Posted on 06/08/2003 12:08:25 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood, the lights across Iraq are slowly coming back on. The nightly battles have quieted to the occasional rattle of gunfire. Lines at gas stations have shortened to one-hour waits instead of all day. Yet two months after U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad, marking the end of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime and the beginning of a U.S.-led occupation, security is sketchy, basic services are still hobbled and the salaries of many civil servants remain unpaid. On the political front, the interim Iraqi government - once promised by now in some form - seems to be receding into the distance. Dozens of American soldiers have died in attacks since the war's end - attacks some U.S. officials say have been carried out by remnants of Saddam's regime. Increasingly, Iraq's American occupiers are fighting a more subtle war: one against rising expectations. And the people of this nation, savaged by decades of dictatorship, war and international sanctions, are growing impatient. "I'm disappointed by the United States," said Adnan Messin, an unemployed truck driver and occasional electrician, reviving battered appliances in a Baghdad alley of repair stalls. "The political situation is better. But everything else is worse." "We just wanted Saddam kicked out," said Messin, an intense man with a welt of facial scars. "But now it's an occupation." That's exactly what Iraq's U.S.-led administrators don't want to hear. As its mission evolves, the occupational government has changed the name it uses. For the first two months, it called itself the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. In recent days, it has operated as the Coalition Provisional Authority - a shift in language that emphasizes authority rather than reconstruction. Whatever its name, it governs Iraq from inside the well-guarded compound of the former presidential palace, a small city of preposterously marbled mansions, offices and canals built for Saddam, his family and the military and Baath Party elite. The occupiers are trying to prove that a new dictator hasn't moved in. But the longer they wait, the more Iraqis are starting to worry about exactly that. The United States initially indicated that some manner of interim government - or at least an Iraqi group to help create one - would be in place by early June. At the core of that plan were seven prominent opposition groups, many led by exiles with little support inside the country. That blueprint has been shelved, replaced by a less-defined "consultation process." The provisional authority hopes the new plan brings the widest possible spectrum of Iraqi society into an interim government. The consultations will lead to a "political council" of 25 to 30 prominent Iraqis - including the original seven groups - that is expected to begin working in July. That council would help assemble the interim government. In a country mired in political chaos, the United States sees great danger in handing over power too quickly. Fearing that some emerging parties may be backed by Baathists, the U.S. military says it has been quietly investigating some of them. Holding elections too soon would rush a democratic process in a political climate which is not fully prepared, a senior occupation official said on condition of anonymity. But some Iraqis - particularly the seven groups whose influence was suddenly diluted - see things very differently. The consultative process "is a regression from previous promises and deals made with the Iraqi opposition," said Entifadh Qanbar, spokeswoman for the Iraqi National Congress, a group with long ties to the Pentagon. While politics plods, the United States is promoting its reconstruction efforts. American soldiers are highly visible, not just in hundreds of daily patrols but also organizing garbage cleanups, fixing sewage plants and repairing telephone switching stations. The country had a reasonably stable infrastructure until American air attacks began in March. Electricity, for large parts of the day, was the norm in most big cities, and water was fairly accessible. Crime was minimal in a country that dealt brutally with transgressors - both criminal and political. The U.S. attack launched weeks of chaos: water, electricity and phone service disappeared, crime grew rampant, salaries disappeared for millions of people. "The Americans left these problems for regular Iraqis to solve and look at what happened," said Hassan Jabar, 31, gesturing at garbage piled on his Baghdad street corner. As for the American-organized cleanup going on around him, "Why did it take them so long? This was a clean neighborhood under Saddam." The occupiers insist that, for most Iraqis, the situation is improving. "Are bad things going on? Yes. But is it out of control? No. Is it getting better? Yes," said Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police chief brought in to help with security. The U.S.-led occupiers "are in something that approaches a no-win situation," said Christopher Holoman, a political scientist at Hilbert College in Hamburg, N.Y. "If they stay too long they risk resentment, and if they leave too soon they risk anarchy." --
I've heard this before and can't wrap my brain around it. How is it possible for anyone we want to work to not be paid by now? Their salaries are like $20US-- it's ridiculous.
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