‘Wave Of Violence’ Against Women In Iraq Undercuts Bush’s Claims Of Success

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 7:40 AM on November 24, 2007.

This post, written by Amanda Terkel, originally appeared on Think Progress

In recent weeks, the Bush administration has cited declining violence in Iraq as evidence of the success. Earlier this month, President Bush said that Iraqis are slowly "taking back their country."

But last night, NBC Nightly News aired a segment about a "wave of violence that's gone largely unreported lately against women in Iraq." The report noted that Iraqi women, once "the most emancipated in the Arab world," are increasingly unable to walk around without a hijab, wear cosmetics, or work. Watch the report to your right.

Bush has largely ignored the deteriorating plight of Iraqi women, choosing instead to cite signs of "progress." Yet earlier in the war, he and other administration officials repeatedly claimed that the rights of Iraqi women were "inseparable" to success:

"The advance of women's rights and the advance of liberty are ultimately inseparable." [President Bush, 3/14/04]

"President Bush has made the advance of women's human rights a global policy priority. ... We all have an obligation to speak for women who are denied their rights to learn, to vote or to live in freedom." [Laura Bush, 3/8/05]

"The commitment of this administration to women's rights in Iraq is unshakable." [Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, 3/9/04]

"There can be no compromise on the principle that Iraqis can each have an equal role in the building of their country's future without regard to their ethnic or religious background or gender." [Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, 8/8/05]

Many Iraqi women who have fled to Syria are increasingly forced to turn to prostitution, as they struggle to support their children after their husbands were killed in Iraq's violence.

Tagged as: violence, iraq, women

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.