Saturday’s Surge

Are some Iraqis afraid the withdrawal will be too fast?
I hope now, in the last year or last few months, people have started to trust more the Iraqi security forces. They feel that there has been some purging the ministries of the militias of the last few years. Still, we need more effort to make our institutions more national and professional.

You were the director of the Fallujah hospital and sometimes the American military disputed your reports of casualties. Now they work closely with you.
To me it is the same. I used to do my job in the hospital to serve my people. Now as a politician I do my job to serve my people. During the war I focused on decreasing the number of casualties simply because of my job as a doctor. Now shifting to politics, it's the same thing to me. I have to focus on building relationships exactly like doctors and to protect and preserve the rights of the people. Before I was focusing only on the ill, now I am focusing on the entire population.

I did not think at that time that I would work in politics at all. It was a decision of some of my friends, some of my tribe who elected me in the last election.

I think the Americans have changed a lot. At the beginning we were talking about war, and now we are talking about a strategic relationship.

Did your feelings for Americans change?
They attacked every house in the city. Anyone who is sitting in a city receiving casualties, you will not accept that behavior or those events at all. At the same time, I was a member of a delegation of citizens that was talking to the Americans in Camp Fallujah. I tried from that time to bridge the relations between Fallujans and Americans, and now I try to bridge the relations between Iraqis and Americans.

I hated the war, I hated the casualties and I hated the destroyed houses in my city. The [Americans] focused on how Al Qaeda was controlling the city but it was very, very difficult for the Iraqi people to kick Al Qaeda out during that period.

You never went into exile under Saddam. Do you look at things differently than politicians who returned from exile?
I look at the Iraqi politicians [in exile] as people who were trying to change the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But if you are talking about expertise, there might be more among those who were inside. But not all people could stay during the period of Saddam Hussein, so both are participating, those who were inside and outside.