BAGHDAD – While officials in Washington have been pointing to the creation of an Iraqi cabinet earlier this month as a clear indication of the progress that is being made in stabilizing the country and advancing it on the road to democracy, Iraqis themselves are less than convinced that their future has been assured.

The appointment of 25 ministers by the Governing Council marked the first time in modern Iraqi history that all the major ethnic and religious groups are working together in government. Prominent positions were given to a Shiite Arab, a Sunni Arab and a Kurd.

Mahdi Ali, 37, a Shiite and a teacher in Baghdad, said the new cabinet is “the most important turning point in the history of Iraq.” He believes that a “fair distribution of ministries between the country’s various ethnic and religious groups will rid the country of discrimination and oppression.”

Despite the current problems with security and infrastructure problems, Mahdi thinks that progress is being made and that conditions are getting better day by day.

Rebaz Ali, 25, a Kurdish university student, shares Ali’s optimism. Under Saddam Hussein, he said, his community could not express itself freely, “We even did not dare say we were Kurds,” he said. But under the new cabinet, Kurds will feel free wherever they are in Iraq, “We are going to achieve what we have been struggling for over the past 30 years,” he said.

Others, however, are openly hostile to the cabinet and the continued U.S. occupation. “We absolutely disagree,” said Mahzan Muhammad, 30, a grocery store owner in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. Muhammad said he sees the new cabinet members as American appointees. “I will never recognize them as legitimate representatives of the Iraqis,” he said.

Neither will Maha Jamal, a Sunni Arab housewife who lives in Baghdad. “Neither the Iraqi people nor the outside world would recognize them as legitimate representatives,” she said. She dislikes the new cabinet members as much as she does the Governing Council, seeing them all as opportunists from Iraqi opposition parties overseas.

As soon as the Americans leave, “the people will start assassinating them and removing them from power,” she said.

Abbas Abid, 27, is certain that the new cabinet will provide equal job opportunities. He is an unmarried casual laborer from Baghdad, who has applied for a job with the police force. With an initial salary of $60 a month, “It will be a very good start for me,” he said.

Salaries for police and other civil servants are now much higher than they were under the old regime. A few months ago, the starting salary for a police officer was $3 to $5 a month.

Alaa Salam, a resident of Kadhimiya, a Shiite district of Baghdad, now earns $120 a month, compared to the $5 a month he made under the old regime. He hopes that salaries will remain high under the new government. “I am sure that this will help the country to get rid of corruption and move to a prosperous and secure future,” he said.

Indeed, ridding the civil service of former Saddam supporters is a main concern for many. Mahdi, a schoolteacher in Baghdad, said he is unhappy that so many jobs are available to former loyalists. “These wide job opportunities will help the Baathists go back to their old places and commit crimes,” he said. “This government should not employ Baathists again, or allow them to do what they have done in the past.”

“We keep hearing the Americans saying they have arrested a senior member of Saddam’s regime,” said Mahdi. “But nobody knows their whereabouts or what happens to them.”

Ultimately, he said, “The new government should ask the Americans to bring the former regime’s war criminals to justice inside Iraq, not abroad.”

Yerevan Adham is a journalist in Baghdad who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London.

N1 9LH, U.K., www.iwpr.net.

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