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 Published on Monday, May 5, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Struggles in Quicksand of Iraq
Continuing disorder is fueling skepticism and allowing competing political
forces to fill the void.

by Alissa J. Rubin
 
BAGHDAD ‹ Nearly a month after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, the
reconstruction effort is struggling to gain visibility and credibility,
crime is a continuing problem, Iraqis desperate for jobs and security are
becoming angry and the transition to democracy promised by President Bush
seems rife with risk.
The continuing disorder in a country accustomed to the repressive but
absolute stability provided by Saddam Hussein is fueling at least a deep
skepticism about U.S. intentions and at worst a dangerous anti-Americanism.
As competing religious, tribal and territorial political forces move to fill
the void, they threaten to divide the country rather than unite it.

Iraqis hold a protest in front of a U.S. Army checkpoint at the Palestine
Hotel in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad Monday, May 5, 2003. (AP
Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Interviews with political analysts, exile figures and ordinary Iraqis
throughout the country, coupled with developments on the ground, indicate
that the United States' power to control Iraq and shape its future is
increasingly threatened by the pervasive uncertainty.
On many fronts, U.S. officials appear to have been unprepared for what
awaited them in Iraq, from mundane concerns such as how to cope with the
lack of telephones to philosophical questions such as how to respond to the
desire of many Iraqis for an Islamic state.
"The Americans and the British became obsessed with getting rid of Saddam;
they thought he was responsible for all the catastrophes in Iraq," said
Wamid Nadmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University. "But they
have opened a Pandora's box."
U.S. officials say they are aware that time is of the essence.
"We're moving as fast as we can," said Lewis Lucke, reconstruction chief for
retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the interim administrator. "I don't
ever think it's fast enough."
U.S. officials point out that electricity is on again in much of the
country; oil is being pumped in the southern fields; and many police, fire
and emergency workers have been given a $20 stipend and are returning to
their jobs. There have been numerous local success stories as well, with
individual U.S. military commanders helping to reopen schools and protecting
public facilities from looters.
But often, U.S. officials seem stymied by the competing imperatives to get
the country running while not appearing to be a dictatorial occupying force.
Efforts to restore security, revive services, begin reconstruction and set
up a new government are encountering difficulty.
For instance:
€  The looting that began the day after Hussein's regime fell has yet to
end. On Sunday, a crowd stormed into one of the palaces recently left
unprotected by U.S. soldiers. Without a true police force in place, the
wide-scale stealing has spawned a culture of lawlessness. Gun markets
flourish on Baghdad's back streets, and armed robberies and carjackings have
become common.
€  Garner's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance,
responsible for running the country, has yet to make its presence felt. With
mass media in the capital limited to two radio stations, the office hasn't
figured out how to communicate with the Iraqi people. There is no U.S.
government office accessible to ordinary Iraqis.
€  Many key contracts for rebuilding Iraq were not awarded until after the
war started, and many contractors are waiting in hotels in Kuwait for the
green light from the U.S. military that it is safe to enter the country.
€  As the U.S. tries to help set up a new Iraqi government, the exile groups
that many U.S. officials hoped Iraqis would rally around have won little
popular support. Meanwhile, the organizations that are showing political
strength ‹ including some Shiite Muslim groups backed by Iran ‹ are
potentially hostile to U.S. aims.
Although the reconstruction effort is only weeks old, the Bush
administration is already stressing that it would like to shift to an
Iraqi-led government as soon as possible. At the same time, the lack of a
visible American presence has sown doubts about U.S. intentions and
frustrated ordinary Iraqis.
Few if any people here have even heard of Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the
commander of ground forces in Iraq, who has kept such a low profile as to be
almost invisible. Last week he issued a proclamation saying he was the lead
authority and forbidding looting, reprisals and criminal activity. But it
was never widely distributed, and few people even know about it.
As for Garner and his staff, they are just beginning to communicate with the
public. Their few reconstruction steps ‹ including giving out money to
returning workers ‹ have yet to be applied evenly throughout Iraq.
In Nasiriyah on Sunday, teachers demanded to be paid, and the newly
constituted city council threatened to quit unless salaries were distributed
to all government workers.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell predicted Sunday that progress would
accelerate. "As stability is gained throughout the country and security is
obtained, and as the various ministries come back up online, more and more
other sorts of organizations will come in," he said on NBC's "Meet the
Press." "U.N. organizations, nongovernmental organizations, lots of our
friends and allies will be sending in peacekeeping forces So there is a
transition taking place."
But Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, expressed frustration Sunday over reconstruction in general and
reports of infighting between the State Department and the Pentagon over
rebuilding plans.
"This has had to proceed perhaps sort of on the run, but long ago in our
committee we asked for people to give us some idea of how the organization
might proceed, and the ideas were fairly sketchy," Lugar said on CNN's "Late
Edition." "They are far too sketchy now."
More than anywhere, it is on the political front that the U.S. faces
problems. The country is a barely intact jigsaw puzzle of competing groups
divided by religion, tribal affiliation and ethnicity.
Washington's main entry to Iraq was via the exile groups it had sponsored in
Britain and the United States. While those groups are organized and speak in
the American idiom of democracy and governance, they have little support
among the Iraqi public.
"They are the worst gamble the Americans could make," said Maher Abdullah,
an anchor for the Al Jazeera satellite television channel who has followed
Iraq for years. "Everybody's image here is that they are CIA agents. Whether
that's true or false, it's what people believe. Secondly, most of these guys
have been away for years. They don't know anything about the country, about
people's day-to-day priorities."
That skepticism was on display at Friday prayers in the heavily Shiite
Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad formerly known as Saddam City. As more than
20,000 men prepared their prayer mats for services, Gaylan Tayr, a writer,
stood with several friends and rattled off the names of the exile political
groups supported by U.S. officials.
"These parties are all new, and we don't know anything about them. They may
be set up by the Americans, so how can we trust them? How can we vote for
them?" he said.
As exile groups have sought to create power bases, some have sent signals
that they make their own law. They have been traveling with heavily armed
bodyguards and in some cases have appropriated homes and buildings for their
own use.
A recent meeting of five exile leaders at a downtown Baghdad hotel looked
like a scene out of "The Godfather, Part II." Snipers leaned out windows,
and the pavement outside was lined with bodyguards who bristled with
automatic weapons. A small group of U.S. troops, who escorted the heavily
armed exiles to the hotel, was also on hand.
While U.S. officials have spoken repeatedly about the importance of
indigenous Iraqi leaders, those who have broad recognition are primarily
religious figures who, to varying degrees, support an Islamic government for
Iraq. One of the first arrests made by U.S. forces in Baghdad was that of
Sheik Mohammed Fartusi, a rising religious figure who is backed by the
powerful Al Hawza movement, a Shiite Muslim group. It was unclear why he was
detained.
Although the troops let him go within a few hours, the incident appalled
many Shiites and raised Fartusi's profile.
With the U.S. giving limited attention to any indigenous figures, exiles are
increasingly confident that they will dominate the next phase of government
in Iraq.
"The Americans have realized that the much-talked-about Iraqi leadership who
was to emerge from within is largely mythical," said Zaab Sethna, a
spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, an exile group that
has strong backing among some Pentagon officials and has received funding
from the State Department. "That's led them back to the Iraqi opposition,
and they do see the Iraqi opposition as the nucleus for a new transitional
government."
The Kurdish political parties, who have ruled northern Iraq as a de facto
independent area outside of Hussein's control since the early 1990s, also
see little role for indigenous leaders. They have proposed that half the
delegates at the National Assembly scheduled for the end of May to choose a
transitional government be from exile organizations.
While U.S. attention is focused on this kind of political maneuvering, other
groups with little if any allegiance to Washington are quietly gaining
ground in Baghdad's slums, the Shiite Muslim south of the country and Sunni
Muslim tribal areas.
Rather than attempting to form political parties, these groups have made the
strategic political decision to make themselves indispensable to their
people.
Within 10 days of Baghdad's fall, for instance, mosques began providing
crucial services ‹ including water distribution, garbage collection and
security guards ‹ that Americans have been unable to organize.
Religious leaders are asserting control over an increasing number of
institutions. Walk into any clinic in the former Saddam City and someone
will quickly introduce himself as an emissary from the Al Hawza movement.
The Shiite Muslim organization, based in the holy city of Najaf, encompasses
an array of well-funded charitable organizations. A number of Iraqis believe
the group is funded in part by Iran. The group also has connections to a
number of Muslim leaders, some with political ambitions.
So far, U.S. officials appear to have had little contact with Shiite groups
inside Iraq. An exile Shiite group was added only recently to the inner
circle of organizations with which the Americans are working.
Without involving Shiites, it is unlikely that the U.S. will be able to win
the hearts and minds of Iraqis, analysts say. Although Shiites are hardly
monolithic in their views, they make up roughly 60% of the country.
"One day, the Americans will have to hold elections, and it's clear the
Shiites will sweep the polls," said Nadmi, the political scientist.
"Americans are selective about the democracy they want. They want democracy
that suits their interests and values."
The only potential countervailing force, analysts say, are the supporters of
Hussein's Baath Party who used to run the country. They know how to organize
people, they have a political base and they have concrete administrative
knowledge.
For the U.S., an alliance with the Baathists would be a double-edged sword.
Without them, it would be hard to get the country running, but working with
them would thrust the Americans right into the arms of the people they just
ousted from power. It also would feed distrust among Iraqis at large about
government agencies.
For the moment, U.S. officials are trying to have it both ways with the
Baathists. To get the country's electrical network, telephone system and
ministries running again, U.S. officials are working with middle managers
from the party. The Americans say that these bureaucrats are apolitical and
that only the top Iraqi ministers were tainted by their links to Hussein.
Others, however, say the situation is not so clear-cut.
"We've made it very clear to Garner and the U.S. government that it's a bad
mistake to bring Baathists back into a position of power. That's the fastest
way to spawn anti-Americanism," said Sethna, the Iraqi National Congress
spokesman. "The U.S. can't tell the bad guys from the good guys, and there
are many, many people who are tainted by the former regime and who were
corrupt. And I don't think the U.S. is even looking at that."
Compounding the problem is the fact that many contractors hired by the U.S.
have yet to arrive in Iraq or are just setting up their operations.
North Carolina-based Research Triangle Institute was hired April 11 by the
U.S. Agency for International Development to help create 180 local and
provincial governments in Iraq. Under a contract worth as much as $167
million, one of RTI's immediate tasks is to help identify "appropriate,
legitimate" Iraqis to assume key government posts in villages and towns.
But the nonprofit group's first representatives arrived in Baghdad only
Wednesday. In their absence, people ranging from former Baathists to
pro-Iranian spiritual leaders have assumed government positions.
In another case, DynCorp, a subsidiary of El Segundo-based Computer Sciences
Corp., won a $150-million contract to train a new Iraqi police force. But
the contract was awarded just two weeks ago, and the firm has yet to be
allowed into the country because the U.S. military considers Iraq too
dangerous for DynCorp staff to set up shop.
In the meantime, crime is rife and many businesses are afraid to open. The
country feels stalled, and Americans are being blamed. Many Iraqis predict
it will be difficult for Americans to improve things and break the cycle of
dysfunction, let alone win popular support.
"The Americans promised us jobs, security and safety and none of those have
materialized," said Abid Ali Kubaisi, a silk merchant in the Euphrates River
town of Fallouja, who shut down his business for fear it would be pillaged.
"People who have no jobs are going to fight, they are going loot, and
everyone here has their own weapons," he said.
Staff writers Mark Fineman and Michael Slackman in Baghdad, Megan Stack in
Nasiriyah and Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Times.
###

 
   FAI


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