Bush Letting Iraq Slide Into Lawlessness Squanders Good Will for U.S.

NY Times -- In the space of a few weeks, awe at American power in war has been transformed into anger at American impotence in peace. A crime wave, increasingly the work of organized gangs far better armed than the skeleton Iraqi police forces, has kept citizens in a peculiar state of limbo, free yet fearful.

Delays in restoring electricity and telecommunications have kept businesses closed. Banks, looted of at least $500 million in deposits, have yet to reopen. Traders, attacked daily by armed bands on the highway linking Iraq to Jordan, are reluctant to send much needed imports.

Iraq's government, the country's biggest employer, is essentially shut down, aggravating unemployment.

"People are already beginning to say, `Why don't we go back to Saddam?' " she said. "At least it was more safe, more peaceful."