WE'RE WITH OMAR:

The Road Map for A Sovereign Iraq: Our plan for security and democracy after June 30. (PAUL WOLFOWITZ, June 9, 2004, Wall Street Journal)

President Bush recently outlined a five-step plan for helping Iraqis move beyond occupation to a fully constitutional government, a government that rejects weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, preserves Iraq's territorial integrity and lives peacefully with its neighbors. The plan involves five interdependent phases to build Iraqis' capacity to manage their own affairs successfully. [...]

The fifth step in the president's plan involves nurturing Iraq's capacity for representative self-government, leading to a constitutional government by the end of 2005.

When day-to-day governing responsibility is transferred on June 30, work will already be under way on the next phase in the process as defined by the Transitional Administrative Law, a kind of interim constitution written by the Iraqis in March. The Interim Government will serve until the end of 2004, when Iraqis will go to the polls to elect representatives for the first freely elected national government in Iraq's history. Ensuring adequate security for elections will be a major challenge and will require the help of Coalition forces. By the end of 2005, Iraqis are scheduled to vote on a new constitution that protects the rights of all of its citizens, of all religious and ethnic groups.

The killers and torturers who kept Saddam in power all these years and their terrorist allies--who also fear a free Iraq--will do everything they can, through terror and violence, to block that progress. They are experts in sowing death and destruction and they should not be underestimated. But they offer nothing positive for the Iraqi people, and the evil they represent is one that few Iraqis want for themselves or their children. By enabling Iraqis to take the lead in the fight for Iraq's future, we will confront the Saddamists and terrorists with the defeat that Zarqawi fears.

Nothing is more important to world security than defeating the forces of evil by nurturing the seeds of freedom--especially in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our enemies understand that these are now the central battlegrounds in the war on terrorism. But the burden is not ours alone. In a remarkably short time, Iraqi leaders, for all their diversity, have shown that they are learning the arts of political compromise--and that they are dedicated to their country's unity. Now is the moment when Iraqis must rise to the challenge. Now is the time for Iraqis to take the future of Iraq into their own hands.

The blogger Omar's final reflection in the wake of Izzedine Salim's death is a further indication that Iraqis are ready. "Are we sad?" he wrote in his Web log. "Yes of course, but we're absolutely not discouraged because we know our enemies and we decided to go in this battle to the end. . . . I've tasted freedom, my friends, and I'd rather die fighting to preserve my freedom before I find myself trapped in another nightmare of blood and oppression."