Clock ticking for US to sway Iraqis

The voice of Saddam Hussein - or someone who sounds like him - echoed through the streets of Baghdad this week exhorting Iraqis to "wage holy war against the foolish invaders." The public reaction here to the former Iraqi leader's "return" via audiotape offers a window on how the US is doing in its battle for hearts and minds.

"I was a political prisoner, so I enjoy our freedom more than most people," says Furkhan Mohammed, who teaches his neighbors to use a computer from a cramped corner of his wife's dental office.

"But I have some advice for the Americans: If they can't provide basic services, they had better bring back Saddam."

Electricity, water, and jobs remain in short supply.

Though expressions of nostalgia for the old days often seem rhetorical, some observers say that popular dismay at the state of their country is eroding many Iraqis' faith in the Americans. While not actively opposing the US, they may be turning into more passive observers.

"The majority of people, I fear, have come to be spectators of events, not parties to them," suggests Gailan Ramiz, a former professor of politics at Baghdad University. "Life has become negative, and though almost all Iraqis are against attacks on the Americans, they are not going to be active supporters to prevent them."

An Arab-language satellite TV station broadcast Wednesday a tape purportedly made by Mr. Hussein demanding that US commanders negotiate their immediate withdrawal from Iraq with the former regime leaders they have captured. American deaths, now totaling 73 since the end of hostilities, "have begun to eat away at the enemy like wildfire," the voice on the tape said. "You must increase your grip and armed struggle."

Few Iraqis believe that such messages recruit significant numbers of men to the ranks of the guerrillas who have been launching around 15 attacks a day on US troops in recent weeks, with small arms, rocket propelled grenades and home made bombs. "People have heard enough of Saddam's lies," says Mr. Mohammed's wife, Walaa.

Fliers echoing Hussein's call can be found on Baghdad's sidewalks left under bricks for passersby to find. One such message, headed: "Statement No. 6 from Muhammed's Brave United Iraqi People" urges Iraqis to "act as one hand against the nonbelievers, the Americans," adding, "God is fighting them with your hands."

But you do not have to support the former regime, or follow fundamentalist Islamists, to resent the Americans in today's Iraq, where nervous soldiers habitually shout at citizens who do not understand them, point their guns at passersby, and subject suspect travelers at checkpoints to humiliating treatment.

"A few people who benefited from Saddam are fighting the Americans, a few hate him so much they support the Americans, and the rest of us will just defend our country," says Khaled Ibrahim, a retired businessman, as he sips his morning glass of sweet tea outside a cafe in central Baghdad.

"At the moment we are patient, waiting to see the results of the invasion, to see when they will hand over authority to Iraqis," he adds. "So far we have seen no achievements: Saddam Hussein and his regime are gone, but security and law and order have gone with him."

It is ordinary Iraqis such as Mr. Ibrahim whom the Americans must win over if they are to forestall the development of a sea of public sympathy in which the anti-US guerrilla fish might swim.

Anti-US attacks show no sign of abating. US troops were ambushed in the central Iraqi town of Khaldiya Thursday; attackers used a remote control bomb and gunfire to damage a Humvee and two American trucks, according to Reuters. And on Monday, Khaldiyah's police chief was killed in an ambush as he was returned to his home in Fallujah.

The central challenge, Iraqis and US officials agree, is to restore law and order, and with it the sense of personal safety that is at the top of almost every Iraqi's list of priorities.

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