Allies winning Iraqis over with petty jobs

People here are thirsty. For water, for work - and maybe even for friendship with the invaders. Swarming in dusty, sun-blasted streets, Iraqi children tip empty plastic bottles towards their lips as troop-guarded relief transports groan past. "Water, mister, water," they shout. Townsfolk fling arms upward in a universal pantomime, fists curled, thumbs jutting toward their mouths: "Give, give. Drink, drink."

Suddenly those thumbs thrust skyward in delight as everyone realises: They've brought water today. It's pouring into this port town of a few thousand on the Arabian Gulf. The tractor-trailers were loaded with more than 100,000 of 1.5-litre bottles on Sunday - a gift from Kuwait, the former enemy just across the border.

Something else, just as sustaining, has come with the water, courtesy of the military coalition at war with Iraq. The British army is handing out jobs, and they're paying in dollars. In front of a green canvas tent, anxious Iraqi men line up, applying to be cooks, kitchen helpers and cleaners - jobs that will support large-scale humanitarian relief efforts. These positions will pay slightly more than the prevailing $35 or $40 a month. They're the first wave of a plan to restore operations at the huge deep-water port, which employed 1,000 people but shut down when war began.

"It's enough," one 18-year-old Iraqi says when informed of the wage he's standing in line to secure. He sips from a water jug. "We haven't had any work."

These scenes unfold at a well-secured coalition base at the port, part of an operation the British call CIMIC, for Civilian Military Cooperation. By using warehouse distribution, it's meant to achieve an orderly relief delivery instead of the riotous food tosses that occurred in the nearby village of Safwan in recent days.

This is a microcosmic glimpse of Operation Iraqi Freedom as it lurches into the hearts-and-minds phase. It seems reminiscent of a Depression newsreel, reviving memories of bread lines, ward bosses wielding jobs to stay in political control, something out of The Great McGinty.

Do these men really support the U.S.-led invasion? "We don't care who is going to rule," one man shouts, explaining, as most do, that they never backed Saddam's Sunni-led Baath Party - they are part of the South's Shia Muslim majority. "We just want to feed our families."

"I only have rotten tomatoes," laments a man in his early twenties. Because of the fighting, "my whole house is gone".

Support

Grudging Iraqi support is being bought with food, water and jobs: Stick with me and I'll set you free. It's democracy at work, right here at the Aluboor Marine Terminal, whose entrance features a massive concrete statue of the Ba'ath Party eagle, pocked with evidence of fire fights involving high-calibre weapons. Over the terminal entrance, somebody on the winning side has spray-painted: "Welcome to the New Iraq U.S. Marines Terminal."

British officers say they've cleared 150 Iraqi nationals for jobs so far, taking medical histories and conducting background checks. In Sunday's job queue, most applicants are in their early twenties or late teens - kids with acne and wispy moustaches, wearing dingy T-shirts, sweat pants and ratty sandals. They voice a litany of needs in Arabic and English: "Electricity … Bread … Soup … Potatoes … Water … Cigarettes …" (In Iraq, a pack of cigarettes costs around $3, a princely sum.)

The youths shy from cameras and most refuse to give their names. They say they're still fearful of being hunted down and having their throats slit by Ba'athist holdouts.

If Saddam survives, one man says, he will turn the little town into a soccer stadium: "And we will be the ball." But in Umm Qasr - a destitute, flyblown place whose name translates as "Mother of a Palace" - the opposition appears to either be gone or in hiding since the British finally declared the town secured on Wednesday. The application line, about 30 deep, moves forward under the guard of British MPs wearing red berets. "We feel safer now," says a young man who used to work at the government port.

As the bullets and bombs have moved North, the coalition is trying to secure the peace with so-called "helper-soldiers". They hail from British and American civil affairs units who reach out to friendly locals to re-establish basic infrastructure and social institutions. Assisted by Arabic translators, officers last week met with community leaders who offered names of job candidates from several families.

Central theme

"It's not winning the war, it's winning the peace that's important," says Major Simon Wilkinson, a British civil affairs officer. It is also a central theme among U.S. Marines and Army civil affairs officers - the majority of them reservists with legal, medical, educational, technical and administrative specialities - who have been deployed to tidy up the aftermath of war. "I'm not here to conquer, I'm here to help," says Master Sergeant Howard Kutcher, 37, a Delaware elementary school principal with the U.S. Army's 358th Civil Affairs Brigade. He's at a rear base in Kuwait, awaiting the go-ahead to assist with problems in the Iraqi educational system.

Though mindful of a U.S. reversal during their 1991 uprising against Saddam, the people of Umm Qasr are developing some trust in the coalition forces. The military says it's eager to hand the port back to the populace - and to international aid organisations. "We do not direct, control or command any humanitarian organisation," Wilkinson says. "We facilitate their efforts."

But money talks here, as it does everywhere. "Is Kuwait nice?" one teenager wonders. Another in the group says he recently received notice of conscription into the Iraqi military. "Thank God you came first."

An 18-year-old named Abbas says he has come to find work with the coalition because, as a Shia, he has been denied educational and job opportunities: "If you are not well connected you can't go to school. If you're not Ba'athi you can't even work … We expect prosperity after Saddam is gone."

Several youths have one word to say about Saddam: Khalas - finished, over, that's it. But maybe not. One guy isn't convinced of Bush's intentions: "You're coming with a plan. We'll wait and see what you guys do." Seeing a group of reporters arrive, another Iraqi grumbles: "It's just a show for publicity."

A British army major, Allen Poulson of the Royal Logistics Corps, stands on a concrete slab near the job tent, urging journalists not to photograph the applicants indiscriminately. "They're nervous about making the first step," he says.

Sunday's port visit is yet another coalition media event for non-embedded journalists - designed to display the kinder face of the occupying forces here. The teenagers play along: "Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it," one jokes, watching in fascination as a journalist records his mood.

If there is deeply felt anger towards the coalition in Umm Qasr, few dare to display it. Instead, teenagers like Abbas are making friends with young British like Sean Hall, part of the Royal Army's Labour Services Support Unit. "Everyone seems to be okay with it," Hall says of the jobs programme.

Hall, from Derbyshire, England