Iraqi views on security situation vary widely

BAGHDAD - Two rows of glowing orbs cast a warm light on the marble fountain in the outdoor garden. Columns of ice-cream cones rise neatly behind the new plate-glass windows. A row of red letters - "Hassan" - twinkles with white lights and the promise that this Baghdad restaurant's chance at prosperity has returned after a suicide car bomb attack left it in ruins five months ago.

All around Salim Khalil's Hassan Restaurant are tangible signs of progress. Thirty thousand dollars of repairs remade the scene of severed heads and twisted metal into one of welcoming calm. It seems Khalil, if anyone, could relate to the assessment by General David Petraeus that security has improved in Iraq during the buildup of US troops. But looking out over the immaculate grounds of his restaurant, he sees the white tables unfilled and, beyond, the streets emptying as the evening curfew approaches.

"Our business and our lives are still frozen," he said. "Maybe there are fewer roadside bombs or car bombs, but there is still so much killing and kidnapping. The fear still exists and people are afraid to move.

"The government should provide security and services," he went on. "But the educated Iraqi person does not believe we have a government now."

The day after Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker delivered a report on the war to Congress, Iraqi citizens and politicians offered their own widely varying assessments of how the troop buildup has progressed, how the government is functioning and the prospects for a withdrawal of US forces. If there was any pattern to the responses, it was a street-level disregard for the optimism of officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The most upbeat view - surpassing that of Petraeus and Crocker - came from Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, in a prepared speech in Baghdad. Rubaie welcomed the US officials' testimony and made far-reaching assertions about "spectacular progress in reconciling the differences among our citizens" and the development of the "formidable" Iraqi security forces to the point that "80 percent of our army has reached a level of competence and readiness." He said that in the "near term," the Iraqi government expects a "relaxation of the requirements for coalition forces in direct combat operations."

Other politicians were more tempered. Hussein al-Falluji, a Sunni lawmaker and staunch critic of the Shi'ite-led national administration, described the security progress as "relative."

"In comparison with what the Iraqi people went through during the past three years, when the situation was very bad, it is improving," he said. "But the situation that should be in Iraq, we believe, is still very far away from where we are in reality."

In his testimony, Petraeus said he would recommend that about 30,000 US troops leave Iraq by next summer, taking the total to what it was before the increase began in mid-February.

The issue of the US military presence often elicits the most conflicted emotions from Iraqis. They tend to be angered by bitter memories of 4 1/2 years of war and the insult of living in a country walled-off and patrolled by foreign troops. But this anger is tempered by the widely held belief that the Americans are the only force preventing even more vicious killing.

"I believe that the presence of American forces was the biggest mistake committed against the Iraqi people. The Americans destroyed the Iraqi state," Falluji said. But asked about the prospect of those soldiers leaving, Falluji said that a "sudden withdrawal of the American forces would leave a security vacuum which could lead to bloody conflicts inside Iraq."

Some Shi'ite politicians loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who have been among the most vocal advocates of a US troop departure, criticized the testimony for lacking a more detailed timetable for withdrawal.

"If there is an explosion here or an explosion there, all of this could change," said Salah al-Obaidi, a spokesman for Sadr. "Then they could go back to keeping the soldiers" in Iraq.

Some Iraqis said the scope of sectarian warfare has not been fully appreciated in the official assessments. In the southern Shi'ite holy cities, clashes are increasing between Shi'ite militias loyal to competing clerics, Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Two weeks ago, at least 50 people died in a gun battle in Karbala between members of those Shi'ite factions, which led Sadr to demand a "freeze" of his militia for up to six months.

Obaidi said Sadr's decision had nothing to do with appeasing Americans and was not a sign of any decreased animosity toward them. "The reason behind this decision was simply to contain the crisis, and to stop the bloodshed of the people, which probably would have been in the thousands."