Three months after end of major combat, Iraqis deeply distrustful of U.S. occupiers
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jul 29, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Patrolling the streets of Baghdad, American medic Warren Everett picked up a little boy, making him squeal with delight, and waved to the boy's parents. It had been a quiet night, typical in the middle-class neighborhood of Waziriya.
But within minutes, Everett found himself pinned down by gunfire, kneeling beside a young girl. He pressed a bandage to her eye, where blood poured from a wound inflicted by an American bullet gone astray. But he knew it would do no good. A child was dying, and so was the good will that this company of the Florida National Guard had worked for more than two months to build.
"She was still breathing," Everett said, looking shaken, his arm and face covered in the girl's blood. "But we were moving, and there was nothing I could have done."
Now those same neighbors who waved at the patrolling soldiers are vowing revenge against them, and the events of that July 22 night have become a lesson in the murderous unpredictability of soldiering in Iraq.
Three months after President Bush declared major combat to be over in Iraq, some signs of normal life have come back. The roar of generators that filled Baghdad nights has quieted to a hum as central electricity becomes more regular. People who once begged for food are getting rations. Iraqi contractors are fixing decaying schoolhouses. Gunfire still rings through the streets, but less frequently.
The problem is, things aren't getting better fast enough.
Coalition administrators point to increased Iraqi police on the streets, growing crowds of shoppers in marketplaces and the beginnings of an Iraqi government.
But Iraqis who expected the invading superpower to hand them the American dream are becoming bitter that their hopes - however overly optimistic - haven't been realized. The impatience and distrust were evident in interviews with dozens of Iraqis in several cities, towns and villages over 10 days in late July.
While happy to see Saddam Hussein ousted, many now see the occupiers as barbarians bent only on stealing their oil. U.S. officials say oil is flowing again, and its revenue is funding reconstruction. Caught between claim and counterclaim are the 150,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, now facing armed attacks that come on average every two hours.
---
As the United States tries to convert this war-shattered nation into a democracy, the chasm between U.S. claims of success and Iraqi perceptions of failure widens daily.
"The coalition provisional authority ... has a comprehensive strategy to move Iraq toward a future that is secure and prosperous," Bush said in a recent speech. "Every day we're renovating schools for the new school year. We're restoring the damaged water, electrical and communication systems."
Abdullah Hassan Jassem, a 62-year old minibus driver, keeps his finger on Baghdad's pulse by listening to passengers' conversations. He says they are remarkably similar: The Americans won the war, but they are losing the peace.
"The American president spoke of freedom, luxury. What do we have to do to get the lifestyle they speak about?" he asked.
Jassem said people believe that in two major areas, safety and electricity, the Americans are failing.
"This big America, which crossed great oceans to invade - I mean liberate - Iraq, now they can't pick up the phone and call Jordan and say, 'Send us generators?"' he asked.
To demonstrate how seriously it takes the security issue, the United States recruited Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, to rebuild the police force. He said the goal is to put 65,000 to 75,000 officers on the streets. So far, there are only 17,000.
Throughout the zone of U.S. control in Iraq, from villages of central Hilla province to the northern city of Mosul, Iraqis see their recovery from war as too incremental. The supply of both electricity and water remains below prewar levels.
Wealthy, can-do America has the resources, they say, and is able but unwilling to get their country running again.
"I think they can do all these things. They have everything," said Brig. Sabah Fahed, assistant director of police for Baghdad's west side. "Why don't they do it?"
Rebuilding takes time and planning, explained Andy Bearpark, director of operations and infrastructure for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
"Where are all the engineers? The answer is, they're sitting at home doing the drawings," he said. "If you're an average person out there on the street, you don't care about anything I just said. You care about, 'Why isn't the electricity on?' The average Iraqi has every right to feel unhappy. But things should start to get better now."
As he spoke in his office in Saddam's former palace, the lights went out.
---
The shooting of 9-year-old Dina Mohammed in Baghdad's Waziriya neighborhood, in the midst of citywide gunfire to celebrate the deaths of Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai, is a case study of good intentions gone awry.
Everett's unit, a group of National Guardsmen from the Florida Panhandle had worked for two months to build a model relationship with the middle-class, mostly Sunni Muslim neighborhood in northern Baghdad.
When people complained drunks were causing trouble, the soldiers scared away the men selling whiskey out of car trunks. When the soldiers were told there was no one to complain to, they helped organize a neighborhood advisory council. When told of unexploded grenades and shells, they cleared them away.
While a guerrilla war was killing American soldiers daily, this unit hadn't come under attack in two months. The company commander, Capt. Gil Petruska, said community relations were so good that his biggest challenge was keeping his men alert for danger.
The foot patrol on the night of July 22 had been uneventful. Children ran alongside the soldiers and parents waved from doorways.
But suddenly, power went out and machine-gun tracers began to rise into the sky. The unit went to investigate, and found itself in the middle of a celebration it misread as an attack.
"Red 2. Red 2. This is Red 6, over," radioed Spc. Aaron Kurtz, 20, of Niceville, Florida. "We have gunfire in three directions!"
Bullets whizzed from the end of the block as the soldiers trotted forward, crouching and hugging the walls. They cursed. In the darkness, it was hard to see who was shooting.
Staff Sgt. James Bearden saw muzzle flashes, and spotted a man with what looked like a Kalashnikov rifle aimed in his direction. The man, Adnan Faleh Fehad, 32, later said he was holding nothing but a plate of fried tomatoes and eggplant. Several witnesses concurred.
Bearden, a 30-year-old prison guard from DeFuniak Springs, Florida, fired three bullets from his M-16A2 semiautomatic rifle, hitting Fehad in the abdomen and the knee. One bullet flew through a nearby window. Dina, eating dinner, was hit in the head.
As a flare soared skyward, a screaming woman ran toward the soldiers, the bloodied girl in her arms. Ragad Faleh, 25, laid her niece on the pavement, beating her chest and pleading in Arabic with the soldiers and a reporter accompanying them.
Everett worked on the girl for a few seconds, cleaning the bullet wound. Then came orders to pull back. The soldiers left the girl by a passing car, hoping it would take her to a hospital, and sped back to base. The young girl did make to a hospital but died there.
"I got four boys at home," Bearden said later, tearing up. "That's a memory that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life."
Today, because of Dina, the Waziriya neighborhood seethes with anger at the Americans.
"We used to love them," Faleh sobbed. "Now I hate them. I'd like to bomb them. When I see them I spit on them."
The soldiers have not returned to the scene of the shooting, and construction worker Zuher Khalil Ibrahim said they had better not.
"If they do," he said, "they will find only violence."
---
Since May 1, when Bush declared major combat over, 49 American soldiers have been killed in combat. The Americans blame the insurgency on remnants of the Saddam regime. The Baghdad newspaper Assah has a different explanation.
"As the Americans stumble in reconstruction efforts, demands for their withdrawal are increasing," it commented. "If the Americans fail to raise the standard of living of Iraqis in the next few months, more resistance will emerge and become widespread."
Mohammed Abed, a tailor, accepted the Americans' assault on Baghdad quietly, even though he believes it was an American bomb that killed his wife, mother, brother and cousin at a market a week into the war.
It was the will of Allah, said this painfully shy and deeply religious man.
Three months later, he too is growing impatient. Electricity usually comes on for only about two hours a day, and without power he cannot run his sewing machines. He spends most of his day apologizing to irate customers.
"The United States succeeded in getting rid of Saddam. But we thought that with all its technology, it would do something for the Iraqi people," he said. "They have given us nothing. Only promises."
The Americans must provide "humanitarian aid, job opportunities, good salaries," said Ali Abdul-Jabbar Wahid, a former captain in the Iraqi army. "If they do these things, we will hoist them up on our shoulders."
Wahid, 27, said he was considering joining the new Iraqi army the United States is organizing, but was keeping his options open.
"I can always join another army, an army against them," he said. "If they stay in Iraq, I will."---
EDITOR'S NOTE - Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press.
By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer |
