Armed gangs still wander around and shooting breaks out occasionally. People wonder why a city that was captured within 20 days remains hapless even after two months of takeover even though there has been, at least, one round of civil administrative effort under retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. Also, there were many other Americans supposed to be overseeing various departments of administration most of whom have now been recalled to be replaced with a new administrator, Paul Bremer, at the helm.

Is the occupying force, therefore, trying to communicate that Baghdad remains in dire straits mainly because of mundane administrative reasons and shortcomings? If this be the case, then why Al-Hawza's men were being asked to withdraw prematurely from their supervision of hospitals in the slums of formerly called Saddam city, now renamed as Sadr city, east of Tigris. Al-Hawza's came primarily to fill the administrative gaps until the

administration was restored. But they too are viewed as a political threat.

However, they would not hesitate from cooperating with the British in both Umm Qasr and Basra as far as civil administration was concerned. Had there been Americans occupying these two cities instead, their reaction would have been different. Still, their willingness to work with the occupying forces to restore civil administration indicated their order of priorities. Eventually, SAIRI agreed to sit on the Iraqi administration council.

A month after the fall of Baghdad, the US had proposed a financial management plan for adoption by the UN Security Council. While it called for an immediate lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq, it sought control of Iraqi economy by the victors of the war for 12 months, to begin with. All oil revenues would go into a proposed Iraqi Assistance Fund until such time that a new Iraqi government was installed.

As the US still remains apprehensive about an Iranian style government in Iraq and has, in parallel, launched an "offensive" on Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah nexus to rein in guerilla operations, broad principles of governance sans religious overtones should find support in all quarters as mentioned by none other than President Bush himself.

Some topics in this essay:
Ayatollah Baqar, Baghdad Bremer, Paul Bremer, , Arab Muslims, Bush Bush, Iraq SAIRI, Iran Americans, Kofi Annan, Security Council, interim administration, iraqi interim, iraqi interim administration, water electricity, oil revenues, administration council, occupying force, iraqi administration council, proposal oil, ayatollah baqar, coalition forces, british forces, proposal oil revenues, imf world bank,