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thedrifter
06-11-03, 11:35 AM
In Holy City, Things Are Going Right
U.S. Forces and Iraqis Work Together in Shiite Stronghold of Karbala

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 11, 2003; Page A01


KARBALA, Iraq -- Hundreds of demonstrators surged through streets snarled with traffic. They coursed past the gold-leaf dome of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred shrines, past grimy walls plastered with portraits of young men killed by Saddam Hussein's government and past the hovels of pilgrims.

Through a rickety bullhorn came chants demanding that U.S. forces occupying Karbala pay the salaries of soldiers in the disbanded Iraqi army and pensions to veterans.

But the protest Monday was perhaps most remarkable for what was missing. Not once was there a chant denouncing the U.S. occupation, a staple of demonstrations elsewhere in Iraq. A request by U.S. troops for the crowd to make way for military vehicles prompted protesters to shout: "Get back! Get back!" The crowd hurriedly did.

In a city so sacred that its soil is used to make the stones on which Shiites bow their heads in prayer, the American occupation of Karbala -- 1,110 U.S. troops in a city of 500,000 -- has emerged as a rare example of a postwar experience gone right.

In gestures large and small -- from reopening an amusement park with free admission to restoring electricity to twice its prewar level, from stopping looting with a rapidly reconstituted police force, to a conscious effort to respect religious sensitivities -- Karbala seems to have avoided the bitterness and disenchantment that has enveloped Baghdad and other cities.

"It's not Fort Apache," said Marine Lt. Col. Michael Belcher, the city's senior American officer and a native of Temple Hills, Md.

Yet problems remain, and deep-seated fears linger over the future, many residents say. Complaints are rife over what many still perceive as too little security. The local government and police are seen as too weak, even corrupt. Clerics, some more militant than others, angrily trade rumors that U.S. servicemen drink alcohol, leer at women and distribute pornography.

Lurking underneath is a fear that once the Americans leave, even uniformly Shiite cities like Karbala will erupt in bloodletting as scores are settled from three decades of Hussein's rule and dozens of factions -- many armed and claiming religious sanction -- slug it out for supremacy.

"I'm one of the citizens who rejects the idea that the Americans leave," said Awad Rubai, a father of six with no income, who stood at the protest thumbing a well-worn string of yellow worry beads. "Revenge is in the air. There would be chaos. There would be anarchy. There would be trouble. Iraq would become a bloody theater."

Here, the chief of the two-month occupation is Belcher, a hard-driving Marine with a crew cut and a sunburned, bulldog face. In other cities, such as Fallujah, where soldiers are fighting a smoldering guerrilla war, the U.S. military presence has proved provocative. In Karbala, Belcher, 42, is treated as a mix of ambassador and potentate, and he touts as a model the ability of his staff to engage the city council and police with the tacit blessing of key clerics.

Karbala is one of the few cities where government employees -- 28,000 municipal workers and 31,000 retirees -- were paid without interruption. To get the money for the salaries, troops had to escort a bank manager to neighboring Hilla to get approval from his supervisor to open his doors.

Blackouts are limited to a few hours a day, better than any time since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Water filters were brought in to improve quality, a long-standing problem. And the city government distributed rations at the end of April.

In the dreary classrooms of the school that serves as Belcher's base, he chats with his staff about "micro-enterprise lending" -- loans to help Iraqis start small businesses -- as well as providing Internet access and upgraded equipment to the local television station.

"If all you have is a hammer," he said, "every problem looks like a nail."

At a soccer game on Saturday, just before dusk subdued the summer heat, the Iraqi police team took on U.S. Marines in newly purchased uniforms of blue and red. Belcher sat next to the police chief, Col. Abbas Hassani. Expletives poured from the American sidelines as the Marines rooted for an outgunned team that ended up losing to the Iraqis, 8-3. But it was all civility in the stands.

Belcher and Hassani called each other "general," even though both are colonels. Before the match, Hassani recounted, Belcher asked whether his men's shorts were modest enough. "They're the same as ours!" a surprised Hassani exclaimed.

Unlike towns in restive regions north and west of Baghdad, U.S. troops in Karbala have yet to come under fire. They have entered fewer than 10 houses here to search for weapons. They patrol without flak jackets in an effort to make their presence less formidable. They try to stay at least 100 yards from the city's two shrines -- one housing the remains of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad whose death in battle in 680 defines the spiritual narrative of Shiite belief, the other the remains of his half-brother Abbas, celebrated as a symbol of Arab heroism.

The shadow cast by those shrines orders life in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad. At night, devotional chants waft across the shrines' grounds, where pilgrims too poor to stay in hotels lie on sheets or straw mats. Crowds meander past rickety stands and small shops that stay open until 11 p.m., selling worry beads, prayer stones, tapes of religious sermons and portraits of Imam Hussein.

For many, Abdel-Mahdi Salami is the city's spiritual authority. He is the deputy of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the ranking cleric at the Shiite seminary in Najaf, 50 miles south of Karbala. In contrast to some more activist clerics, Sistani eschews a role in government for the clergy, a message welcomed by U.S. officials here. He has suggested in edicts that politics is beneath clerics' spiritual calling.

Salami -- with his thick-framed glasses and a beard streaked with gray -- has followed that injunction. By all accounts, he wields great authority and enjoys popularity from the hectic, even anarchic days after the fall of Hussein's government on April 9 when he and 25 other clerics stepped in to run the government. He refuses to meet with the Americans, conveying his wishes through the city council, and Belcher credits him as instrumental in enabling his forces to work with the council.

Outside the worn metal door of Salami's office, down a dirt path bisected by a trickle of sewage, Sistani's edicts are posted. One urges residents of Karbala to adhere only to clergy representing Sistani and three other senior ayatollahs in Najaf.

Another urges all residents to return any stolen property to the local government. "Keeping this property is forbidden," it reads. In past weeks, Sistani has urged clerics -- divided as they are -- to remain outside the government and has warned against revenge killings.

But in a hint of the ambivalence of the clergy toward the U.S. occupation -- a mix of cooperation and suspicion -- Salami said he worried about the corruption that he said he was witnessing in Karbala. Drugs are becoming more prevalent, some sold near the shines, "immoral" compact discs are for sale and U.S. troops are searching women and spreading pornography, he said. He was particularly angry that a U.S. detachment remained stationed at Karbala University, which both male and female students attend.

Like other clerics, Salami said Hassani's new police force was not up to the task of bringing moral order to Karbala. And he bristled at a decision by the military and the city council last month to disband a volunteer force that he said was enforcing Islamic values. Belcher, Hassani and other city officials contended it was little more than a criminal gang engaged in theft, kidnapping and extortion.

Sitting against a green banner that lists Shiite saints, Salami said he appreciated what Belcher has brought. But he had yet to make peace with the occupation, near shrines so sacred. "We wish there was no American presence inside the city," he said.

Khalil Kadhimi, 34, a cleric who heads a rival, more activist faction, was less circumspect. Confident of his faction's support, he wants an election -- an idea that the head of the city council, Ali Kamouna, has discouraged for now.

"You can't say the Americans are directly responsible, but because they prevent us from taking control, they encourage the spread of this corruption," said Kadhimi, who hears as many 15 cases a day as the judge of an Islamic court. "Politics," he added, "cannot be separated from religion."

Kamouna, a soft-spoken man of 32 who sits at a tidy table with a placard that reads "governor," said he worries about the Americans' departure, possibly as soon as this summer. The grandson of a governor appointed by the British in 1918, he lists the 23-member city council's accomplishments with U.S. assistance -- from distributing rations to repairing electricity. But he said he remains suspicious of clerics like Kadhimi and fears that when the Americans leave, armed groups will wreck the calm Karbala has enjoyed.

"It would be dangerous for them to leave," Kamouna said, as a crowd waited outside his office with requests ranging from settling property disputes to bringing in more traffic police to controlling unruly streets. "It would be like Lebanon if they left. It would be massacres."


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


Sempers,

Roger


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