Iraqi Council Doesn’t Stick to an Agenda

The American soldiers entered the battered government building, made their way past expressionless townspeople and came face to face with about a dozen men carrying AK-47s.

Then a sheik stepped forward and shook the soldiers’ hands. Other men in business suits or tribal dress, and a few women, did the same as they assembled in a large room with squeaking ceiling fans and rows of couches.

Maj. Christopher DiCicco and Maj. Dean Lynch were reporting for duty at the well-guarded seventh meeting of Salahuddin province’s new ruling council.

The two officers with the U.S. Army’s 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division were engaged in a delicate mission to nurture democratic institutions in Iraq against a backdrop of sectarian tension, violence and hostility toward Americans.

DiCicco and Lynch watch and report on the progress of local governance. They can give tips and hand out supplies. To some extent, they can direct reconstruction resources.

But though U.S. soldiers in the early stages of the occupation often ran local governments, giving orders and making crucial decisions, today Iraqis play a greater role in their own affairs. The hand-over of sovereignty last summer led to a new structure of town and provincial councils, which since national balloting in January have been filled with elected officials.

The insurgency and violence have hindered the rise of grass-roots institutions in Iraq, but the spirit of local control appeared to be thriving in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. Council members -- 25 Sunni and 16 Shiite Muslims, among them Kurds and Turkmens -- put on a raucous form of democracy recently as DiCicco and Lynch sat in.

First the two soldiers piled their helmets, body armor and M-16s at the back of the council chamber. Then they handed out some handguns and took photos for badges. DiCicco had promised the weapons to council members, who are potential targets of insurgents for cooperating with U.S. forces.

The agenda was brief, beginning with a multimedia lesson, prepared by North Carolina-based contractor RTI International, on the basics of holding open meetings. The council was told that only one person should address the group at a time, speakers should stick to the subject and decisions had to be made by votes, to be held only for items on the agenda.

Then they broke all the rules.

First the province’s director general of electricity had to defend himself against a barrage of charges of incompetence and corruption. The director cited many reasons for the power outages that disrupt life around the province and repeatedly emphasized the problem of bandits taking down transmission lines as quickly as they went up.

“It’s not my responsibility to provide protection,” he said. “The people who get the benefit must protect the area.”

The chairman, Sheik Ahmed Rasheed, quieted the crowd, asserting that the council would not endorse vigilantism.

About that time, a young boy walked up the aisle, offering cans of Pepsi to the audience.

“I take the Pepsi,” Lynch said. “Then I can pass on the communal coffee.”

His meaning became clear a few minutes later when a grizzled man wearing a white dishdasha robe and a red kaffiyeh began serving coffee up and down the aisles from a brass pot and two shared cups.

Every few minutes, one of the bodyguards leaned over the back of DiCicco’s couch to ask the officer if he could get a gun.

DiCicco shook his head patiently each time.

“Only members,” the interpreter told the men.

“In the future?” one pressed.

“Maybe,” DiCicco replied. “I can’t promise.”

The next item on the agenda was old business. But Salahuddin Gov. Hamad Humood Shugti, who wasn’t listed as a speaker, had some new business.

As his aides handed out color fliers, Shugti said he and the governor of neighboring Al Anbar province were proposing to federate the three provinces making up the Sunni Triangle, the area west and northwest of Baghdad where the insurgency has its greatest support. Before he could finish, the governor was silenced by shouting and arm-waving.

“We refuse this issue,” said a young man in a nicely cut suit who strolled to the front and slapped his hand on the table next to the governor. “It will destroy the unity of Iraq.”

As the aides took back the fliers, the council voted unanimously to shelve the plan.

The young man, Sunni lawyer Ali Ghalib, coiled in readiness as the chairman introduced the next off-agenda speaker. The provincial security chief, Col. Jassim Hussein Mohammed, had recently been accused of torture by local media.

As boys handed out tiny glasses of tea on saucers, the clinking of teaspoons accompanied Mohammed’s impassioned defense of his tactics.

“I am the one dealing with the terrorists,” he said. “You only have a general picture.”

Ghalib cut him off with a rousing call for human rights.

The confrontation may have ended in a standoff, but Ghalib had caught Lynch’s attention. The major thought Ghalib might help enlist local judges in organizing human rights training for the police, whose reputation for courage, in his view, surpassed their knowledge of the Geneva Convention.

The two men set up a meeting.

Then it was time for the soldiers to return to Ft. Dagger. They put on their body armor, picked up their M-16s and rejoined their drivers and machine gunners at the convoy of Humvees parked outside.

Sgt. Antonio Dunston, a driver, tossed a soccer ball to a child before the Americans drove off.

That afternoon, DiCicco and Lynch returned only briefly to their quarters, a marble-lined room inside one of the dozens of grand palaces ringing Hussein’s hometown. As darkness fell, their four roommates sat on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River reminiscing about home.

The two majors had to pass; they had reports to write. But DiCicco felt good about the day.

“We feel that says something when the leaders say they don’t want anything that will split the country,” he said.