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Residents say life is normal, no Shiite uprising in sight

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

By Keith B. Richburg, The Washington Post

SHATT AL-BASRA BRIDGE, Iraq -- For 13 days now, British artillery and American helicopters have pounded Iraqi tanks, mortar positions and government targets inside Basra. The Baath Party headquarters has been hit twice. British commandos regularly raid the strategic port city to abduct militia leaders -- all, British officials say, intended to pave the way for British troops to seize control of the town.

But to hear some Basra residents tell it, the punishing artillery barrages have had little effect in weakening President Saddam Hussein's hold. At the Shatt al-Basra Bridge on the city's southern limits and along the highway linking Basra to the nearby town of Zubair, ask residents who is in charge of Basra today and the universal answer is, the same force that has held sway for the past three decades.

"The Baath Party and the army," said Ali, 39, who was on his way to the Zubair market to buy tomatoes to sell inside the city. "They are still very strong."

Ali, who once worked for the Korean carmaker Hyundai and speaks some English, paused for a moment on the bridge while British soldiers at a checkpoint searched his truck for weapons. On condition only his first name be used, he provided an account of a city where life functions almost normally, despite the standoff between British forces ringing the city and militiamen and soldiers holed up inside.

"The markets are functioning normally in Basra," he said. Dismissing reports that civilians in the predominantly Shiite Muslim city had tried to rebel against Saddam's government, he added, "There's been absolutely no uprising."

Ali's view was more or less echoed by other Basra residents, who are allowed to come and go with relative freedom over this single bridge left open by the British. The only restriction is that cars must pass through a British military checkpoint, where any vehicle deemed suspicious -- "dodgy" as the soldiers put it -- is singled out for a complete search.

"It's great. No problem," said a young man with a neatly trimmed beard and wearing a traditional loose-fitting long black robe. Asked who was in charge in the city, he replied; "Baath Party. No army, just Baath."

Another man in brown, with a mustache and flecks of gray in his hair, said the main problems in Basra are on-again off-again electricity and a shortage of water, but not a reign of terror by Saddam's loyalists. "The people are living normally," said Falih, a teacher, speaking in English as he waited at the roadside with other passengers as their packed minibus was searched. "They go to the market, they go shopping, they go to the hospital when they are sick. Just there is this checkpoint here."

He added, "Life is normal."

The accounts of travelers moving back and forth from the besieged city seem to belie the depiction of Basra as gripped by fear, with a restive population under the sway of a ruthless militia that uses people as human shields. People crossing to the city of Zubair said they are free to come and go.

British military engineers yesterday restored power to nearby Umm Qasr, Iraq's major seaport, for the first time in weeks, a major step in reopening the harbor and funneling desperately needed humanitarian aid deeper into the war-torn country.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.