Trinicenter.com - Iraqis Protest U.S. Military Presence

By James Rupert, www.newsday.com

Baghdad -- Only nine days after U.S. troops toppled President Saddam Hussein, thousands of Iraqis demanded an end Friday to the American military occupation of their country. But reflecting Iraqis' divisions on the issue, the protests came from only one of the country's three main communal groups.

U.S. officials announced more steps that they hope will put the war behind them -- the release of almost 900 Iraqi prisoners of war and the capture of a top-ranking leader of Hussein's Baath Party. Still, the protest, and the arrival in Baghdad of a controversial, U.S.-backed Iraqi exile politician, reflected the complications ahead for U.S. efforts to revive the paralyzed economy and establish a functioning government.

Amid the ruins of its public buildings, Baghdad's revival has stalled since most fighting ended in the city last week. With electricity off for the 15th day Friday, the city's commerce is limited to daytime, open-air markets and the tiniest of street-corner shops. The only services available are those that can be offered without power, such as haircuts and shoe-shines.

Friday's anti-U.S. protest was essentially confined to Arabs who belong to the Sunni sect of Islam. (Scholars estimate Sunni Arabs represent 15 to 20 percent of Iraq's population.) The demonstration, which included calls for an Islamic state to replace Hussein's government, followed a sermon at Friday prayers by a popular Sunni cleric and orator, Sheikh Ahmed al-Kubaisi.

Al-Kubaisi compared the U.S. invasion of Iraq to that of Mongol armies that sacked Baghdad in 1258 -- a trauma that still looms large in Iraqis' psyches. He declared that, just as Muslims eventually ousted the Mongols, so they will eventually force the Americans to quit Iraq.

"No to America, no to Saddam, our revolution is Islamic," chanted the marchers who spilled into the streets.

At mosques of Islam's other main sect, Shiism, clerics made no reference to the U.S. troops in their sermons. Iraq's Shiite religious leadership has issued a general call for U.S. troops to leave as soon as possible, and has warned that Iraqis will resist if they do not.

But the Shiite leadership, based in Najaf, 100 miles south of here, "is making no decision for now" on any more specific position regarding the American occupation, said Sheikh Haithem Nasirawi, a Najaf-based cleric now coordinating relief work in Baghdad.

Sunnis long have dominated Iraq's political elite, notably under Hussein, and thus have the most to lose from America's ouster of him. Under Hussein, the Shiites were the most oppressed of Iraq's main communal groups, and so could have the most to gain from cooperating with the U.S. effort to form a new government. Iraq's third main communal group, ethnic Kurds of the north, have been cooperating closely with U.S. forces.

As U.S. officials try to shape the formation of a new Iraqi government, a controversial contender for influence, exile politician Ahmed Chalabi, declared that an interim Iraqi administration should take over most government functions within a few weeks.

Chalabi spoke as he opened an office in Baghdad of his Iraqi National Congress. The office, in a pair of social clubs once frequented by Hussein's sons, is guarded by U.S. troops and by men from a U.S.-trained militia, the Free Iraqi Forces.

Chalabi urged the U.S. military administration, to be headed by retired Gen. Jay Garner, to quickly restore basic services. Also, he said, Iraqi political and civic groups should continue a series of forums, the first of which was held Tuesday, on a new government.

Within a few weeks, "an Iraqi interim authority will be chosen by Iraqis and take over the business of governing," Chalabi said, without suggesting specifically how such a government would be selected.

Chalabi has been championed as a potential political leader in Iraq by some U.S. officials, notably conservatives at the Pentagon. But after decades spent in exile, primarily in London, few Iraqis seem to know who he is, and he has said he is not a candidate to lead an interim government.

As U.S. forces continued to fight sporadic gun battles in Baghdad and elsewhere, they also pursued their search for Hussein and his top aides.

Kurdish fighters in their autonomous region in the north handed over to U.S. forces Samir Abdulaziz al-Najim, one of the most-wanted Hussein loyalists. The Kurds captured al-Najim Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, officials at the U.S. military's Central Command said.

Al-Najim was a member of Iraq's ruling inner circle who served as Hussein's chief of staff for several years in the 1990s and until recently as oil minister. "We think we have someone here ... that relates to weapons of mass destruction, that relates to terrorism," Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters.

Al-Najim's capture came a day after U.S. forces seized Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Hussein's half-brother and a former intelligence chief.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

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