Jobless soldiers fuel anti-US riots in Iraq

Events yesterday illustrate the challenges the coalition is facing. A rocket-propelled grenade or mortar hit the Foreign Ministry, though there were few injuries. Protesting former members of Iraq's intelligence service threw rocks at American soldiers, demanding that they get their jobs back. US troops also faced a protest in response to the arrest of a Shiite cleric.

The violence began Saturday, the last day for demobilized conscripts to collect their payment. Though it seems a pittance, under Hussein, soldiers received a salary of just $3 a month.

Coalition officials say at least 350,000 former soldiers have received payments. Under Hussein, agencies were thoroughly corrupted and to make complaints about the government was quite literally to take one's life in one's hands.

Today, it's safe for Iraqis to speak out, but many have a deeply ingrained suspicion of any governing authority and a vigilante mentality engendered by so many years of abuse. Security is improving for average Iraqis on the streets of the cities.

But in Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra, angry crowds, roasting in the desert heat, roiled and surged outside the compounds guarded by coalition forces and Iraqi police.

Some claimed they were stiffed by corrupt clerks, others that they had been unfairly left off the list. Still others were just angry that they had no more money coming to them.

Two former Iraqi soldiers were shot and killed by coalition forces in Baghdad. A similar incident in Basra ended with one former Iraqi soldier killed by a British soldier. Dozens of Iraqis were injured, as were two US soldiers.

That there was incitement seems clear. But a visit to the area the next day, where around 500 former soldiers were still loitering in the hopes of receiving a payment, reveals how volatile Iraq's unemployed masses are after so many years of abuse by their own government and a period of postwar uncertainty.

In the crowd, there is both deep anger at the US and deep gratitude that Hussein was removed.

Sometimes both positions are reflected in the same man.

As Hasan speaks, an angry crowd gathers around, some shouting insults at America, others asking advice on how to get payments, still others just eager to tell their story.

In moments, the scrum is about 200 men pushing and shoving, and the mood turns ugly, with some grabbing for a reporter's bag and others beginning to pound on the car he has arrived in.

"I served 25 years in the Army and then the Americans came. Now I have nothing,'' spits Adnan Hussein, a 40-something former tank captain in a tattered shirt. "These American soldiers are insulting and the police that help them are traitors." Another man shouts out: "They are starving us."

As the crowd seems to veer toward another riot, a small detachment of US soldiers approaches, shouting and threatening, and the men begin to back off.

No shots are fired, and no one is hit, but some of these men will undoubtedly add the incident to their catalogs of US insults.

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