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thedrifter
04-15-03, 06:48 AM
Beseeching the Conqueror for Aid, Protection

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, April 14 -- Adil Fehed heard it on the radio. American physicians were coming to Baghdad, to the Sheraton Hotel. So he joined the crowd swarming around a U.S. Marine checkpoint outside the hotel, pointing frantically at the child covered with raw red patches, cradled in his wife's arms. It was their 5-year-old son, Sajad.

"Iraqi doctors can't find a cure. We need Americans," Fehed, 38, told the Marines at the heavily guarded entrance to the hotel where U.S. forces have offices.

His son, Fehed explained, has been suffering from skin disorders and other disfigurements since the United States bombed Baghdad in 1998 during the Clinton administration, when the boy was only a few months old. Marine Sgt. Christopher Marsh, 24, of Riverside, Calif., sighed. Another tragedy. Pulling out a map, he showed Fehed where an Iraqi hospital was operating.

Fehed, a Health Ministry bureaucrat, protested. "The Iraqi doctors don't have anything!"

"We can't do anything more," Marsh told the dejected father.

Like Fehed, hundreds of Iraqis flocked to the Marine checkpoint today at a roll of concertina wire outside the hotel complex, pouring out the needs of a nation traumatized by war and repression. With the old political order smashed, and a new one not yet constituted, the U.S. forces were besieged by Iraqis begging for jobs, government services and help.

The scene illustrated the high expectations of Iraqis for their conquerors. Accustomed to an authoritarian government that controlled much of everyday life, from providing food to jobs, Iraqis assume the Americans will step into the void.

"The Iraqi government is now American," Fehed said. "There is no Iraqi government."

One man begged for housing, saying his apartment had been ruined by allied bombing. Others beseeched the Marines to restore electricity and telephone service. Several families tearfully asked for help in finding relatives who had disappeared during former president Saddam Hussein's three decades in power.

So far, U.S. authorities have provided little organization or resources to reestablish Iraqi institutions, citing the unfinished war and a desire to avoid being seen as a permanent occupier. So Iraqis turn to Marines like 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Brandon Bale, who was manning the concertina wire outside the hotel complex in central Baghdad. For a six-hour shift, he and the other Marines not only guarded the complex but grappled with social, economic, policing and other problems.

"All day, it's 'I need this, I need that, I need help here.' And you can only help so many," said Bale, a native of Lodi, Calif. "When I joined the Marine Corps, I never thought I'd do anything like this."

A flood of Iraqi engineers, translators and other professionals turned up. Many said they had heard a radio appeal by the Americans for technical experts needed to revive the country's infrastructure. But Marines at the barrier explained that only a few key technicians were required. Ordinary employees should simply go back to work.

Impossible, said the Iraqis.

"My workplace is destroyed, stolen by the thieves. They burn the place," one engineer, Odey Abdel Aziz, 29, told a Marine civil affairs officer, referring to massive looting in recent days.

"Can you contact your supervisor?" asked the Marine, who identified himself only as Joseph.

He urged the man to network with co-workers to find a job at another plant. Aziz stared, uncomprehending. There were no jobs. The economy had ground to a halt.

"I will be listening to the radio until you tell me what to do," Aziz said.

The Marines said they are sympathetic to Iraqi needs, but far too short-staffed to respond to the deluge of citizens clamoring for aid and protection. "Our job as U.S. Marines is not to act is a constabulary force," said Capt. Joe Plenzler, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Division.

The difficulties go beyond manpower, the Marines explained. In a remarkable sight in a country that had been an iron-fisted dictatorship, dozens of citizens came forward to warn about arms caches or fighters in hiding. But it was difficult to tell the accuracy of the reports. One man said he could guide the Marines to underground tunnels used by the secret police. A woman urged the military to go after her son-in-law, who she claimed was a foreign mercenary.

"There's a man here with information about chemical weapons," one English-speaking Iraqi informed the Marines.

"Where's he at?" asked Lance Cpl. Chris Perrotti, 21, of Portland, Ore. He muttered to a visitor: "That's the 30th time I heard that."

"We try to write down the address and go there," he said. "But we can't just go in. It could be an ambush."

The U.S. military has been trying to form a police force by re-training members of the old system. A few Iraqi policemen strode around the checkpoint behind the Marines today, wearing their green uniforms and black berets. But judging from the reaction of Iraqis at the barricade, the new force may face problems. The crowd jeered the Iraqi police and warned the Americans not to trust them.

"We don't want Iraqi police. They are bastards. They are corrupt," declared Nazar Ahmed, 34, an interior decorator.

"Who do you want to be your police?" asked a civil affairs officer, who identified himself only by his last name, Melillo.

"You," Ahmed responded.

"No, because I'm going to go home to my family someday," Melillo said. He explained that the new police force would be supervised by the Marines. "We're going to train them to be honest," he said.

Ahmed's eyebrows shot up. "Train them? To be honest?" he said in disbelief.

At another point, a melee broke out when a man spotted another of the black-bereted Iraqi policemen. "You are a traitor! You do nothing for us! You are an agent of the Americans!" he yelled, grabbing the roll of concertina wire with his bare hands and banging it up and down. Several in the crowd clapped.

One Marine looked nervously at another. "They need to get new uniforms," he said.

For all their frustration, the Marines said they found Iraqis friendly. And many of the Iraqis at the checkpoint appeared fascinated by the Marines.

"I was thinking they could be killers. But now, no. The soldiers respect us," said Mohammad Khaldoon, 23.

Curious young men peppered the Marines with questions: Where were they from? What kind of cigarettes did they smoke? What kind of automatic rifles were they carrying?

Perrotti, a lanky 6 feet 4, had a small crowd mesmerized as he talked about the U.S. military.

"How long do you serve in your country? Is it obligatory? You must?" asked Rafid Hazad Marsen, 27, a college student studying English.

"No. I volunteered. I said I want to go fight. For freedom," said Perrotti.

"Do you choose to go to Gulf?" Marsen asked.

"Yes. I want to help," Perrotti said.

Marsen looked perplexed. "Help who?" he asked.

For their part, the Americans were at times puzzled by the Iraqi men fingering clusters of beads and the people eating flat rounds of strange bread. "It kind of reminds me of Mexico -- the bad water and the corrupt police," Perrotti declared.

Despite the friendly reception the Marines receive by day, they still experience the occasional burst of small-arms fire at night. And every day, dozens of protesters gather in the square in front of the hotel complex, chanting slogans against the U.S. military presence.

While some Iraqis addressed the Marines with formal politeness, they confessed to being disillusioned when they walked away. Saad Ahmed, 38, an engineer, was desperate when he came to see the Marines. He had fled the city during the war, and returned to find his apartment in ruins. Meanwhile, the company for which he worked had been ransacked in the wave of looting. He had no idea how he was going to provide for his wife and two children.

"I talked to them. They have no solution to my problem," said Ahmed, near tears. "They came to bring the democracy. But what I do with democracy if there's no job?"


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


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