Iraq's clear, present danger

US ARMY realizing it has gotten into a quagmire.

Many government ministries looted and set ablaze in the waning days of the war remain little more than charred shells. Trying to restore law and order to Iraq by creating a new police force is proving to be a quagmire in its own right as Americans struggle to weed out corrupt cops and loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

And the biggest task facing America -- creating a legitimate Iraqi-led government to run the nation -- keeps being pushed back and scaled down. U.S. leaders now realize that the people they wanted to assume power are viewed by many of their own people as crooks or cowards. With Saddam loyalists creating new political parties and anti-American Shiite clerics building their bases of support, the Americans leading efforts to rebuild Iraq are concerned that a rush to elections could put the ``wrong'' kind of people in power.

Cultural collisions appear to have sparked tragedy that same week in Samarra, an hour north of Baghdad. The military has ordered a halt to celebratory gunfire, but few Iraqis have been paying heed. When a wedding convoy passed a group of soldiers, the troops opened fire, killing four teenagers and lighting the fuse of an anguished father who vowed to exact his revenge.

Two days later, after being pressed for comment about the shooting, the Army issued a statement saying the group had opened fire on the soldiers, but survivors said they had been shooting into the air in celebration and had stopped before they passed the soldiers.

Soldiers, too, are growing increasingly resentful and restless.

Standing at the scene of an apparent carjacking murder on one of Baghdad's busiest bridges, Capt. Kris Lagor had nothing but contempt for the Iraqi police he was sent in to help train. The Connecticut state trooper with a strong New England accent derided the cops as corrupt stooges and berated America's reconstruction team for putting them back on the street.

``The bottom line is the Pentagon wants to put in another puppet government here,'' said Lagor. ``We're just pawns in the bigger scheme of things.''

In the meantime, soldiers who long ago expected to be going home are the ones trying to keep the peace while the politicians keep going back to the drawing board. And the prospect of staying in Iraq much longer isn't going over well with many.

"Already the Iraqi people aren't crazy about us being here,'' Capt. Lagor said a day after fuming on the Baghdad bridge.

"They tolerate us,'' he said, "but a lot of times I think people are waving at us and saying, 'We want to . . . kill you.' ''