Iraq is struggling years after war
              BY TOM HEINEN Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

              BAGHDAD, Iraq - Whipped by hot summer winds, a huge cloud of desert dust obscures buildings several
              blocks away and thinly veils the far side of the Tigris River. On the ground, Baghdad pulsates with life.
              Relentless streams of cars, trucks and buses rush like pieces in a high-speed video game, forcing pedestrians
              to sprint through gaps in traffic. But that vision of vitality in Iraq's capital is partly a mirage. Reality gets
              blurred in a land where gasoline is 10 cents a gallon, bottled water can cost 37 cents to 75 cents for 1.6
              quarts, and summer temperatures soar so far above 100 degrees that no one bothers to find out how hot it
              really is. Viewed up close, nearly all of the cars are at least 10 years old. Most have multiple cracks in their
              front windshields. Rattles and squeaky brakes are common. So are inoperative or ignored traffic lights.

              Peering more deeply beneath the social veneer reveals a more detailed scenario. Many families struggle each
              day just to survive. They hold their lives together with minuscule wages, long work hours, second jobs,
              money from relatives abroad, sales of household possessions and junk at markets and auction houses,
              income from working children who have dropped out of school, and any other resources they can put
              together.

              Ten years after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait sparked a continuing United Nations ban on trade, Iraqis have
              settled into an economy that may be improving on some levels but still produces more stress than progress.
              "Many women suffer from depression, anxiety, insomnia, weight loss and other health problems," says a
              U.N. Children's Fund report, which also notes evidence of increased family conflicts and divorce.

              From an economic standpoint, a more apt image of Iraq would be the Dust Bowl on America's Great Plains
              in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

              Baghdad is not just experiencing its worst meteorological drought in a century. Its economy has been largely
              bone-dry for much of the past decade. Unemployment is around 50 percent, and wages of $2 to $3.50 a
              month are common, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross and people on the streets.
              Per capita income is below $500, compared with $3,500 10 years ago, according to a 1999 UNICEF
              report.

              For most Iraqis the social safety net is the monthly food ration basket that virtually every family gets. And
              even that does not yet meet minimal nutrition requirements or carry most families through the last 10 days of
              the month in the center and south, where most Iraqis live.

              However, as is often the case in the Middle East, there are layers of complexity and exceptions to the rule.
              Governmental palaces, new restaurants and other structures have been built. Mercedes ply the streets of
              Baghdad, serving the elite in the Iraqi power structure.

              Although they are few, such luxury cars also reflect the growing number of people profiting - with Iraqi
              government approval - from a booming black market in which illegal oil exports and consumer-product
              imports are smuggled back and forth across a water route near Iran and openly porous borders in Turkey
              and Jordan.

              Rising oil prices and the lifting of the ceiling on how much oil Iraq can sell under the U.N.'s oil-for-food
              program also have had a big impact, especially in the past year. More than $7 billion has been approved for
              the current six-month period to buy food, medicine, oil field equipment and other nonmilitary items. And
              most of that must be spent abroad.

              However few, luxury cars are not the only signs of an economic pulse in Baghdad. Modern appliances,
              electronic equipment, Western designer clothes, children's backpacks, school supplies, medicine, luxury
              toiletries and other products can be found in some specialty stores. Beggars on street corners, an unusual
              sight in the not-so-distant past, are a reminder that upscale shoppers need not worry about long lines. The
              masses cannot afford even a fraction of such costs.

              Iraq was different 10 years ago. Some experts dispute how much of the population had lifestyles that were
              close to First World standards, especially in the rural areas.

              But Iraq's primary education, university, health care and water-treatment systems - to name some examples
              - were widely admired in the Middle East. "Iraq was the jewel of the Arab crown," Picco says. "It really
              was an incredible country.

              "Iraq possessed the know-how that no other Arab country did. Good, intelligent, hard-working people and
              a very good educational system. They produced the technical class of the Arab world, from chemical to
              structural to mechanical engineering. You name it."

              The U.N. trade embargo, coupled with tens of billions of dollars in damage to vital infrastructure in two
              wars, dramatically changed how the majority of Iraq's people lived and worked. There was little work.
              Professionals began turning their private cars into taxi cabs. Or they would sell their cars to try to maintain
              their lifestyles. Next, they began selling their possessions. And sometimes their homes. The pattern continues
              to this day.

              "The middle class is vanishing," says Picco, who sat across from Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in the 1980s and
              early 1990s with then-U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

              Several million people do not have access to safe drinking water, more than half of the garbage in some
              areas is not collected, more than 250 tons of raw sewage is discharged directly into rivers each day, and
              daily power blackouts that last for hours disrupt services and lives, according to a
              1999 UNICEF report.

              In Baghdad, power is cut for two hours in the morning and two hours at night every day, but at different
              times in different areas. Sometimes the blackouts are unexpected and longer. In Basra, the country's
              second-largest city, power goes out for 11 hours many days, residents say.

              "This water, electricity and everything, is difficult," said the Rev. Joseph Habbi, a priest in the Chaldean
              Church, an Eastern Rite church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. He is the philosophy and
              theology dean of Babel College and serves the Chaldean patriarch in Baghdad as cultural affairs vicar. "But
              the real problem is the embargo. And you know, everybody knows that the embargo is against the people
              only. If you speak about the regime or political, I think the embargo generally fortified the authority and the
              power of the regime, not the contrary."