On the cusp of their first permanent government since the American-led invasion, Iraqis are not exactly celebrating. Rather, they seem to be gritting their teeth and clinging grimly to the battered hope for democracy, even in what many see as a strange and uncomfortable incarnation.
Iraq, said one Baghdad doctor, is a drowning man, and the prime minister-designate a floating plank.
"We have to hold on to the wood, even if it has nails," said the doctor, a rheumatologist named Riyadh al-Adhadh. "We need this wood, whatever its shape. It is all that prevents us from going under the sea."
The seven new political leaders chosen Saturday, including a president and prime minister, face tasks with obstacles so great that they appear nearly insurmountable.
The prime minister must appoint a government that can win the confidence of most of Iraq's diverse and feuding groups. Since the American invasion, the religious and ethnic divides of Iraqi society have worsened. The new Constitution was more peace treaty than democratic blueprint. In some areas, daily fighting and lawlessness are already considered civil war.
The new leaders, all men, must also try to win public confidence, the capacity for which had been ground out of Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, and hardly revived by the years of the war that the government has been unable to control, and at times, is even seen to have helped.
Still, many Iraqis say they are so desperately in need of a strong, independent leader that almost anyone Shiite, Sunni or Kurd would do.
"There is no such thing as too Shiite or too Sunni," said Dr. Adhadh, briskly signing papers in a sparsely furnished room in the Adhamiya district council, where he serves as a member. "People voted based on sect. We simply have two different groups now."
Even as Katyusha rockets fell (three hit a parking lot just outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in a morning attack that killed six Iraqis, including a man who had been married for four days) and bullets flew (four men playing soccer in a field in south Baghdad were shot dead by gunmen at dusk), many Iraqis seemed willing to give the new prime minister-designate, Jawad al-Maliki, the benefit of the doubt.
"There's a saying in our culture: a man is only as good as his word," said Amar Noori, 27, a student standing in the parking lot by the blood stains of one of the dead men, who he said was his cousin. "Maliki said he would form a government in a month. Let's see if he will."
Even for Iraq's secular politicians, who have been virtually eclipsed by sectarian and religious figures and who received none of the seven positions filled this weekend, the mood on Sunday was not altogether dark.
One of them, Adnan Pachachi, who served as Iraq's foreign minister in the 1960's, said that even though most colleagues in his secular alliance abstained from voting in protest of the sectarian nature of the choices, Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, appeared to have his plusses.
In private meetings with parliamentarians before the vote, for example, he tried to distance himself from Iran, and spoke forcefully against allowing autonomous regions, desired by many in the main Shiite block, known as the United Iraqi Alliance.
"He's more acceptable than a lot of the U.I.A.," said Mr. Pachachi, 82, sipping coffee in his quiet, carpeted living room. "Most important is which ministers he'll choose. If we're going to have a collection of party hacks, then we don't have anything."
But he said if Mr. Maliki was able to bring in "some good people from outside his party and outside Parliament," both he and Iraq might have some chance for success.
The view was echoed by Ayad Ali, a pharmacist in his 50's. Like most Iraqis, Mr. Ali has followed the recent developments, and concluded that Mr. Maliki might be good for Iraq, if he could work independently.
"I don't know Maliki, but from what I heard from him in the last few days, I think he's good," Mr. Ali said. "When we have real monitoring from more than just one side, things will be different."
Beyond the obvious obstacle of a severe lack of professionals and experts, many of whom have fled Iraq, Mr. Maliki will be under tremendous pressure from his own and other Shiite parties to fill his cabinet from within their ranks. The former prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was broadly criticized for allowing fellow Shiites to run amok in ministries, leading to the spread of militias blamed for many politically and criminally motivated murders.
"I'm optimistic, especially if he can give a real solution to the issue of militias," said Ahmed al-Ansary, a 30-year-old computer engineer. "Not an artificial one like last time."
Militias, often associated with the fringes of the Shiite religious parties, have deeply worsened conditions for democracy in Iraq, driving bright shards of hatred into the hearts of neighborhoods, and dangerously fraying the fabric of Iraqi society.
The stories are grim but familiar. Majid Hamid, 43, told of how his brother, Haider Hamid, 22, who worked for an Iraqi human rights organization and lived in Dawra, a Baghdad neighborhood where fighting rages constantly, was taken away on April 15 by men dressed in Iraqi security force uniforms, who said he was being "arrested."
Mr. Hamid said he found his brother in the morgue five days later, riddled with drill holes and stab marks in his leg and torso amid other signs of torture, with no explanation for what had happened. Morgue workers told him Haider apparently had died the day he was arrested.
Mr. Maliki acknowledged the militia problem in one of his first policy speeches on Saturday, saying they should be folded into official government forces.
(Perhaps reflecting how difficult his task will be, Iraq's Kurdish president said Sunday that the Kurdish force, the pesh merga, "is not a militia," but a "regulated force," Agence France-Presse reported.)
Insurgent violence, driven by Sunni Arab extremists, also grinds on. Three American soldiers were killed northwest of Baghdad around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Insurgent violence left 12 Iraqis dead in and around Baghdad on Sunday. Authorities also reported the deaths of 3 Iraqis in Falluja and the northern city of Kirkuk on Saturday. Twelve unidentified bodies were also found.
For his part, President Bush on Sunday morning made congratulatory phone calls to the new Iraqi leadership. Later, Mr. Bush told marines at the combat center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., that the new leaders had "awesome responsibilities." Mr. Bush also told the marines that the United States would not withdraw from Iraq until the Iraqis could take over on their own.
On Sunday afternoon in the parking lot outside the Green Zone, men stood in small groups, examining a large rocket shell casing lodged in the pavement. The front ends of several cars had been crushed.
Everyone wanted a chance to talk. They told of how they tried to help the victims, whose bodies were on fire from the explosion, and of how shooting had suddenly erupted.
"No authority, nothing," an elderly man shouted from the crowd.
A woman in a housecoat stood in her doorway just down the street. "There's a lack of everything," she said. "We want someone who will come to save the people." |
BAGHDAD - Iraq will convene a much-awaited session of parliament on Thursday, only the second since elections in December, the office of assembly speaker Adnan Pachachi said on Wednesday. The session was to be convened on April 17, but was later cancelled after leaders failed to resolve the political deadlock over who would lead the next government.