To Many, Mission Not Accomplished

Saad Abbas, who runs a small butcher shop on the edge of town, said his business has suffered because the Baath Party functionaries, security agents and soldiers who formed a large part of Iraq's economy before the war have run out of money and cannot find work. The economy around Baqubah seems frozen, he said, and until it gets moving again, nobody will be able to pay for his freshly slaughtered lamb.

"The most important thing is the electricity," said Abbas, 38. "Because when the electricity stops, everything stops."

List of Grievances

Khabair Sulman Hussein Dureimi, 65, was picked up late one evening by U.S. soldiers who came to his house in Ragat Haj al-Sheil, the date-growing village he heads on the edge of Baqubah city. He was taken to the nearby Farnas airstrip that serves as a U.S. base, he recalled. There he was interrogated once, he said, and released without explanation a month later.

Because of this and other reasons, the 4,800 people of Ragat Haj al-Sheil have little good to say about the U.S. occupation.

For them, according to a conversation with several Iraqis at Dureimi's spacious home, the occupation has meant being forced off the road by U.S. armored personnel carriers that insist on driving down the middle. It has meant being unable to get water from a nearby stream because it runs too close to the Farnas base. It has meant getting shot at when they move about the reeds and underbrush of their palm groves. And for Dureimi's 35-year-old son, Labib, it has meant trying to leave at 5 a.m. to get a good spot in a gasoline line and having his car damaged by machine-gun fire from an armored personnel carrier crew that was startled in the darkness.

Encounters with soldiers have so soured the villagers' view of the U.S. military that even a public works project funded by the Army has become a source of contention.

Civil affairs officers from the Farnas base donated money to spruce up the village school, which villagers said had not been maintained since it was built in 1954. Workers have begun replastering the walls and pouring concrete for a playground. But the new roof, villages complained, is made from mud that will disintegrate at the first winter rain.

"The work should be done right," said Mohammed Aly, an unemployed former soldier whose six children attend the school.

Villagers complained to U.S. soldiers that the Iraqi contractor was doing shoddy work, but got no result, Aly said.

A Dialogue in Bughros

Lt. Col. Steve Bullimore, 43, of St. Joseph, Mo., the commander of Task Force 16 with responsibility for Baqubah, was well into the third hour of his meeting with local sheiks and dignitaries. I have $625,000 to fund reconstruction projects, he told them, so come forward with what you need.

"What will it take to change the minds of some of these people in Bughros?" he asked, referring to a violence-prone village on the edge of Baqubah. "Is it jobs? Is it money? Be honest with me."

Bughros has been a thorn in the side of U.S. commanders here for months. For most of the last year, U.S. forces have sought to avoid the village because they were consistently ambushed there. Bullimore -- tall, smiling and confident -- told his visitors that deal was over.

From now on, he said, U.S. forces will continually visit Bughros. They will come to help, he added, but if they are fired on, they will fire back.

"My understanding is that every time they went into Bughros, they got shot at, so they just left it alone," Bullimore said of his predecessors. "Is that right? What I'm telling you is that I cannot do that."