Postponement of a national forum convinces many the government is inept, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad.
One month after the US occupation authority was dissolved and the interim government took office, the situation in Iraq, on a security, political and economic level, continues its downward slide.
Insecurity grows with every passing day, electricity is erratic, water is a problem, unemployment is rife, and politicians appointed by the former US administrator are struggling for position while the US embassy and military retain effective power.
Iraqis who were prepared to give the interim government a chance to demonstrate it can impose law and order and deliver services are disappointed and dispirited. Those who can manage to emigrate are leaving the country, the rest make jokes. As one bright youth put it: "We laugh because the situation is so tragic."
The decision to postpone today's meeting of Iraq's national conference only 40 hours before it was set to convene is seen by many Iraqis as proof of the utter incompetence of their rulers. The gathering of 1,000 Iraqis representing provinces, political parties and non-governmental organisations was meant to choose 100 members of an interim assembly to oversee elections in January 2005.
The stated reason for the postponement of this event was because the UN requested it, on the grounds that delegates were not chosen in a transparent manner. Iraqis involved in the preparations for the conference say that at least 79 of the assembly seats had already been filled by 19 members of the disbanded US-appointed Governing Council, ministers from the government formed by the council last September, who are not in the current cabinet, and party nominees.
In spite of the lack of transparency, it might have been better to go ahead with the conference. The minority of Iraqis who were aware that the meeting was to be held and the majority who were not now want an explanation for the delay. A gathering in which there was little interest has now drained the government of credibility.
Without this assembly there is no body to hold the cabinet accountable or oversee the drafting of a new constitution ahead of elections. Many ask if this will lead to the postponement of the poll to choose a new, constitutional parliament. Even a flawed assembly is better than none at all.
A Shia translator quipped: "Sistani will have a word if they attempt to delay elections." Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior cleric of the Shia sect, 60 per cent of the populace, has repeatedly called on the US to hold elections rather than rely on appointees to govern the country. While he has refrained from instigating his followers to engage in civil disobedience or violence, the ayatollah has warned the US that the promised poll must go ahead on time.
If he fails to press the US on this issue, the firebrand cleric Sheikh Muqtada al-Sadr could attempt politically to outbid the moderate ayatollah by sending his followers into the streets or ordering his militia, the al-Mahdi army, to resume attacks on US soldiers.
On the reconstruction front, a senior civil servant told The Irish Times: "The Americans have done nothing for this country. Nothing. All the money they spent is our money." Contracting with foreign firms and high insurance costs have eaten up much of the $11 billion in the development fund into which Iraqi oil revenues have been deposited.
Profiteering is also rampant. An Iraqi businessman said that an $80 million contract was signed with one of the main US firms chosen to work in Iraq by the Bush administration. This firm hired for $56 million a second US company which outsourced the project to an Indian company for $26 million. It selected an Iraqi company to do the actual work for around $15 million. Most people on the job are employees of the relevant ministry who are being paid twice. This means that the Iraqi people are not getting $80 million worth of reconstruction for their investment.
Of the $18.4 billion appropriated by the US Congress for rebuilding the country, only $366 million has been spent on projects, $9 million on administrative expenses. It is claimed that very little of the US money has been used because it is tied up in red tape.
On the domestic political front, Iraq is being torn apart by rivalries and infighting. But not the sort of disputes predicted ahead of the war. Although Western analysts confidently said there would be rifts between Sunnis and Shias and there could be a civil war between the two main Muslim sects, Iraqis dismiss this possibility - at least for the time being.
Shia politicians connected with competing clerics are completely consumed in vying for influence within the community to take on the Sunnis. Sunni clerics and tribal leaders do the same.
Furthermore, the traditional tribal rivalry between the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has resurfaced. It is dividing the Kurds at a critical juncture in the development of the "new Iraq", which the Kurds insist must be a federation rather than a unitary state, while the Arabs say it must be the latter. This issue could be a communal flashpoint.
"Outsiders", exiles who returned to the country after the war, predominate in the government and on the political scene, creating widespread resentment among "insiders", Iraqis who suffered at home under the ousted regime. They reject being told what to do and how to do it by "outsiders" who have not lived at home for many years and believe they know best.
Peasants and the urban poor, excluded from the power structures of the Baathist regime, have asserted themselves since its fall. At first they poured into the streets and looted and vandalised the infrastructure. Now their uneducated but demanding standard bearers (such as Muqtada al-Sadr) are pitting themselves against the educated establishment with the objective of seizing power in much the same way the Tikriti peasants under the former president, Saddam Hussein, took power in 1968.
Dr Rajaa Khuzai, a Shia obstetrician and member of the former Governing Council from the southern city of Diwaniya, said that women, 58 per cent of the population, are being pushed to the margins of society by conservative religious and patriarchal tribal elements.
"Strong women" like Dr Khuzai, attempting to secure rights for their sisters are threatened and, on at least two occasions, their husbands were killed by opponents. Last February after she convinced the council to reverse a decision taken in December 2003 to abrogate a 1959 law giving women equal rights with men, fellow members of the council and others issued threats against her and her family. They were compelled to take refuge with her three million strong Khuzai tribe.
Iraq is also being invaded and destabilised by foreign intelligence agents and pan-Islamist militants. These elements have agendas which have nothing to do with Iraq itself. One academic said that the Kurdish "safe haven" created by the US following the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation served as a base for both agents provocateurs and Islamists who flowed into the Arab area after the war.
He observed that Israeli Mossad operatives are known to have a strong presence in this area. Furthermore, hundreds of Iranian agents are believed to have entered the country along with the hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims who visit the Shia holy sites at Najaf and Kerbala.
In the view of the academic, Iraq is the victim of the same sort of destabilisation process which afflicted Lebanon during its 1975-91 civil war. Neighbouring countries and distant powers stirred the Lebanese pot of communal resentments and kept it boiling until the country was exhausted and Syria was in a position to intervene and stop the bloodshed.
For this reason a majority of Iraqis do not want contingents of troops from neighbouring countries and reject any attempt by the government to normalise relations with Israel.
Iraqis of all sects and stationsin life are now united by a deep dislike and distrust of the US which they see as incompetent, corrupt, and racist. "As long as Americans are not being killed, they don't care what happens to Iraqis," is a common refrain heard in the horrendous aftermath of a car or truck bombing targeting civilians - such as that in Bakouba this past week.
Since US officials and contractors live in the relative safety of the heavily fortified "Green Zone", or in protected hotels, and rarely circulate, they face much less risk than Iraqis who also must cope with the lack of power, water, law and order, and empty promises of improvements in the situation.
The transitional rulers who have been appointed by the US are now making one mistake after another, such as postponing the national conference and appealing for Arab and Muslim peacekeepers. Most Iraqis, therefore, are not pinning their hopes on the Prime Minister, Mr Ayad Allawi, and his cabinet.
If he decides, for any reason at all, to delay the elections promised by the end of January next year, Iraqis could rise up against the figures chosen by the US to reign with the aim of overthrowing the "new Iraq", plunging the core country of the eastern Arab world into protracted strife.