Mayor Ousted, but People’s Anger Remains

NAJAF, Iraq -- The day after the new mayor took over from the old one, the old one having been tossed into a Marine brig for dishonoring the position for which the Marines had handpicked him, things were pretty much the same Tuesday.

Across the plaza from the medical college that passes for city hall in this southern city, elements of the armies of the United States and Iraq squared off. This time they were shouting, not shooting. The Iraqis had gathered to demand that they be paid their long-awaited severance stipends.

The Americans, mainly in the person of a determined civil affairs officer, Maj. Dan Chachakis, told the former soldiers to please be patient, their money was on the way -- along with the electricity and the clean water.

A couple of hundred Iraqis pushed and shoved and shouted, “Flus, flus!” which means “Money, money!” and rubbed thumbs against fingers in the universal sign of “Give me mine.” Several times they surged forward, enclosing Chachakis. Then the heavily armed infantry troops there to protect him pushed and shoved back, cajoling and cursing the Iraqis and extracting Chachakis, who continued the whole time talking softly, insistently.

At one point, he raised a forefinger to his lips and tried shushing the crowd like a kindergarten teacher. It worked for a second or so while the Iraqis stared in bewilderment. Then the cries of “Flus, flus!” returned.

It was not a situation that left anybody very happy.

“Wake up, go to work, quell a riot,” one soldier said.

Less than a mile away, another demonstration -- this one by workers in the Ministry of Minerals and Industry -- was underway somewhat more peacefully. About 100 people marched down a dusty street carrying signs asking that the “Military Industrial System” be replaced by a “Civil Industrial System.”

Farther down the road, a bunch of medical workers demonstrated against privatization of the health care system.

In the center of town, at a news conference outside the courthouse, the men who had investigated and arrested Abdul Munem discussed the ousted mayor.

Lt. Col. Chris Conlin of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said the new interim mayor had been installed, and Conlin hoped to have a city council in place by the end of the week. He said the council would act as a legislative body but that the legislation it passed would go to him, not into law. “They’ll act as a representative body,” he said. “Then we’ll make a decision.”

Conlin, who arrested Munem, discounted reports that as the local commander, he had also been the man who had put him in office.

“On the day he took over, I was out with my Marines cleaning up the last of the Fedayeen,” he said, referring to the Fedayeen Saddam, a militia fiercely loyal to deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Munem, a member of Hussein’s Baath Party, was an unpopular choice locally. Complaints about his behavior began to filter in to local authorities almost upon his installation in April.

He was arrested Monday morning. Soldiers who took part in the arrest said they had been waiting for six days for the order to grab him.

He was taken into custody without incident at his city hall office. Soldiers found hundreds of rifles, 9-millimeter pistols, cases of ammunition and a duffle bag full of American currency, officials said.

Prosecutors are sorting out what to charge him with, they said. He was arrested under suspicion of kidnapping, extortion and theft. Dozens of his aides were arrested with him, but most were released by Tuesday morning when the new mayor, Haydar Mahdi Mattar Mayali, took over.