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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Rick Barton

Aired April 19, 2003 - 14:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us to talk more about rebuilding Iraq is Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington, and Rick, I know you've got a lot of experience with this from your days at the U.N. and USAID. So let me get right to it. Given what we know about this state of Iraq's economy, about the state of the amount that is going to have to get done for reconstruction, where do you start? How do you rebuild this society?
RICK BARTON, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Well, as some of your earlier reports have cited, clearly security, public safety is number one. You really don't have the confidence of the citizenry. You cannot bring much in from outside, unless people feel safe. So that really is the precondition for all progress.

After that, you have to capture the imagination of the Iraqi people, because this is, after all, their country and their future. And you don't want to establish too paternalistic a model.

But there is one key thing that the outside world could be doing, and that is to lighten the burden on Iraq. Right now they are encumbered with all sorts of financial obligations that Saddam Hussein's regime has generated, and unless those are freed, there will not be enough resources to do the job well.

KOPPEL: Well, I know the Kuwaitis have already said that they are not going to waive the debt that Iraq owes them. But getting back to sort of the economy, the economic side of this, how would you go about, how should one go about rebuilding a market economy?

BARTON: Well, what you have to do is build on the few strengths that are there right now. Obviously, it's been a command economy. There has been a limited amount of local initiative.

But the positive news of the sanction period has been that Iraqis have become rather industrious in the last 10 years. They have salvaged bits and pieces from power plants to keep other power plants going. They have taken second jobs because people were really not getting paid. There has been a booming black market within a rather depressed economy.

Those are all signs of entrepreneurial spirit. Now the key piece is how do you engage the broadest number of people? So any programming that's done should really be looking at getting the most people at every level of society engaged in every part of the country, and that's why something like getting the schools started again and paying teachers makes sense. You pay teachers, that gets the student population going back into a normal way of life. Forty percent of the people of Iraq are under 14. So right away you have a good demographics slice. They obviously have parents and grandparents, and so you start to create a sense of normalcy, which is really the first transition phase.

KOPPEL: Knowing just how nationalistic the Iraqi people are, do you think it's potentially problematic -- the Bush administration has said that they're going to phase out the dinar and phase in a new currency, perhaps even based on the U.S. dollar. Do you think that that's going to go over well?

BARTON: We have found in a lot of these post conflict places, and I remember Bosnia, the Deutsch mark, at that point, the German currency was the means of exchange, and you had to do everything in cash. There will be a transition period. Again, I think if people recognized that it's a transition period and there is a larger plan, which is very much driven by Iraqi design and by Iraqi desires, then you will not have the awkwardness of this interim period.

KOPPEL: Rick, you also mentioned the importance of capturing the imagination of the Iraqi people. How important is the psychological component to all of this? That is, if you get people psyched up, that this is going to work? Or the opposite, if they feel that it isn't going to work, how does that factor into the eventual success or failure of a venture like this?

BARTON: It is absolutely critical. I remember in the early days in Bosnia that many, many Bosniacs at that point wanted the United States to be in charge. They were hoping that somebody would take care of them. And we would say to them, NATO will not be Tito, because they've had 40 years of peace and calm. Clearly, there will be some people who will want the United States to do that, to restore order. But this is their country. We have to make that message clear throughout, and every good plan needs to be very publicly made and publicly known, and we haven't done a good job of that yet. There seems to be a secretiveness around this, which doesn't make sense if in fact what we are doing is helping the people of the country.

KOPPEL: Rick Barton, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. I know we have just scratched the surface, but thank you very much.

BARTON: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired April 19, 2003 - 14:38   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us to talk more about rebuilding Iraq is Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington, and Rick, I know you've got a lot of experience with this from your days at the U.N. and USAID. So let me get right to it. Given what we know about this state of Iraq's economy, about the state of the amount that is going to have to get done for reconstruction, where do you start? How do you rebuild this society?
RICK BARTON, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Well, as some of your earlier reports have cited, clearly security, public safety is number one. You really don't have the confidence of the citizenry. You cannot bring much in from outside, unless people feel safe. So that really is the precondition for all progress.

After that, you have to capture the imagination of the Iraqi people, because this is, after all, their country and their future. And you don't want to establish too paternalistic a model.

But there is one key thing that the outside world could be doing, and that is to lighten the burden on Iraq. Right now they are encumbered with all sorts of financial obligations that Saddam Hussein's regime has generated, and unless those are freed, there will not be enough resources to do the job well.

KOPPEL: Well, I know the Kuwaitis have already said that they are not going to waive the debt that Iraq owes them. But getting back to sort of the economy, the economic side of this, how would you go about, how should one go about rebuilding a market economy?

BARTON: Well, what you have to do is build on the few strengths that are there right now. Obviously, it's been a command economy. There has been a limited amount of local initiative.

But the positive news of the sanction period has been that Iraqis have become rather industrious in the last 10 years. They have salvaged bits and pieces from power plants to keep other power plants going. They have taken second jobs because people were really not getting paid. There has been a booming black market within a rather depressed economy.

Those are all signs of entrepreneurial spirit. Now the key piece is how do you engage the broadest number of people? So any programming that's done should really be looking at getting the most people at every level of society engaged in every part of the country, and that's why something like getting the schools started again and paying teachers makes sense. You pay teachers, that gets the student population going back into a normal way of life. Forty percent of the people of Iraq are under 14. So right away you have a good demographics slice. They obviously have parents and grandparents, and so you start to create a sense of normalcy, which is really the first transition phase.

KOPPEL: Knowing just how nationalistic the Iraqi people are, do you think it's potentially problematic -- the Bush administration has said that they're going to phase out the dinar and phase in a new currency, perhaps even based on the U.S. dollar. Do you think that that's going to go over well?

BARTON: We have found in a lot of these post conflict places, and I remember Bosnia, the Deutsch mark, at that point, the German currency was the means of exchange, and you had to do everything in cash. There will be a transition period. Again, I think if people recognized that it's a transition period and there is a larger plan, which is very much driven by Iraqi design and by Iraqi desires, then you will not have the awkwardness of this interim period.

KOPPEL: Rick, you also mentioned the importance of capturing the imagination of the Iraqi people. How important is the psychological component to all of this? That is, if you get people psyched up, that this is going to work? Or the opposite, if they feel that it isn't going to work, how does that factor into the eventual success or failure of a venture like this?

BARTON: It is absolutely critical. I remember in the early days in Bosnia that many, many Bosniacs at that point wanted the United States to be in charge. They were hoping that somebody would take care of them. And we would say to them, NATO will not be Tito, because they've had 40 years of peace and calm. Clearly, there will be some people who will want the United States to do that, to restore order. But this is their country. We have to make that message clear throughout, and every good plan needs to be very publicly made and publicly known, and we haven't done a good job of that yet. There seems to be a secretiveness around this, which doesn't make sense if in fact what we are doing is helping the people of the country.

KOPPEL: Rick Barton, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. I know we have just scratched the surface, but thank you very much.

BARTON: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com