Some Iraqis Entertain Dark Thoughts About Troops

In postwar Iraq, where information -- just like water, power and safety -- remains in short supply, no commodity is as reliably present as the rumor.

In the mosques and in the markets, sheiks and laymen alike happily chew over -- and then pass on -- tales of a broad array of nefarious deeds by American and British troops. In Fallouja, a village west of Baghdad that has been the scene of several bloody confrontations between residents and U.S. troops, one persistent rumor is that American soldiers use their night-vision goggles to see through the cloak-like abayas worn by Iraqi women.

The goggles, whose view finders outline objects with green light, merely allow soldiers to see better in the dark. But that hasn’t stopped several residents from citing these “evil” goggles to explain their resistance to the American presence.

Then there’s the street talk that Americans hand out “porno candy,” whose wrappers reveal pornographic pictures, to corrupt Iraqi children. Sheik Jamal Shaker Mahmoud, a local Muslim cleric, passed this tidbit on as fact during his address at Friday prayers at Fallouja Great Mosque.

Residents here are also convinced that Saddam International Airport, newly renamed Baghdad International, is off limits to the public because the Americans captured it by using chemical weapons, among the very weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration alleged were held by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“I challenge you to go to the airport in Baghdad!” an angry man said to an American journalist, who had flown from the site earlier that week. “No one could survive there.” U.S. military aircraft are using the airport, but, like most U.S. military bases in Iraq, civilian access is highly restricted.

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One reason the rebuilding of Iraq has progressed slowly is that American occupation authorities are finding that even the seemingly simple tasks all too often aren’t. Take electricity. Fire up the power plants, make sure the distribution lines aren’t down and flip the switch, right? Wrong.

The senior U.S. advisor to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, Timothy Carney, related how the debate among U.S. authorities whether to provide the sparse power available to industry -- thus assuring jobs and salaries -- or to neighborhood homes was blindsided by reality: Neither would get enough unless a deal was cut to first shunt electricity to the Al Furat industrial enterprise near the capital.

That factory produces the chlorine gas and sulfuric acid used to purify the power plant water-cooling systems. Without those chemicals, the power plants would quite literally grind to a halt. After some discussion, the agreement to divert scarce electricity to Al Furat was made. Late last week, U.S. officials were checking to make sure it was arriving.

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Iraqis’ first payday in months has put a spring in the step of many consumers -- and a drain on the springs of their cars.

A day after public servants picked up monthly wages worth between $100 and $500, the roads in the country were jammed with newly gassed-up cars laden with loot, this time bought and paid for. Heading south to the capital on the potholed highway between Irbil and Baghdad, sleek new vans and rattle-trap pickups labored under loads of TVs, air conditioners, satellite dishes and appliances purchased in the well-stocked north.

The subsequent traffic jam, born of a spending spree likely to help boost the shattered economy, has had a healing effect on security conditions as well.

With so many cars and vans weaving in and out of the slower farm-vehicle traffic, bandits who have plagued the road were apparently hard-pressed to ambush anyone without attracting notice. U.S. troops also set up checkpoints, searching suspects’ vehicles for weapons and frisking male occupants who didn’t appear to be out shopping.

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In Baghdad, the first postwar payday also caused traffic problems. The rush Saturday to pick up salaries (Iraqis are paid in cash) resulted in a traffic snarl on a six-lane highway through the southern part of the city that includes a bridge across the Tigris River.

With no traffic police around to help untangle the mess -- or offer detours -- motorists took things into their own hands.

After the eastbound lanes had backed up a few miles, those stuck at the end of the jam simply made U-turns and converted the nearest on-ramp into two-way traffic to get off. But the wrong-way drivers didn’t stop there.

They dropped down under the highway, came up on the westbound section of the divided roadway and converted the shoulder into an instant eastbound lane.

While there were a couple of near-sideswipes and some skipped heartbeats on the part of wide-eyed westbound drivers, the tactic definitely eased the congestion.