- BAGHDAD -- It was supposed
to be the day the light would appear at the end of the tunnel for the Americans
in the occupation of Iraq.
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- But, even as an interim government that will assume sovereignty
at the end of the month was finally named, there were stark signs of the
terrible difficulties ahead.
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- Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, was left humiliated
as his favoured candidate, Adnan al-Pachachi, rejected his invitation to
become Iraq's first president since Saddam Hussein, forcing the US to install
the man it had tried hard to avoid, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar.
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- As the political horse-trading was underway, insurgents
delivered their own verdict, with a car bomb killing 25 people at the headquarters
of a Kurdish party in Baghdad. No sooner had that exploded, than a mortar
landed inside the US headquarters in the capital, the so-called Green Zone,
sending a huge cloud of black smoke over the city. And, north of the city,
11 more were to die in yet another car bomb.
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- Aside from the worsening security situation, a tour of
the city underlines the magnitude of the tasks facing Iyad Allawi, the
Prime Minister-elect, when he takes over on 30 June.
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- Baghdad's streets are strewn with rubbish; geysers of
sewage erupt in the wealthiest parts of town and, at times, you can find
yourself driving in a three-inch pool of raw sewage. There are few enough
signs of reconstruction, despite the $18bn (nearly £10bn) President
George Bush has pledged.
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- Unemployment is rampant; there is a chronic lack of medicine;
and the electricity shortages in Baghdad are as bad now as they were a
year ago.
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- It was the day the "stooges" rebelled: first
with the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council insisting their man got the
presidency and, second, with the new interim government saying they wanted
real power in their own country.
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- Mr Yawar, who has been openly critical about the failures
of the US occupation, issued a thinly veiled call for the interim government
to be given true control, rather than just to give cover to US plans to
keep troops in the country.
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- He called on the United Nations for help in "bringing
full sovereignty back to Iraq" - a reference to the dispute at the
Security Council over American plans to refuse the interim government any
control over the 138,000 US troops who will remain in Iraq after 30 June.
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- Mr Yawar was immediately echoed by Mr Allawi, even though
he is more to the Americans' liking, with his CIA links. He said he had
asked Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, to go to New York to ensure
Iraq gets the sovereignty it demands.
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- But the country they will supposedly inherit when the
US formally hands over sovereignty after more than 14 months in charge
is lawless. Wealthy Iraqis have been kidnapped at gunpoint in broad daylight
on the streets of Baghdad.
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- Iraqis are held for ransom but, for a Westerner, kidnapping
can mean sharing the fate of the American civilian contractor, Nick Berg,
who was beheaded with a knife in front of a video camera last month.
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- Little wonder, then, that Westerners are so afraid to
be seen that they have taken to growing beards and wearing Arab headdresses.
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- On the main highway from Baghdad to Amman, once the main
land route into the country, kidnappers erect roadblocks. The main highway
south from Baghdad - the only road to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and
Karbala - runs through the Sunni town of Mahmudiya, where insurgents hunt
Westerners, targeting them for drive-by shootings.
-
- Iraqis who work with Westerners have been targeted throughout
the country, with one insurgent group in Basra warning that they will treat
any Iraqi who works for a foreigner as if they were part of the occupation
forces.
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- Mr Allawi said yesterday that one of his government's
priorities would be sewage. At Iraq's main children's hospital - which
you would expect to be at the top of anyone's priority list for reconstruction
- children are dying because basic repairs have not been made.
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- The leukemia ward still loses children every week. The
toilets are in such disrepair that they frequently overflow into the ward,
spreading infection.
-
- There is still a shortage of medicines so acute that
seriously ill patients must send out relatives to buy them medicine on
the black market - if they can afford it but many cannot.
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- Power is still available in Baghdad, a city of five million,
for only 12 hours out of 24, usually in brief spurts of three or four hours.
This is in a city where summer temperatures regularly rise above 40C, and
people depend on air conditioning.
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- So bad is the electricity situation that when the new
Electricity Minister was named at yesterday's ceremony, there were jokes
and an ironic round of applause. It must have felt uncomfortable for Mr
Bremer, who was sitting in the small audience.
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- The man before him making his inaugural speech as President
was not Mr Bremer's choice. Just two days before, he had threatened the
US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council that if they dared vote for Mr Yawar,
he would ignore their decision.
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- But his attempt to force through his preferred candidate,
Adnan al-Pachachi, fell spectacularly flat. Mr Bremer named Mr Pachachi
as President yesterday, but within minutes Mr Pachachi turned the job down,
leaving the way clear for Mr Yawar. Ironically, only days before Mr Bremer
had tried to persuade Mr Yawar to turn down the job so Mr Pachachi would
be unopposed.
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- So elated were the members of Mr Yawar's tribe in Mosul
at his selection yesterday that American forces had to ask them to stop
firing in the air in celebration for fear the situation might get out of
control.
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- What remains to be seen is whether he and Mr Allawi,
in the more powerful role of Prime Minister, will be allowed any real say
in running Iraq by the Americans. If they are, they will have their work
cut out.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=527299
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