Iraqi attacks on US: isolated acts?

L. Paul Bremer III, the new civilian administrator for Iraq, said the US aims to call a national conference in mid-July to create an interim authority, but there are still no specific dates or procedures for setting it up.

US representatives in Baghdad defend the decision to postpone, expressing a need to "get it right the first time," as one official put it. They also raise concerns that the Iraqi National Congress (INC) - a group of parties that was poised to take power - may be more reflective of returning exiles than Iraqis in general. But the longer it takes to establish indigenous Iraqi authority, the more frustrated Iraqis are liable to become.

"It's unworkable for the Americans to show themselves as these aggressive troops," says Ali Abdul Ameer, the spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord, part of the INC. "We need police in the street. You cannot put an American soldier in a tank on the corner instead of a police officer."

An INC spokesman says the organization hopes to form a security force trained by US and UK forces to end the widespread sense of insecurity in urban areas. "The former Iraqi police do not have the strength and the power to perform their duties," says the INC's Entifadh Qanbar.

Yet even if newly uniformed Iraqi policemen and politicians promising democracy filled the streets here, Fallujah might still be a hub of anti-US sentiment. Fallujah and the larger Ramadi region was known to be loyal to Saddam Hussein. This is a Sunni tribal area full of well-watered farmlands and enormous homes - testaments to the fact that people here fared well under Mr. Hussein's regime.

Last month, just after the war ended, US troops fired into crowds of protesters on two occasions, killing 18 people and injuring more than 70. Anger over those incidents still lingers, and crowds of men talk heatedly about the coming "resistance" movement against the US presence here.

"In a few days, if nothing improves in our country, you will see this every day," says Yaser Mahmoud.

"It's a popular resistance. We are going to have a jihad for our country," says Khaled Hilali, a retired, graying teacher who waited patiently to have his say. Within a few days of the Gulf War in 1991, he and others complain, Hussein quickly rebuilt damaged infrastructure.

Seven weeks since the fall of Hussein's regime in Baghdad, however, many people remain without electricity and clean water - a fact some Iraqis blame on the US.

The US initially reported that during Tuesday's attack here, launched primarily from two cars shooting rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, some of the shots emanated from a nearby mosque.

But the mosque's sheikh, who declined to be interviewed by foreign journalists, sent out a message via an Iraqi interpreter saying that the mosque was not used for anything other than prayer.

"We are encouraging people not to fight the American army," said Sheikh Hamza al-Issawi. "But it would be better for the Americans to work harder to do something for the people, who barely have enough to eat."

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