Iraq realities dash U.S. expectations:

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Age-old and current problems complicate bid to rebuild nation

By Liz Sly,
Tribune foreign correspondent. Zainab Obeid and Zaid Sabah contributed to this reportPublished August 14, 2005


BAGHDAD -- Iraq's new leaders, housed inside the heavily fortified, American-protected Green Zone, regularly laud the successes of the new Iraqi security forces, who are steadily taking on a more visible role in the streets of the capital

.But when a top Shiite politician invited VIPs to a ceremony at his Baghdad residence a week ago, it was members of the Shiite Badr militia, not the Iraqi police, who were called on to seal off the roads leading to his home so his distinguished guests could travel safely.

U.S. officials hail the ongoing negotiations for a new constitution, due to be completed Monday, as evidence that "the drumbeat of democracy" is gaining momentum and that support for the political process is growing.

But on the streets of Baghdad, the religious and ethnic animosities that festered during the Saddam Hussein era are surfacing in the form of an ugly series of tit-for-tat killings and unexplained slayings that some fear amount to the early stages of a civil war.

The U.S. military issues daily statements describing the improvements American troops are making to the lives of ordinary Iraqis: the schools that are painted, the water projects installed, the health clinics that are renovated.

But in most neighborhoods the electricity is on only one hour in six, leaving Iraqis to swelter through 120-degree summer days without air conditioning, fans or refrigeration. Water shortages have added to this summer's woes. Lines for gas, in a country sitting on the world's second-largest oil reserves, are interminable, and the government has said it will introduce fuel rationing this winter.

Perhaps never before has the disconnect between American aspirations for Iraq and the reality on the ground seemed greater than now, in this third scorching summer of frustration and violence since U.S. forces invaded to topple Hussein, find weapons of mass destruction, defeat terrorism and install democracy.

The weapons of mass destruction weren't found, terrorism has proliferated and now the U.S. is banking on the negotiations for a new constitution, entering their final stages, to save the day for democracy in Iraq, stabilize the violence and perhaps enable U.S. troops to start withdrawing next year.

Iraqi negotiators are under intense U.S. pressure to finish the constitution on time.

Behind closed doors, the politicians are hammering out seemingly unbridgeable differences over weighty issues such as whether to divide Iraq into semiautonomous regions or to sustain a strong central government, how to divide the nation's oil wealth, and the role religion should play in the state

.With so much to be decided and so little time left, many analysts believe the best that can be hoped for is a vague declaration of principles that postpones the most contentious issues, notably the question of federalism

.But it's going to take more than a document to reassemble the fragmented, chaotic, embittered country that has emerged from the wreckage of Hussein's regime.

Many Iraqis, including those who voted enthusiastically in January's elections, already are weary of their new democracy. Far from uniting Iraqis, the election exposed their differences, driving a wedge between those who voted and those who did not, between the Shiite majority that rules and the Sunni minority shut out of power.

For the constitution to fulfill U.S. goals, it will have to win popular support across the spectrum of Iraq's divided communities, which will be asked to approve or reject the document in a referendum Oct. 15, before voting for a new government in December. It could be a tough sell."

This constitution is another way to cheat people, like what happened in the elections," said Ali Abdel Ilah, 32, who runs a computer game store. "What's the point of a constitution without security?"

Even among Shiites who voted for their new government, there is a deep sense of disillusionment with the government's failure to restore security, to provide services and to improve living standards."

I voted for the candle [the symbol of the Shiite coalition] but I haven't seen them do any good things for us," said Saleh Mahdi, 50, who owns a shoe shop in the much-bombed neighborhood of New Baghdad."

I am telling you, most of the people will never vote ever again, for anybody. They don't want legal government, we want to kick them all out and we will take over by force, by mortars," he said.

Shiite anger with their government's failings is also rising in the otherwise peaceful southern part of Iraq. There, Shiite leaders have raised a call for autonomy that risks opening new schisms within the Shiite community as well as further alienating the Sunni minority. There were anti-government protests in Samawah a week ago, and protests have also been reported in Nasiriyah and Karbala.

Yet for many Iraqis, any lifeline, however fragile, will be worth voting for if there's a chance it will bring salvation from the looming threat of worse to come.

"We voted before in a time of terrible fear, and we will vote again," said Sanaa Eshaq, a 35-year-old homemaker who doesn't know whom she voted for in January because a mortar fell nearby while she was in the polling booth. In fright, she just ticked the first box she could find and fled."

We are tired. There's no hope. There's no purpose to our lives. For how long do we have to keep on sacrificing?" she said. "So we will insist this time to go and vote again, and I expect most of the Iraqis will."----------

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