Goodwill is fragile in new Iraq

As the cinderblock rubble of what was to be Abu Ghraib's new marketplace is carted off by scavengers, a piece of the goodwill that had slowly been built between Iraqis and Americans stationed here is also disappearing.

Just this month the new market had opened, a symbol of reconstruction progress in this poor agricultural town just west of Baghdad - and on the fringes of the violent Sunni Triangle. But by Sunday, what was intended as a community-improvement project, planned and executed by the US military in cooperation with the local town council, lay in ruins. It was crushed by American tanks and a combination of fear, misunderstandings, and outside insurgent interference.

The two days of riots and destruction of Abu Ghraib's market - which left at least seven Iraqis dead - symbolize the fragile state of relations between Iraqis and the American authorities, and the susceptibility of those relations to cultural differences and faltering security. Six months after the American military began planning and helping with everything from water projects to school refurbishments here, Abu Ghraib suggests how cooperation and sympathies so painstakingly nurtured, can be lost in a flash.

"We loved the Americans when they came, I believed when they said they came to help us," says Hossein Ibrahim, an intense former film student who lost the dishware and cutlery he sold in the market after the war. "But now I hate them, they are worse than Saddam."

The Americans, many of whom have been here since the war, are perplexed by the abrupt turn against a project meant to improve lives. But at the same time, as US soldiers have faced increasing roadside attacks and random fire, they have shifted to a more defensive and protective stance - a position that raises walls higher between them and the Iraqis.

"We'd made a lot of progress, so to have this problem at the market, where people come in and occupy it, and force us to destroy it, is really... It's disturbing," says Maj. Eric Wick, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, responsible for Abu Ghraib.

"It seems like we've taken a step backwards, but we're working hard with the local council to get things back on track," adds the Wisconsinite, who has watched Abu Ghraib evolve for eight months. "We want to make things better."

There are about as many versions of what happened at the Abu Ghraib market, beginning Friday, as there are plump crimson pomegranates on the average fruit cart here. But what started as a small protest over Iraqi police efforts to move traffic- blocking vendors flared to a bloody confrontation between locals and outsiders on one side- some armed with rockets - and US troops and tanks.

The new market was designed to get vendors - whose numbers had mushroomed after the war as nearby factories closed - off the streets and into new stalls. The market was also envisioned as a traffic-control project. The many vendors often blocked the entrance to a hospital, as well as the highway running through town to nearby Fallujah.

As attacks against US forces have increased in Fallujah - where a helicopter was downed Sunday, killing 15 American soldiers - keeping the highway clear has become a higher priority.

Offering more than 400 stalls, the new market looked like it would be a success. But when the town council decided to impose a small daily fee for stall space, some vendors balked, and returned to laying out their goods beside the highway.

With congestion building again, the new Iraqi police on Friday decided to return order and clear the street. Rocks were thrown, and the police, feeling threatened, called in the Americans. As tanks and infantry soldiers arrived, what had been small-arms fire escalated to grenades and 25- millimeter shells being fired at the US troops.

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