New leadership doesn’t impress common Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Iraq – While U.S. officials hailed appointments to an Iraqi interim government as a “great list” Tuesday, a small sampling of Baghdad residents found little interest among them in the pedigrees and parties of the new leaders and Cabinet. What interested them most, they said, was bringing an end to this nation’s violence, crime, power shortages and joblessness.

Sitting in a gas line that stretched for blocks in blistering heat Tuesday, cab driver Hameed Shammari said he knew little about Iraq’s new president, Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, and therefore found little cause for celebration.

“Frankly speaking, we don’t know nothing about him, other than his family and tribe’s names,” Shammari said. “The Iraqis were clapping hands for Saddam for the last 30 years, just hoping that he might bring them prosperity. . . . Nothing has changed. They are going to keep hoping and hoping. They are desperate. They really want somebody to improve their conditions.”

The new government, which will be in place until elections next year, also includes a prime minister, Iyad Allawi, who will have greater day-to-day authority than al-Yawer; two vice presidents and 33 Cabinet members.

As Iraqis braced themselves for what they feared would be an onslaught of terrorist bombings in the days leading up to the June 30 handover of sovereignty to the interim government, those Baghdad residents interviewed said they hoped for a determined leader with a strong hand.

“I personally do not care about who would be chosen, but rather about what kind of person he is, and how much he will bring to the Iraqi people,” said Esam Mohammed, a hospital pharmacist. “We now want deeds, not promises. The Iraqis have suffered a lot.”

Some Iraqis who were familiar with members of the Governing Council – the body from which many interim government officials were drawn – said the officials knew little of the suffering of average citizens.

“The GC are all freaks,” said Maan Dawood Akram, an unemployed teacher who was exchanging money at a roadside kiosk in the Harithiya district – the same neighborhood where a car bomb killed four people and injured about 20 bystanders Monday.

“Most of them don’t even have Iraqi citizenships; they spent the past couple of decades in Europe and the U.S., drinking alcohol, and now they come here and want to rule,” Akram said. “Did they suffer like the rest of us? No. The only ones who really deserve to be rulers are those who have suffered under the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein.”

“What is the difference between now and then, when Saddam was president?” asked Mohammed Jaafar Kareem, the owner of the cash exchange kiosk. he asked. “We still don’t have electricity, water. What’s even worse is that the security situation has deteriorated and is going from bad to worse.”

There were those, however, who believed that some members of the temporary government had the best interests of Iraqis in mind. What they objected to was the large representation of political parties.

“My personal opinion is that all these parties have to be disbanded,” said Basil Daghistani, an employee of Iraq’s Power Ministry. “All of them have blood on their hands, without any exception.”