Iraqis struggle with holes in hierarchy
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – The man who considers himself Iraq’s finance minister holds forth from an unlighted office on Massbah Street, amid workers with no work to do, proving again that nature abhors a vacuum – especially human nature, and especially a vacuum with power and money attached.
It’s a scene repeated in offices across Baghdad, and from north to south nationwide, as Americans and Iraqis struggle with few telephones, computers or even reliable lights to fill the top slots vacated when the old regime fled in the face of the U.S.-British invasion. They often find others have gotten there first.
At the Finance Ministry, barely a week after Saddam Hussein’s statues began to fall, a deputy named Karim Minshid Khinyab appeared and claimed ministry-wide authority, citing an appointment by the “governor of Baghdad.” The “governor” has since been arrested; Khinyab’s time at the top may be running down, too.
The postwar vacuums have left gaping holes in everyday life. In Finance, for example, it’s a money gap, for civil servants’ salaries, agency budgets, retirees’ pensions. It is a gap into which people like George Mayya have fallen.
“Who will pay me?” the Baghdad building supplier wondered. “I have claims on government offices for materials I supplied them. Who will pay me?”
The vacuums exist everywhere: in an Iraqi judicial system without judges; in hospitals without government medical supplies; in a Communications Ministry leaderless in the face of a wrecked phone system; even at “government” hotels without a Tourism Board to collect their revenues.
The U.S. postwar administrator, Jay Garner, predicted Iraqi government ministries would be operating effectively by early May, as his reconstruction office cobbled together a stopgap administration to lead to an “Interim Authority” that would give way eventually to an elected government.
But that timetable now looks optimistic. And others are filling the gaps, particularly at local levels.
In cities across the south, Shiite Muslim leaders are forming committees, paying civil servants’ salaries, guarding government buildings with their own militias. In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, Sunni and Shiite Muslim leaders, clan chiefs and political opposition groups govern together. In Fallujah, west of Baghdad, bloody clashes with anti-U.S. protesters brought American colonels hurriedly to the office of the “mayor,” a man suddenly cast in that role by tribal and mosque leaders.
It was clear that people were rallying to any Iraqi who asserted authority and promised to restore order in a suddenly disorderly land.
In Baghdad, a week after the U.S. takeover, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, an unknown with links to the exiled opposition Iraqi National Congress, called a meeting at a downtown hotel to discuss “security.” Important people came, and soon the self-proclaimed “governor” was filling 22 committees with names to deal with everything from electricity to finance.
“We expect him to do a lot of good,” said Issam al-Shamany, a tribal sheik waiting to meet the new man. “He has shown a lot of enthusiasm.”
Within days, Brig. Ismael Khalis, head of a revived Baghdad police unit, was announcing to reporters, “We take orders from al-Zubaidi.”
But on April 27, American generals gave their own orders and al-Zubaidi was arrested. “The coalition has the authority in the city and Iraq, and there’s no other person with authority to name mayors or other officials,” said Barbara Bodine, Baghdad administrator in Garner’s office.
By then, however, Zubaidi had busily filled other vacuums, designating Khinyab, for one, as head of his finance committee.
The new “chief,” who has avoided reporters, moved into the corner office in the Finance Ministry’s temporary postwar home. Ministry employees followed, crowding the old building’s halls, lobby and offices, filling chairs and sitting on desks each day, with nothing to do but wait for instructions – and, they hoped, a pay packet.
On Saturday, finance specialists from Garner’s office met with ministry bureaucrats – and Khinyab – to discuss the pressing issues: paying civil servants and pensioners, and getting the banks working. On Sunday, Garner’s office was asked whether it recognizes Khinyab as acting ministry chief.
“As of this moment, no one has been named head of the Finance Ministry,” Capt. Jeff Jacoff, a spokesman, told The Associated Press.
Later, he called back to add a note of emphasis. Khinyab, he said, will “certainly not” be the one to fill this vacuum.
AP-ES-05-04-03 1359EDT
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