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Saturday, October 16, 2004
Iraq native Bob Rasho of
Forsyth returning to homeland to help
with reconstruction
By
HUEY FREEMAN - H&R Staff Writer
FORSYTH - Bob Rasho believes the war
in Iraq is the right war at the right time.The 66-year-old former
civil engineer is moving to Baghdad to act upon his belief.
"I will be part of the U.S. Embassy
staff in Baghdad," Rasho said in an interview at his Forsyth
home, where he has lived since 1980. Rasho's assignment will
be to advise Iraqis on reconstruction projects as part of the
State Department's Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office.
A native of Iraq who has lived in the
United States since 1959, Rasho said he is motivated by a desire
to serve his adopted homeland.
"I feel that I owe it to this country,"
said Rasho, a friendly, easygoing man who became a U.S. citizen
in 1970. "This is a unique opportunity to serve this country
in a time and place where I can be useful for our overall cause.
I feel very strongly for the cause of fighting the war on terrorism."
The retired Illinois Power project manager
flies to Washington, D.C., on Sunday to receive two weeks of
State Department training before joining the staff in Iraq. He
said his experience as an engineer and manager, as well as his
ability to communicate with Iraqis in their native language,
will help him in his new job.
A native of Habbaniya - in the heart
of the Sunni Triangle, 45 miles from Baghdad - Rasho has not
returned to Iraq since he moved to Chicago as a young engineering
student.
"Moving to America was the dream
of everyone in Iraq, particularly the Christian minority,"
Rasho said, adding that Christians have been systematically persecuted
and discriminated against by the overwhelming Muslim majority.
Rasho belongs to the Assyrian ethnic
group, a minority that traces its roots in the land now called
Iraq to more than 700 years before Christ.
"Assyrians are as ancient as Indians
in the United States," Rasho said. The Assyrians, along
with other minorities, including Kurds and Turks - as well as
the Shiite majority - have been treated as second-class citizens
by the Sunni Arab ruling class in Iraq for more than 80 years,
he said. Rasho said minorities have been discriminated against
in many ways, including employment and educational opportunities.
"We had no rights," Rasho
said.
Since the Baath Party seized control
of the government in 1968, things have gotten worse for all non-Sunnis.
The Sunni Arabs comprise about one-fifth of the nation's population.
"Things have really gotten bad
since Saddam and his Baathists took over," Rasho said. "They
were only good for Sunni Arabs.
"They did not recognize Assyrians
as an ethnic group. They forced them to adopt Arab names and
register as such. This to me is ethnic cleansing."
For example, all sermons in Christian
churches had to be approved in advance by Saddam's secret police.
A picture of Saddam had to be posted in each church, and services
had to include words of praise for the dictator.
Rasho said it infuriates him to hear
so many reports on the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by a few
"stupid, misguided American soldiers" in Abu Ghraib
prison while Saddam's massacres have gone largely unreported.
"He instilled fear in everybody,"
Rasho said. "He massacred hundreds of thousands of people.
He gassed the people of Halabja." In that well-known incident,
the Iraqi Air Force unleashed poison gases on a Kurdish town
in 1988, killing5,000 civilians and injuring 10,000 others.
Human Rights Watch, an independent,
nongovernmental agency, estimates as many as 290,000 Iraqis have
disappeared as a result of the government's actions during the
past 20 years. Since Saddam was deposed, the corpses of many
of those people have been found in mass graves.
Nevertheless, Rasho said he did not
support the idea of overthrowing Saddam until 9/11. Before that,
he advocated the idea that the Iraqis themselves should figure
a way to overthrow Saddam.
"However, 9/11 in my opinion was
a wake-up call to all Americans who cherish our freedom, our
democracy and our way of life," Rasho said. "The wake-up
call was that these fanatic Moslems - not all Moslems -are determined
to destroy our way of life. So we had no choice but to try to
destroy them first."
But why Iraq, and not just Afghanistan,
where al-Qaida had its base?
"Both countries, in my opinion,
were very dangerous in support of terrorism," Rasho said.
"As far as Saddam Hussein, particularly after the United
States and the coalition kicked him out of Kuwait, he was directly
and indirectly supporting terrorism."
As evidence, Rasho cites the presence
in Iraq of Abu Nibal and Abu Musab Zarqawi, known terrorists
believed to be responsible for killing Americans in the Middle
East. Zarqawi, who has been linked to al-Qaida, is the leader
of the group that has been abducting and beheading civilians
in Iraq.
"Saddam was as dangerous, if not
more dangerous, than the Taliban in Afghanistan because Iraq
had rich resources," Rasho said. "The brutality of
Saddam was well-known and his hatred of the United States."
Rasho believes in the strategy of having
well-equipped U.S. soldiers fight jihadists, or Muslim holy warriors,
in Iraq, rather than waiting for them to hit America again.
Pauline, his wife of 33 years, and their
adult children, David and Anne, support his service in Iraq.
"It's just something he wants to
do," Pauline Rasho said. "He's supported this family
through all these years. I feel I need to support this decision."
She said she is not apprehensive, despite
the well-known dangers. Bob Rasho said he will be living in awell-guarded
embassy complex, within the Green Zone, also known as "the
bubble."
The Green Zone suffered its first deadly
attack Thursday. Insurgents triggered bombs at a market and cafe,
killing at least five people, including three American civilians
who worked for a security firm. Monotheism and Jihad, the insurgent
group headed by Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack.
Shortly after hearing news of the attack,
Rasho called the people he will soon be working with in Baghdad.
"They are OK, and I am still proceeding
with my plans," Rasho said, adding that there are thousands
of people working in the zone. "The group I am with is all
safe. My future colleagues are all OK. It's a war zone. Things
happen."
Pauline Rasho said she might become
apprehensive once he's gone, but now she is too busy with family
and friends to think about it.
"He will be in the Lord's hands,
and he'll take care of him," she said.
Members of Operation Enduring Support,
a Decatur-based military family support group, have embraced
Rasho as one of their own. He has faithfully attended the group's
weekly meetings for the past 20 months, encouraging service members
who are home on leave and consoling those who have lost loved
ones in battle.
"He's meant an awful lot to the
soldiers because it's made them more aware of the Iraqi people,"
said Betty Gaumer, who leads the support group along with her
husband, David. "Just knowing that he's so supportive and
so appreciative of the efforts has been meant a lot to them."
David Gaumer said he considers Rasho
a loyal American who has been doing a lot for the United States
and will do a lot for Iraq.
"He's just a fabulous person, and
I think it's wonderful that he's doing this," he said.
http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2004/10/16/news/top_story/1003402.txt
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