On a Baghdad street, patience

A tiny figure cloaked in black, Um Khalid squats in the street beside an illegal water tap, fills up a blue plastic bucket, and carries it on her shoulder into the crude dirt and brick construction site that her family calls home. In a dark corner, she lights a kerosene stove to boil water for morning tea.

As hard as life is in Baghdad for this middle-aged mother of three, however, she says it's better in many ways than before the war. "There's more opportunity, more chances to earn money," she says, resting on a piece of cardboard.

One hundred days after the US-led occupation of Iraq began, American troops are facing daily guerrilla attacks. And a report released Friday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that time is running out for the coalition authority to demonstrate progress on security and services - or lose the cooperation of the Iraqi people.

Yet a day spent on a typical street in Baghdad's Al Karradah neighborhood reveals more decidedly mixed attitudes about the postwar situation here than suggested by the daily incidents of violence. Indeed, voicing clear gains as well as difficulties in day-to-day life, all of the residents in a small but varied sample seemed willing to give the occupation force time to stabilize the country.

The need for greater security was a common concern of residents, though several said the situation had improved since the early days of looting and robberies. In contrast, many residents said their income had risen or stayed the same, while their freedoms had expanded dramatically. Only one person of a dozen interviewed said American forces should leave Iraq right away - while the rest wanted US troops to stay until a new government had been established and security achieved.

"The Americans brought us freedom, but there's still a lot to do in terms of security," says Um, who asked simply to be identified as her son's mother. "If the Americans leave now, we won't have security at all in Baghdad," adds her son, Haider Majeed, a high school student.

As economic migrants to Baghdad, Um's family is one of many benefiting from the end of residency restrictions. Um was working as a farm laborer in a village south of Baghdad when the war broke out. A widow whose husband died in 1986 fighting in the Iran-Iraq war, she was supporting her family mainly using her late husband's monthly pension of about $29 and by selling whatever food rations she could scrimp.

When the war ended, she moved to Baghdad, taking shelter at first in the bombed out Muasker Al Rasheed military camp. Then, with a relative's help, she found a job providing security for a construction site, and moved her family to the site in the Al Karradah district of eastern Baghdad.

Soon, she found a second job as a janitor. Her sons, meanwhile, work mixing cement and hauling sand - more than doubling the family income. The family sleeps on mats on a dirt floor, and limited electricity means that the fan that is their only respite from 100-degree heat runs only a few hours a day. Still, Um and her children say they have far better job prospects now. "I still can't buy a TV or a refrigerator, but we have all the food we need," she says.

Page: 1 | 2