After the war: the fight to put a shattered country back together

Date: 11/09/03

Building a new Iraq was never going to be easy, yet slow but steady progress is being made. In the first of a two-part series, Dana Spinant reports from Basrah and Nasariyah

THE coalition forces in Iraq are under pressure to get the country back on track quickly or face a major uprising by a population fed up after decades of deprivation, wars and poverty.

Riots on 9-10 August in the country's second biggest city, Basrah, underlined that Iraqis are running out of patience.

The revolt highlighted that a crucial challenge for the coalition forces is not only dealing with the, say 5%, former regime loyalists intent on disrupting reconstruction efforts, but also preventing the other 95%, who are not hostile to the occupation, from changing their minds.

However, people involved in efforts to rebuild the country say they face a Sisyphean task in trying to restore basic services for the population, as the country's infrastructure, once a model of modernization for the region, has been wrecked by half a century of planned economy and three devastating wars.

United Nations officials in Basrah opine that the biggest challenge in rebuilding Iraq is promoting development from within, involving Iraqis, so as to relieve the ravaged country from remaining dependent on foreign support.

The vast majority of the population has been fedin the last eight years by the international community, through the United Nations' 'Oil for food' programme. "The people have got used to being assisted from outside," said Damien Gugliermina, UNICEF spokesman in Basrah.

"The population has been put, metaphorically speaking, on a drip, waiting to get aid from outside to cover their basic - sometimes less than basic - needs," he added.

"This has had a tremendous impact on the society, on its expectations and its dynamics.

"Right now, they expect everything from us, from the UN or the coalition, and get frustrated if it does not come quickly."

The Frenchman warns that recent examples of reconstruction show that addiction to external aid must be avoided, if countries devastated by wars are to develop.

"We saw that in Bosnia, and other Balkan countries, where international reconstruction efforts have not been followed by internal growth. These countries are entangled in a vicious circle of dependency."

Therefore, the number-one priority for coalition authorities governing the southern Iraq region is to promote development by involving the local population.

Army chiefs concur. A spokesman for the Multinational Division (South East) says rebuilding the country "from within, with the locals" may take longer than if Western powers did it alone. However, quick results achieved without Iraqi input would bring about only short-term improvements, but not put the country back on its feet.

"We want to avoid a quick fix, and, on the contrary, even if it takes longer, we try to do everything with the locals," he said, adding: "It would be easier sometimes to work with external contractors, from Kuwait for example. But as a rule, we only employ locals.

"It is a teaching process, and that creates jobs and makes the local economy run."

In Al Fayma, a picturesque village north of Basrah, Captain Paul Clare, of the 1st Battalion of the King's Regiment, shows me around a school recently refurbished by local contractors paid for by the British army.

This is one of the 250 schools the army has refurbished ready for the start of the new school year this month.

Captain Clare is checking whether the Al Fayma school is ready to welcome the 300 primary school and 400 secondary school children, who study in three shifts.

"Two weeks ago, it was a wreck. It was used by local militias to harbour weapons. During the war, when Saddam's forces withdrew, everything was removed by looters. They ripped off everything which was removable, electricity cables, chairs, doors, everything. They used the wood to make fire," Captain Clare said.

The building has been freshly painted, doors and electricity cables have been installed, and new windows put in. However, Captain Clare remarks that the new doors are of poor quality. "This is the risk, when you work with local contractors.

"For this door; for example, they charged $75. It probably cost a few dollars.

"They made a small fortune out of it," he adds with a smile.

He however admits that the works - $7,500-worth, slightly less in euro - will do for the September opening of the school. In addition, the building will be hosting local council meetings, gathering the village's tribal and religious leaders.

"It is a small but palpable contribution, making people's life easier," Clare added.

Coalition forces based in Basrah are currently managing another 400 projects of a similar type, mainly refurbishing schools, clinics, police stations or court houses.

However, these buildings upgraded by the coalition forces need protection in order to ensure that people desperate to make a living will not loot them again.

Very high on the coalition's list of priorities is getting local police to patrol the streets to clamp down on looting and organized crime.

More than 2,500 policemen have already been retrained and are back on duty, patrolling Basrah's streets in joint teams with the coalition forces. The target is to have some 6,000 Iraqi policemen across the province.

Further north in Nasariyah, Italian and Romanian troops are working for the same objective.

"It is important in order to get the Iraqis back on their feet again: they must be prepared to ensure their own security," Major Massimo Rocco, a spokesman for the Garibaldi Brigade, said.

The carabinieri, Italian military police, are valuable trainers for the local policemen. They gained considerable experience in this area during previous peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.

Colonel Georg di Pauli, the carabinieri commander, says the task is very difficult, as Saddam's police were not trained to protect the people or to be at their service; it has always operated as one of the regime's instruments of repression.

"We need to help them with everything," di Pauli said, watching a sand-storm in Nasariyah from the roof of the carabinieri's headquarters, on the banks of Euphrates river.

"They [the police] are afraid of going to patrol on their own, they only dare to go out on the streets in joint patrols.

"They fear that people would try to take revenge for what they did in the past, when they were acting under Saddam's orders."

The colonel says a change in mentality is necessary, before the trainees are able to behave like policemen.

"They have never carried out an investigation: they used to arrest people solely on the basis of rumours, and then try to obtain confessions through torture," he says.

"They are complete aliens to a policeman's job," adds di Pauli.

The Italian opines that it would be easier to take novices and train them for the job than retrain Saddam's policemen.

However, he admits that such a method would produce a huge social problem across the country, as it would be difficult to retrain ageing policemen for alternative jobs.

The carabinieri start from scratch, teaching trainees how to keep registers, criminal records, how to search for proof before convicting somebody, and how to conduct an interrogation without physical aggression.

"The way ahead is a long one," says di Pauli. "It will be a long time before the Iraqi police can ensure the security of the population, can get rid of corruption and aggression."

However, he declines to speculate on how long foreign troops should stay in Iraq. "We should not stay one day more than is necessary. They will not tolerate it."

Part of a special feature on Iraq.