IRAQ: Michael Jansen, on her visit to Iraq, found an administration unable to get to grips with the disorder facing Iraqis trying to rebuild their lives
Fed up with 4½ months of anarchy, angry Iraqis cry, "No one rules in Baghdad, nothing runs in Iraq." The iron-fisted regime of former President Saddam Hussein has been replaced with an occupation administration which can neither rule nor run the country.
Iraqis accuse the Coalition Provisional Authority (sulta in Arabic) of being powerless and ineffective. They argue that it is a US-dominated body rather than a coalition effort and claim it is being transformed from being provisional to permanent because it cannot get its act together. Iraqis complain the sulta has no authority because its writ does not extend beyond the walls of US headquarters in the vast Jumhurriya Palace compound on the Tigris.
The 1,000 US officials and consultants in the sulta have no integrated master scheme for restoring order and rebuilding the country. Those charged with running shadow ministries plan for their own sectors and do not co-ordinate and co-operate. In some cases, appointees compete with and even undermine each other. Decisions taken in Iraq are sometimes modified or even reversed by Washington.
Since Iraq's phone system was bombed, looted and burnt, communications between US officials are uncertain. Contacts between the sulta and Iraqis recruited to run the ministries are difficult.
Communications between the sulta and the outside world are even more problematic. Obtaining an appointment with an official at the palace is almost impossible. Gaining entrance without an appointment to fix an appointment is impossible. The dismal record of the sulta has made officials reluctant to talk. Press conferences are routinely cancelled. Journalists outside the US media loop are not encouraged to apply for interviews with officials. The Jumhurriya Palace has become about as inaccessible as it was under Saddam. Now that Paul Bremer, the US chief administrator, lives and works at the palace, its entrances are sealed off with tangles of concertina wire, tanks and scores of heavily armed troops.
While the sulta has delegated to the Iraqi interim Governing Council the respon- sibility of appointing ministers, drafting the constitution, and preparing for elections, Mr Bremer retains ultimate decision-making power. The council, composed of disparate individuals chosen on the basis of sectarian affiliation, has no credibility with Iraqis.
Instead of taking firm decisions which could improve its standing, council members jockey for position. Unable to choose a chairman, the dominant US-backed clique of returnees named nine members to serve as head for a month.
Iraqis wait impatiently for the council to choose ministers to run the country until elections produce a democratic government.
Iraqi ministries are marking time instead of working round the clock to rebuild the devastated infrastructure and economy. They are waiting for someone to make and implement policy. Former civil servants now overseeing the day-to-day running of ministries are not empowered or prepared to take initiatives. No one wants to assume responsibility. No one is in charge. The country drifts from one day to the next without central control, security and essential services.
Without security and electricity, there can be no services and reconstruction or oil revenues to fund the rehabilitation effort. Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner now acting as a consultant to the sulta, has put more than 34,000 Iraqi policemen back to work in Iraq's main cities and hopes to recruit 65,000 by the end of 2004.
Baghdad, a city of five million, had 70,000 police alone before the war. While some members of the newly recruited force have sidearms, few have radio-telephones and cars. Police in each of Baghdad's nine districts formerly had 150 patrol vehicles, but today they have 10.
Most police are station-bound and cannot deal with rampant crime. The only police the public see are unarmed uniformed men at busy intersections trying to direct traffic at rush hours.
Iraqis who used to complain about corruption in the police now say they want their own police back as they know who the crooks were and where to find them. With the aim of deterring looters, the sulta has also created a "facilities protection force" to guard ministries, key installations and hotels where officials, important visitors and journalists reside. Iraqis recognise many of the members of this force as former agents of Saddam's multiple intelligence agencies. Journalists remark that the "heavies" now occupying the chairs in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, a major media centre, are the same men who used to conduct surveillance before the war.
In the absence of order, educators, factory managers, plant foremen and businessmen are being killed, blackmailed and intimidated. Students who do not receive high grades denounce professors and teachers as former Baathists who should be dismissed from their posts. Managers are being murdered if they follow orders from the sulta not to reinstate workers. Unpopular foremen are killed by labourers with grievances. Businessmen, shopkeepers and even street vendors are forced to pay "protection" to armed thugs. Recently the sulta criticised the Baghdad police for breaking up a gang preying on customers and hawkers at a street souq.
The commander of foreign forces in Iraq, Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, admits his troops are fighting a "low-intensity conflict" with anti-occupation groups, as well as carrying out peacekeeping and security duties.
However, with 160,000 troops, he does not have enough soldiers to meet occupation demands. Furthermore, troops in Iraq are not being utilised efficiently and effectively. Ill-positioned military checkpoints and flying roadblocks have little security value but infuriate Iraqis kept waiting in the sun while the temperature soars to 53 degrees. Barriers and vehicle patrols net neither thieves plaguing the populace nor resistance fighters. Raids on private homes and random arrests alienate Iraqis.
The 30,000 US soldiers in Baghdad are based in former military bases, ministries, the Saddam sports complex, the international airport, palaces and manufacturing plants.
Communications within and between bases are tenuous. Most of these facilities were pillaged and had to be rehabilitated while the troops were living in them. Officers enjoy perks, while other ranks have a very spartan existence. Their quarters are cramped and not air conditioned. Water is rationed, and food consists of packaged and tinned meals. Soldiers rarely have fresh fruit and vegetables.
Many are homesick and dispirited, under-employed and bored. Morale is low.
On patrol or checkpoint duty in humvees with wide-open sides, troops are under constant threat of attack. Sixty soldiers have died and three times that number have been wounded since May 1st. Most of the fatalities have been in the capital and the central region. Some soldiers are trigger-happy, and others are abusive towards Iraqis.
Although the occupation has not filled the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam, some US initiatives have borne fruit. Both the sulta and the US military have been involved in the establishment of neighbourhood, district and municipal councils in cities and towns. Some of these councils are seriously addressing the needs of the populace and gaining acceptance. According to the US military, an increasing number of Iraqis are reporting people who have weapons beyond the one-per-household limit and are identifying criminal elements. Last weekend's spate of attacks that disrupted the export of Iraqi crude oil to Turkey and the flow of water to 250,000 Baghdadis coincided with the start of regular rubbish collection throughout the capital. US officials, UN and international personnel and Iraqis are slowly but surely clearing up unexploded ordnance in Baghdad and lifting devices planted in 3,400 surveyed mine fields along Iraq's border with Iran. The ration distribution system in place before the war has been rehabilitated to 99 per cent of its former capacity. Although the provision of rations, under the UN oil-for-food programme, is scheduled to end in November, US officials say it is likely that the 60 to 70 per cent of Iraqis in need will continue to receive their monthly food packages.
It is apparent to most observers who visit Iraq that the US is running out of time. If it does not fix the broken electricity and water installations, stop looting and impose law and order, resistance will become widespread.
More US soldiers will be killed and wounded, putting pressure on the politicians in Washington to pull out. If they do, Iraq, rich in natural resources and educated people, will collapse into anarchy and chaos. The US cannot leave, so it must rule and run Iraq. While many Iraqis joke that things might have been better under Saddam, the more realistic alternative would be for Washington to hand Iraq over to the UN, which has considerable experience and expertise in nation-building. Last week, the Bush administration, once again, refused to grant the UN a major role in peacekeeping and reconstruction.
If Iraq's downhill slide continues, the US may be forced to change its mind. But by then it could be too late to halt the country's economic, social and political collapse.