y, and z project. So the partners we work with are the Iraqi Red Crescent, or other organisations that are attached to the government. We’re not doing the bidding of the government, but at the same time I’d caution not to use the word NGO because Iraq itself doesn’t have that sort of culture. It just doesn’t exist. What I’m trying to say is they work with us and we’re NGOs who work in the country.AN: So it’s not easy for NGOs to work in Iraq.PL: No, but it’s not Iraq only. Our own government makes it difficult to work there. The permissions that are necessary, the permits that are necessary, are not always forthcoming, are delayed and sometimes never given. Because of the oil-for-food programme, and the way all monies are controlled by the U.N., it’s very difficult to have any sort of systematic planning or rehabilitation schedule or a building schedule. You never know, for example, if the materials are going to be released by the U.N. So it’s not at all that the government of Iraq is uniquely difficult to work with. It’s the whole system that makes it difficult to work in Iraq.AN: What’s going on right now? Are you making preparations for the worst case scenario – war in Iraq – or are you focusing on advocacy against war at this point?PL: We’re doing both. Our primary focus is advocacy. In fact, our primary focus towards Iraq has always been to change U.S. policy. What we have done over the years is to use relief projects in Iraq as a way to bring attention to the suffering from the sanctions. We’ve had three main projects in the last four years. One was to rebuild schools in the south and outside Baghdad. One was to install water purifiers. And the most recent was to rebuild a water treatment centre. We look at the projects we do as very important for the people we touch, the children in the school, the people who get the clean water, but there are just a drop in the bucket of what’s necessary in the country. So we use the relief projects as a way to illustrate the crisis in Iraq and as a way to get people engaged in advocacy here to change U.S. policy, which we see as necessary to relieve suffering in Iraq.AN: Is this policy specific to Iraq, because it’s hard to do relief in Iraq, or is it a broader philosophy of the AFSC?PL: It’s a broader philosophy. We’re small by relief standards. But what we do have is a very deep commitment to promoting sustainable development and using relief to illustrate what we see as a crisis. For example, we use the water treatment project in Iraq as a way to get Americans to feel connected, and to build bridges with Iraqis and it starts to develop a community of people here who realise Iraq is a vulnerable country, no longer just a distant country. They see pictures of children in schools at their desks, they see pictures of the water treatment centre and they realise that people in Iraq are the same as we are. That’s the most important part of these projects, so people can see past the demonisation of Saddam Hussein or the government of Iraq. We also use it as a foundation to talk about what we hope the Iraqis will do and what we hope our own government will do to foster diplomacy and find a peaceful way to get out of this conflict.AN: Do you find that this method reaches Americans?PL: I think it does. We certainly speak for a community, and I think there are forces larger than us that have helped to change the way Americans think about Iraq. Part of what we’re really encouraging people to do is to increase the visibility of the opposition, so that people can feel as though Americans of many different stripes are deeply concerned about a rush to war, for a whole lot of different reasons. Some who disagree with the reasons the generals have given, or reasons the Republican leaders have given, and many others for broader reasons -- that Iraq is a vulnerable country, that we’re concerned about the impact war will have on the region, what it means for the overall thrust of American foreign policy in the world. Will we always act unilaterally and pre-emptively, just because we can? Have we abandoned diplomacy? Those are the bigger concerns that overlie the crisis in Iraq and, in many ways, it’s a test case.AN: What does the Iraqi government think about working with you?PL: The Iraqis have been very welcoming to NGOs. I think it’s important to realise that the government of Iraq and the people in Iraq have been on a war footing for 20 years, with the war with Iran, the Gulf War, and 12 years of sanctions. So there’s been consistent pressure on that country for so long that I don’t think it’s had an opportunity to welcome us in a calm way. But they have been open, they’ve invited Americans to see impact of the sanctions, they’ve been open to the issues we’ve raised with them, particularly with regard to allowing weapons inspectors back into the country, which we applaud.AN: How would you gauge the situation in Iraq right now?PL: I just returned from Iraq in June, with a delegation of Quakers from around the country who represent some Quaker meetings which have funded some of our relief projects in Iraq, and we were told over and over by U.N. officials and European NGOs working in Iraq that Iraq is a very vulnerable country. The food chain that all Iraqis depend on is so tenuous that if it’s interrupted by a sustained bombing campaign or by a war, there would be famine. That was told to us in so many different ways. That’s an urgent message that we tried to carry back with us and are trying to spread now.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (L) walks with U.S. Army Lt. General Kenneth Hunzeker after arriving at Baghdad International Airport December 10, 2009. Secretary Gates is in Iraq following a ...
