Iraq still awaiting stable governance

A little before 1pm Wednesday, in a city seething with discontent, the men emerged from the washroom, their wet faces glistening under a searing sun.

A woman in a black abaya sat expectantly at the steel gate of the Shaker Thahi Mosque, seeking alms from gathering worshippers. From a doleful, scratchy loudspeaker, the first phrase was uttered, "God is greatest," repeated four times.

The crowd of men paused at the call to prayer, a gesture of respect. But only for a moment. "I'm angry! I'm angry at this filthy life!" shouted Adnan Mohammed, wearing a soiled blue dishdasha. "We're becoming like the Palestinians," added another worshipper, Khaled Abdullah.

"The Americans should get out of our city. It's a Muslim city. We're a Muslim country," cried out Shihab Mohammedi, as the muezzins' chants echoed across the market's minarets. "Who said they were liberators? Liberators from whom?"

So went another conversation in a Sunni Muslim city that's emerged as a centre of resistance over the American occupation of Iraq.

Since arriving in Fallujah on April 23, U.S. troops charged with securing the peace have fired on protesters, fallen victim to hit-and-run attacks, staged nighttime raids and carried out hundreds of arrests.

They have also painted schools, put up blackboards, handed out food and distributed soccer balls in an effort to salve the anger in this city 35 miles west of Baghdad.

A day at the mosque, in a prosperous market, is a sobering glimpse at how deep, perhaps irreconcilable, run the differences between the occupied and the occupiers.

Inside the mosque's brick walls, across a courtyard of coloured tiles, the men described a city agitated by unmet expectations and seized by grievances that span not only a month of U.S. occupation but also three decades of Saddam Hussain's rule.

They grapple with a faith and nation they fear are under siege, giving rise to talk of conspiracies. And they warn the months ahead will witness greater resistance, even as they dismiss the Baath Party's role in plotting the campaign.

"The Americans are planning, organising and working, but they don't realise that they're putting a noose around their necks," said Ahmed Moham-med, 36, the owner of the Islamic Bookstore, across the street from the mosque.

Mohammed and his five brothers run the bookstore, which their father opened in 1950, the same year the Shaker Thahi Mosque began accepting worshippers. With a well-trimmed beard, Mohammed is a soft-spoken man whose politeness shrouds his anger at a city unfamiliar, a country turned upside down and a future ambiguous, at best.

For Mohammed, the anxiety is wrapped up in the presence of U.S. troops in the streets of Fallujah, a city of 500,000 that was treated relatively well by Saddam's government, like much of the Sunni region across Iraq's northwest.

"The area is Islamic, it's tribal and it's conservative," he said. "We have a proverb: A stranger should be well-mannered."

On April 28, just weeks after Saddam's government fell, protests erupted in Fallujah over the U.S. presence. Soldiers fired on a raucous crowd, killing 15 in what they said was self-defence. Two days later, U.S. troops killed two people after they said they came under fire.

In a report this week, Human Rights Watch accused U.S. troops of using excessive force and challenged the contention they were responding to Iraqi fire.

"The army's not here to provide security," Mohammed said. "The army is here to fight. They're always trying to prove their power with their armoured vehicles, their guns in the street, their tanks. They're trying to use 'shock and awe'. It's terrorism."

Mohammed holds the key to the mosque, and with relatives and friends, he sat inside its spacious courtyard, shaded by a towering palm tree.

Outside in the streets of Fallujah, traffic snarled along the main road, as cars barrelled into intersections void of traffic police. Horns blared, drivers shouted in the sweltering heat and no one gave an inch. At Shaker Thahi, a breeze blew over the men assembled before the afternoon prayers.

"America is looking after its own interests. It doesn't care about Iraq or its people," Mohammed said.

His brother, Abdullah, 37, interrupted. "Iraq will give America a headache," he said. "Every Iraqi considers himself president. This is a fact about the Iraqi people.

"Every Iraqi is an militant - in his behaviour, in his action, in his work, in his opinions. He's extreme in doing good and in doing bad. It will wear the Americans out," he said. "They are in a predicament."

As in any gathering in Fallujah these days, complaints coursed through the conversations that followed.

"We've lived through a long period of oppression - before and now," said Mahmoud Abdel Razzaq, a barber in the nearby market. "When an Iraqi has an opportunity, he explodes."

Marwan Saleh, 39, sat next to him, the conversation drawing others. "Before the war," he said, "the Americans promised the Iraqis a romantic picture after the fall of the regime."

In other conversations, many dismissed the outreach, so far, of U.S. troops. They demanded their lives become better, that they be rewarded for their suffering.

"When they distribute food rations, they should give every family $100 - at least - to allow them to support themselves," Saleh said. His list of requests went on: better salaries, refrigerators, fans, air-conditioners, even homes.

Others shook their head in disagreement, saying that they most wanted an Iraqi government. For many, the word itself has come to promise stability in the war's aftermath.

After Saddam's relentless rule, the uncertainty of transition has proven vexing, and Iraqis are often heard to say that the U.S. is fomenting chaos to justify its presence or to keep Iraq weak for the benefit of Israel.

"When there's a new government, everything will be stable. There will be no looting, there will be no stealing and there will be no killing," said Shlash Ahmed, 50, a custodian of the mosque for 30 years. "People will return to their normal lives."

For Ahmed, it was also the quickest way to get rid of the Americans.

"Everyone rejects the American presence. Why? It is a Muslim city - not just Fallujah, but all of Iraq. We don't accept humiliation and we don't accept colonialism."

In the streets of Fallujah, white paint has hastily covered slogans scrawled in recent weeks. But some still remain. "God bless the holy fighters of the city of mosque," reads one.

"Fallujah will remain a symbol of jihad and resistance," intones another. Worshippers at the mosque were dismissive of U.S. contentions that remnants of the Baath Party were organising the attacks.

"They're sleeping with their heads under the covers," said one. Many argued that the almost daily ambushes and shootings were still random, vendettas inspired by the dead over the past six weeks.

Mohammed, the bookstore owner, pointed out that under tribal custom, every death justifies four killings in retaliation. Others said mosque preachers are urging restraint, and had yet to make a call for jihad against the Americans.

"Iraqis consider this period only