A noted television network reporter, Terry McCormick, with a long and varied background in and around Iraq recently was discussing the sorry change of events he has seen in the ongoing effort to help Iraq and its people achieve some semblance of a democratic society.

The atmosphere was painful then and it remains so now.

The change from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the growing civil war status in the war-plagued nation is not flattering for those, such as the United States, who have figured in events of the past four years.

The veteran newsman noted the current growing battles between the Sunnis and the Shiites and declared it one of the horrible aftermaths of the Saddam ouster.

“Even though there was a totalitarian society, people of all religious faiths and creeds lived in relative harmony,” McCormick said. The Sunni forces of Saddam were in a distinct minority, about 20 percent of the population, yet the Shi’a majority was not hostile, as it is now.

“Intermarriage was quite common and more than a third of the marriages and family structures of past days crossed the lines of the two faiths. Most people did not even know the status of friends and neighbors because it did not seem to make a difference. Nobody even asked.” McCormick said. “Now, with all the turmoil, the killing, the stealing, the kidnapping and such, there is tremendous polarization and non-fraternization. A businessman does not dare give his card to someone he does not know well because that person and associates could show up that night and kill or spirit away the family. Suspicion and fear rule most scenes.”

McCormick is not optimistic that the current leaders of Iraq can come close to dissolving the hatred and distrust among the various factions now. He is convinced that the conflict, in effect a civil war, will escalate sharply when American forces leave Iraq, whenever that may be.

“We may see the various tribes and groups pull back once they think the Americans will be leaving, but there is little hope of avoiding a horrible bloodbath until someone can step forward and get some form of organization. For all its drawbacks, the dictatorship of Saddam led to far more harmony than we are seeing now or will be seeing for a long time.”

During the Vietnam War we periodically heard from military commanders who declared that they had to destroy a village to save it. Currently the Iraqi “village” seems to be trapped in the process of destruction and there is little evidence of how long it will take to save it.

It should be remembered, however, that the so-called “harmony” McCormick speaks of came only at the price of a brutal ruler who systematically murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of his fellow Iraqis.