Where Things Stand

SAMANTHA APPELTON FOR TIME/AURORA
Sabri Nama, a foreman at the Amarah Paper Mill

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While the Iraqi private sector has been quick to adapt to the new post-Saddam freedoms, the transition in the public sector has been traumatic and clumsy, dogged by unfulfilled promises from the occupying powers and by burning impatience on the Iraqi side. Dr. Ghalib Shaker, director of Ibn Sina Teaching Hospital in Mosul, says the hospital is short of X-ray film, IV fluid and antibiotics, all of which he says were promised him by the U.S. several months ago. "These are simple things," he says. "I don't know why they can't solve this." Other Iraqi hospitals also complain of shortages, which stem from distribution bottlenecks in Baghdad and the evacuation of many foreign medical workers after the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has acknowledged that Iraq's health-care system is not functioning at prewar levels except perhaps in the north. This is in part because 12% of hospitals were partly damaged during the war and 7% were looted, according to U.N. figures.

Iraqi frustrations are compounded by high expectations of what the U.S. occupiers could do. "We are under the biggest superpower in the world," says Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, manager of the Mosul Dam, "so people thought the U.S. could do anythingrestore power, build new houses, bring tourism, improve lifeimmediately. But things cannot change at the push of a button."

Another aggravating factor is wounded Iraqi pride. Shaker recalls that 20 years ago, Iraq's hospitals were the envy of the Arab world. "In the '80s, Jordanians and Syrians came hereto this hospitalfor treatment, but now they wouldn't dream of sending patients here."

As one heads south into the Sunni heartland, the level of discontent increases sharply. In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, police stations and official buildings are heavily fortified with sandbags and razor wire, and in the market, a universal complaint is the lack of jobs. "Unemployment is very high here because most Tikritis used to be connected to the old regime," says Tahsin Mohammed, 30, a former military officer. He says he knows a major general from Saddam's Republican Guard who is now selling cigarettes.

Duluiyah, about a half-hour drive south of Tikrit, has a special history. The village was once a source of army, police and intelligence officers for the Saddam regime. But the village fell under a cloud after members of its dominant tribe, the Jubur, tried to overthrow Saddam in 1990. Many in Duluiyah were optimistic when the Americans arrived, but each improvement in the village seems to come with a setback. At first the electricity supply improved, but then it faltered when seasonal maintenance on plants took out some capacity and when a water-pumping station came online nearby, diverting much of Duluiyah's power. Thanks to the pumps, water has been gushing from taps as never before, but it is untreated and must be boiled and disinfected.

The local school has been newly painted, but the Iraqi contractor the Americans hired to do the work stole school furniture. Baghdad, 50 miles to the south, is Iraq's heart of darkness, a place of suicide bombings and great uncertainty. But as one moves out of the Sunni triangle, heading south, the sense of threat abates. Some 100 miles away is Kut, where at midday Haitham Hillal and Ali Rath, two traffic policemen, sit down to drink tea by the Tigris. They talk excitedly about their new salaries: $100 a monthfive times what they used to get. Hillal and Rath are aware of the violence in Baghdad but insist there are no such crises in Kut. The main problem locally, they say, is the huge postwar increase in weddings, which has led to a rise in accidental shootings caused by celebratory gunfire. A third man, Hashem Ali, a former security official, joins them, and suddenly an argument breaks out. "Iraqis should be proud of the attacks in Fallujah," says the newcomer, adding that security was much better under Saddam. "Yes, in the mass graves security was perfect," says Hillal, to which Ali has no answer.