Iraqis taste freedom and chaos

Six weeks after the fighting stopped in Baghdad, Iraqis are enthusiastically exploring their newfound freedoms, trickling back to work to earn salaries many had not seen for months, and looking forward to normal lives they have not enjoyed for years.

At the same time, however, there is growing impatience with the slow pace of change - from local political leaders demanding more liberation and less occupation by American soldiers, to ordinary citizens frustrated by the lack of most basic services.

"I work here, but I still get no salary. I go to my car, but there is no gasoline. I go home, and find no electricity," complains Bashir Mohammed, head of the emergency room at Al Kindi hospital. "Only when we get security, gas and money will everything be normal."

Dr. Bashir did, however, get the chance this week to taste one welcome fruit of the coalition's military victory in Iraq. On Wednesday, along with about 750 other hospital staffers - from chief resident to the cleaning woman - he voted freely for a new director.

"I think elections are a human right," said Louaie Mohammed, a junior doctor, after casting his vote. "Elections are like revolutions in the past - but they were done by guns and these are done with pens. This is humanity."

Recent days have seen similar elections in ministries, universities, state-owned businesses, and residential neighborhoods around the country as Iraqis begin reclaiming some power over their lives.

But freedom has looked like chaos too often in recent weeks for many Iraqis to embrace it unreservedly. "Yes, of course we are free, but the negatives are more than the positives so far," says Hisham Abbas, an unemployed laborer, as he drops his son off at school. "What good is freedom if we do not feel safe?"

The wave of looting in Iraq, followed by the persistent violence, robbery, car-jackings, and general insecurity in the capital, has unnerved many Iraqis accustomed to rigid order under Saddam Hussein.

Paul Bremer, the new administrator of the Provisional Coalition Authority, who now runs the country, has ordered a crackdown on crime in the past week. The US Army has stepped up its patrols of city streets, no longer turning a blind eye to looters. And Iraqi policemen, armed with pistols or Kalashnikovs, have begun to join US Military Police patrols from 17 police stations that are now open in Baghdad.

On Friday, Mr. Bremer was expected to proclaim a ban on the possession of automatic weapons by civilians, in a bid to calm the atmosphere of violence. Many homeowners, however, are likely to resist such a ban while they feel a need to protect themselves. Baghdad morgue records examined Thursday suggested that the death rate from gunshot wounds has not declined significantly over the past week.

Iraqis outside the capital, however, have less reason to be nervous. In regional centers such as Basra in the south and Mosul in the north, crime rates have dropped, coalition officials say, and order has been more or less restored. Clashes between Arabs and Kurds in and around Kirkuk, however, mostly in disputes over home ownership, claimed 10 lives recently.

Much of the gunfire heard after dark in Baghdad is attributed to common criminals taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the Iraqi regime's collapse. But US officials also blame remnants of the old Baath Party regime for vandalism and attacks designed to undermine the coalition forces' authority and credibility.

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