Evidently, our efforts in Iraq have been paying off. The wasted resources, the dead soldiers and civilians and the devastation of a country have resulted in the expulsion of a corrupt government and a replacement regime that is just as crooked.

The newly implemented Iraqi government recently adopted a provision making it illegal for any reporter in Iraq to publish anything offensive toward the government, or any of its officials. What a great start for a fledging government trying to reinvent itself in the wake of a tyrannical ruler.

A free press is one of the most important aspects of an emancipated government. If the corruptions of political officials and institutions can’t be exposed by the free and independent press, the chances that those corruptions will ever come to light are slim to none. In fact, that’s the point, and it makes one wonder why the government would want to restrict what the press says about them.

The really suspicious thing in this whole situation is that the American government isn’t much better. The U.S. military has been confining Iraqi reporters under the suspicion that they have been assisting the insurgency.

A recent “New York Times” article revealed that one Iraqi journalist has been detained by the military since last April without being officially charged. Ever since we have been endorsing a free press, we have been suppressing it as well.

Some of the rhetoric included in this newest addition to Iraq’s laws comes straight from Saddam Hussein’s penal code. I find it hard to imagine that Iraqi citizens feel safer under leaders that are simply picking up where the last dictator left off. Clearly this new government, that Bush is so proud of, is not the luminary of democracy that he had anticipated.

It’s not as though journalists in Iraq only have to worry about government controls. More than 130 reporters have been killed since the invasion by the United States. This new law only adds more obstacles, as reporters have to avoid government officials, as well as hit-men.

If our efforts in Iraq are to be taken seriously – and at this point, we need all the credibility we can get – we have to encourage an ethically responsible government. And let’s face it: politicians will always be tempted to take the quickest (and usually least ethical) path to the top.

Freedom of the press is something no liberated country can do without. Once devoid of that, Americans could never have been informed of lobbyist corruption in Washington, the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Watergate, etc. Those who cannot be in the White House or in Congress on a daily basis depend on the consistent exposure of politicians by reporters.

More than anything, Iraq needs a free press. If that devastated country needs one thing at the birth of its new government, it is an unrestricted body of people willing to expose the injustices its new leaders just may be willing to impose upon it. And as the nation that placed that country in this position, the United States must be prepared to facilitate the process.