BAGHDAD, April 27: Iraqis on Sunday stepped up demands that water and electricity be restored ahead of an expected visit to the country by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Hundreds of Iraqis rallied in a new demonstration near the Palestine Hotel, which hosts hundreds of reporters under the guard of US troops, demanding phone lines and fuel as well as water and electricity.
Larger crowds, as many as hundreds of thousands according to religious leaders, were due to gather in Najaf on Monday as part of praparations to celebrate Eid-i-Miladunnabi (PBUH).
The event offers another opportunity for the Shias to flex their newfound political muscle in the wake of the collapse of the Saddam government.
The Shias seized on a pilgrimage to the nearby holy city of Karbala last Tuesday and Wednesday for a show of strength ahead of talks here in the next few days to set up an interim government.
They are opposed to the US civil administration headed by retired army general Jay Garner, but stressed that resistance will be peaceful.
The civil administration said Saturday it was making every effort to restore basic services to the five million population of the capital.
Garner’s advisors said 65 to 70 percent of city now had access to running water, with hospitals earmarked as a priority, while electricity has been restored to parts of Baghdad.
A team of Iraqi experts, many from the former regime, will be in place in a few days to run Baghdad, a senior US official in charge of post-war Iraq said on Sunday.
“There is going to be a basic team of Iraqis running the city,” said Barbara Bodine, a former US ambassador who is administering the central sector of Iraq, including Baghdad, after a meeting with city officials.
Asked how long it would take before the team is in place, she said “in a few days” but added that she did not believe that any Iraqi would be named as mayor of the city of five million in the short term.
Like elsewhere in the war-battered country, Baghdad is suffering from shortages of running water, electricity, garbage collection and other basic services.
“Our goal is to get the city not just back to where it was, but better,” Bodine told reporters.
Eight Iraqi municipal officials, who ran the city while Saddam Hussein was still in power, attended the meeting, including Sail Hussein, the capital’s executive director for technical affairs.
Furious residents pelted US troops after the series of blasts sent rockets raining down on a nearby residential area, flattening a house and burying the victims in the rubble.
The tragedy underlined the chaos still gripping Iraq’s capital more than two weeks after the fall of Saddam.
Meanwhile in Washington, a Defense Department official said US troops scouring northern Iraq for weapons of mass destruction have found drums with “suspicious” chemicals. —AFP
