On a Baghdad Street, Palpable Despair

Residents Embittered by Politicians' Choices

BAGHDAD, March 30 -- The mortar shells sailed across the sky Sunday evening and ripped through the corrugated tin roof of the barbershop. They shattered brick walls, mangled beams and knocked over leather chairs. Smoke, debris and glass covered the street outside.

There was blood on Abu Ghadeer's shirt. He had pulled out of the wreckage a boy who had come for a haircut but instead received a body full of shrapnel. Twenty minutes later, after an ambulance had taken the boy away, Abu Ghadeer struggled to understand.

"A week ago, life was good," he said. "Now, nobody knows what will happen."

For Iraqis, widespread clashes this past week have exposed their nation's brittleness. After months of relative calm and declining violence, many people were locking themselves inside their homes and shops again as Shiite gunmen battled U.S. and Iraqi forces. Curfews restricted their movement, yet they were still unable to escape the mortar and rocket fire.

In Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood Sunday, the despair was palpable. In alleyways and storefronts, people spoke about their frustration and dread, and about the misguided politics they blamed for running Iraq into the ground. Many said they were worried not about sectarian conflict but about war erupting right in their community.

Karrada, a mostly Shite enclave that is considered one of the safest areas of the capital, is a stronghold of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a powerful Shiite party that is part of the ruling coalition. Yet many Shiites here said the government's offensive in the port city of Basra, which sparked violence across southern Iraq and in Baghdad, showed that their politicians cared more about eradicating rivals than tending to the needs of their constituents.

"Every political party wants to control the situation and to be on top," said Adnan Radhi, 60, a municipal employee in Baghdad. "And the people are paying the price."

On Sunday, shortly before noon, Radhi and two friends sat in a grimy alley near Karrada's main commercial road. People walked past carrying bags of bread, and old women begged for food. A round-the-clock traffic ban was in place, leaving only police vehicles on the road. Piles of trash lay everywhere.

A few minutes earlier, a mortar had thundered nearby. In the past week, all three men had had close experiences with mortar attacks.

Radhi questioned why Maliki had launched the Basra offensive. There were so many other priorities, he said.

"They promised us a rise in salaries and pensions. It was all lies," he said as his friends nodded. "There's hunger everywhere. No electricity, no water, no cooking gas, no kerosene. It's only promises. No action."

He paused, and sighed: "It's a crisis now."