LOSING IRAQI HEARTS AND MINDS

PESHIKAN VILLAGE, IRAQ .- The countryside around this beige sand-brick community is so lushly beautiful you can almost understand why European travelers, arriving here in medieval times, believed it was the site of the biblical Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were created.

Peshikan is aglow this warm early autumn with red pomegranates ripening on leafy trees, towering date palms bending with dense clusters of golden fruit, and the yellow of oranges competing in the orchards with the green of apples. It is nature's perfect artists' palette.

Peshikan and its neighboring villages line the banks of the broad, blue waters of the Tigris river in central Iraq, seemingly far from the many crises in Iraq today. Anglers in small water craft patiently fish the river. Donkey carts trot along the dusty roads driven by local islamic women, their faces concealed in colorful scarves. The menfolk sit around on backyard carpets, lazily watching the fruit ripen as they wait for harvest time.

But appearances are deceptive. The heavy dust cloud moving rapidly along a riverside road is made not by a donkey cart but by a U.S. military convoy of armored trucks and personnel carriers loaded with armed soldiers. The grim-faced Americans stare suspiciously at the passing scene.

Near the district capital of Al Audaim, thick smoke rises from the edge of a desolate area of smashed date palms and fruit trees. The large orchard was recently laid to waste by US troops in retaliation for a roadside ambush, angering the local people who quickly cluster around and complain to any foreigner who stops there.

"This is my complete livelihood and look what they have done," complained the orchard owner, Ayad Ali, waving towards a smouldering expanse of twisted palm trunks and tangled fruit trees. "There are 800 date palms destroyed, just because some strangers came through my orchard and shot at the Americans. Why do I have to be punished?" The destruction of orchards elsewhere in Iraq has caused similar discontent.

And if you arrive in the area earlier enough, before 9 a.m., long lines of vegetable and fruit trucks will be halted on the main road to the local marketplace because security concerns forbid travel before that time. The truck drivers bitterly gripe at the delay, and allege that a week earlier 30 truckloads rotted in the sun before the highway was opened.

Clearly this "Garden of Eden" seems misnamed. And these are just surface indications of unrest. I found that there is real trouble in this idyllic place, and the people living here are outspoken about it. And what they say bodes ill for America's efforts in Iraq to win the hearts and minds of the population, and to justify launching this war in the first place.

Peshikan village is more than two hours north of Baghdad, up the modern Tikrit highway which has been the scene of frequent ambushes of American convoys and patrols. As our van moved to pass a small group of slow-moving US military vehicles, an American soldier riding the last truck pointed his M16 rifle menacingly at us, and continued to wave us away for much of the journey.

We turned on to a secondary dirt road to reach Peshikan and encountered the first checkpoint of the journey, 95 kilometers from Baghdad. The Iraqi security police were genial and waved us through. A fast-moving American patrol raced by, accompanied by a truckload of "blue cap" special Iraqi police.

These special police are of particular worry to the first group of local Iraqis we talked with, Abu Mohammed and his family, including his son and two brothers. "Some bad people have joined the Americans and given them bad information." he complained. In July, he said, US forces surrounded the area and arrested 500 young men "and we don't known where they took them, we haven't heard from them".

Abu Mohammed's family are sunni moslems and run a small orchard. They are relatively well off, and they say they initially welcomed United States declarations that the war was launched to install democracy in Iraq and bring prosperity. "But now they are starting to act like the former regime," the father said with discontent. "They raid houses for little reason and show no respect for the families, they kill people on these raids, just the other day it was a former brigadier general in the village across the river. They did not allow him to buried in the proper way. And they arrested the general's son and chained him in front of his family and dragged him away."

An older son, Abu Omar, said "By doing this the Americans increase the hatred of the whole Iraqi people."

U.S. officials say they are recruiting Iraqi police as a necessary measure to better bring security to the country and provide for the future. Abu Mohammed's family say they are going about it the wrong way. "The CIA established an office near the cemetery and are using a policy of giving money for information. If you go to them with a story and ask for five dollars they'll give you fifty. This makes everyone very nervous because who knows what it being said?"

A primary target of U.S. intelligence gathering is the capture or assassination of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The "sunni triangle" which covers a large area west and north of Baghdad --including the region where Peshikan is located --- is seen as the probable secret location of the elusive Saddam. Many of the local population were recruited to work as security and intelligence specialists for the former region because they were seen as bound by ties of religion and geography to Saddam.

The local people we talked with were critical of the former regime, asserting that Saddam was mercurial in his loyalties and primarily interested in his family's and not the nation's welfare. Yet as a possible result of their antagonism to the presence of the American military, they remained steadfast in their resolve to shield him from capture.

"If he knocked on my door looking for shelter, I would give it, I would certainly not turn him in," declared Abu Hamdan, the local schoolmaster and a member of the municipal council. I asked him about the twentyfive million dollar reward the Americans were offering for Saddam, dead or alive. "Even for one hundred million. A good and respectful man would not betray a guest for any amount of money," he asserted.

There is no way to adequately evaluate the credibility of such statements. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusai were betrayed in Mosul by a distant relative. They both died in a shootout with attacking US troops. But the willingness of the schoolteacher and others in Peshikan to voice their supportive views must give a degree of reassurance to followers of the hunted Saddam.

The American military forces, located in an old Iraqi anti-aircraft battalion base in the area, are endeavoring to forge a working relationship with the people of Peshikan. They meet every Thursday evening with the municipal council and discuss development plans. The locals remain suspicious of their new masters.

"Several weeks ago the Americans said they gave money to a contractor for the building of a new school, but there is no new school and we haven't been shown the building contract," complained municipal council member Abu Hamdan. He's convinced corruption is involved. "The Americans have told us they don't take bribes. We don't believe it."

In the course of a whole day's visit to Peshikan I heard barely a word of praise for the Americans, but plenty of continuing criticism. Abu Omar, with his twin little daughters shyly beside him, asserted that the US troops are acting contrary to what he believed their stated objectives are in Iraq, the establishment of democracy, liberty and freedom. "We do not trust them. Their behaviour is opposite to what they were saying before the war," he criticized.

All those we interviewed asserted that the war is continuing in Iraq because the Americans are still here. Schoolteacher Abu Hamdan said he did not know the identities of those who launched the frequent guerrilla attacks against Americans, but he suggested that they may be from the ranks of the intelligence and military men in the area from the former region who have not been given employment and have no way of supporting their families.

"My sense is that the people who attack the Americans have the right to attack them. They feel aggrieved for one reason or another, whether it is joblessness, abuse of their families or just anger at the American occupation." said Abu Hamdan.

Some forecast increasing conflict if the US stays here. "They have set no departure date, they have become an occupation army," complained Abu Omar. "They should move to outlying base areas to protect our borders. And if they don't go home soon then all Iraqis will raise up weapons against them."

What about substitute troops for the Americans, such as Arab forces from neighboring countries, from Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Or Asian forces, such as South Korean that have been requested by US authorities to help the Iraqi pacification effort?

"No,no,no," forcibly declared Abu Mohammed. "Iraqi forces can do the whole job".

I wondered as I prepared to leave this "Garden of Eden" after my day-long visit, if the local people really were truly adamantly opposed to the U.S. military mission here, or if they were exercising, for the first time in their lives, the opportunities for outspokedness that have been given them in Iraq's nascent democracy. After all, these people endured the dictatorial reign of Saddam Husseinm and his Baathist Party for thirty years without public complaint.

All of those we talked to shared bitter memories of the abuses of the Saddam regime. But they were equally sarcastic and pessimistic about the potential of the American-apppointed Iraqi Governing Council to create effective government. "Already prices are rising sky high for important farm commodities," said Abu Omar, who graduated from college several years ago, and works with his father on the farm because he cannot get any other job. "Before the war cement was 15 US$ a ton, now its 70$. And seed products used to be 50,000 dinars and now they are 150,000."

But can't an eventual independent and democratic Iraqi government respond to those and other issues, to the satisfaction of the coluntry, I asked?

Abu Mohammed responded. "We don't believe the governing council will be very effective. Many of the members were exiles for decades. Do they really understand our problems? I doubt it."

The US authorities running Iraq and the appointed governing council are well aware that villagers in places like Peshikan see them as the snakes in an ideal "garden of eden".

The governing authorities blame an impatient international media such as the anti-american arab satellite TV stations al jazeera and al arabia as the real snakes. every village house we visited had satellite TV and the generator power to make sure the programs are well viewed.

But in the end the people of Peshikan will judge the government on what it can do for them. so far the government has clearly not done enough.