One town's test of Iraqi democracy

Shortly after US and British forces pushed through this dusty port town in southern Iraq at the start of the coalition invasion, a school administrator got a crazy idea.

It was the kind of inspired thought that might have gotten him jailed, beaten, even killed a few days earlier. But now, Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party operatives were on the run, and in Umm Qasr, Najim Abed Mahdi could suddenly think the unthinkable. He and a handful of other Iraqis banded together to form their own town council.

They did it because their community needed fresh water, electricity, ice, garbage collection, security from looters, and other essentials. But by taking up the mantle of leadership in a fashion banned by Hussein, the Umm Qasr council may have made history - creating what US officials see as the first Iraqi model of a grass-roots democracy in a once-barren political landscape.

It is an example they hope will be replicated across Iraq. And, analysts say, it is the essence of what must happen for the US and Britain to win the peace.

"We are the first," says Mr. Mahdi, sitting at a conference table with the nine other members of the newly formed Umm Qasr town council. "Now we are the capital of free Iraq."

What began several weeks ago with a tentative gesture toward British troops has blossomed into full-bore civic involvement in this community of 40,000 near Iraq's only modern seaport. American and British officials are scrambling to nurture the effort. Many say they're amazed, and some compare it to America's own struggle for freedom more than 200 years ago.

"That's the Jefferson and Madison of Umm Qasr," says US Marine Major Jeff Jurgensen, pointing to Mahdi and another council member as they head across town to resolve a dispute over gasoline prices.

"We have been looking for this moment for 35 years," says Kazem Ghaze, a shipping-company translator and a "founding father" of the new Umm Qasr. "We want to live. We want to breathe. We want to sleep peacefully."

Adds Council Chairman Mahdi, "And we want to remove the dust upon our minds - dust from Saddam Hussein."

Not everyone in town has been clambering aboard Mahdi's freedom train. Early on, there were reports that Baath Party officials were coming back to the town at night, preparing to retaliate.

Councilmembers persisted. "They had a lot of guts," says Raphael Jabba, a USAID official.

It took nearly two weeks for the administrator of Umm Qasr's Mother Of All Battles Hospital to take down the once-mandatory portrait of Saddam in his office. Two days and a can of spray paint later, the hospital's name was changed to Umm Qasr Hospital.

Don Finn, who works with the US government's Disaster Assistance Response Team, says the British military played an important role in creating an atmosphere conducive to the council's creation. "Early on, they sent out patrols, both day and night, without their helmets or flak jackets," he says. "They wanted to show the community that things were stable and that they trusted the community." It worked, Mr. Finn says. "It was a calming effect."

Whether the Umm Qasr experience will be replicated elsewhere remains to be seen. "We are going to have to take it on a case-by-case basis," says Mr. Jabba. "We will move into Basra in a week or so and deal with the local council that has emerged there."

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