BAGHDAD — Iraqi phone service, thwarted for months because of delays in deploying a mobile network, has been put on hold again with the Pentagon's decision Thursday to investigate suspect license awards.
Nearly nine months after much of Iraq's infrastructure and industry was wrecked during the U.S.-led invasion and the rioting that ensued, there is still no way to make a simple telephone call.
The licenses were supposed to be finalized today, and dozens of cellphone equipment sellers are already stocked up to meet public demand, which analysts estimate will be at least 100,000 handsets in the first few days of service. But the Pentagon probe will mean further delays.
The lack of service is slowing the recovery of every public and private enterprise and further alienating Iraqis, who are already skeptical of Washington's vision for democracy in their nation.
At the brand-new job center of the Ministry of Labor and Social Services, for instance, Shayma Abdul Ilah manages a computer database that matches applicants with employers, chipping away at the 60% unemployment rate one person at a time.
As bearer of the news to those in need that the perfect position is available, she ought to find the work satisfying. But for all the state-of-the-art computers and wireless Internet stations, there's not a single telephone in the 18 buildings of the ministry, which employs more than 6,000 people.
"I have to send a motorcycle courier to inform applicants who have a job offer," Ilah said. "It's very inefficient and time-consuming, especially with all the traffic on the roads now and the gasoline shortage."
Throughout Iraq, communication -- the lifeblood of business -- is stymied. E-mail allows most government officials and their mentors in the U.S.-led coalition to stay in touch. In addition, MCI has been operating a cellphone network for 10,000 users with the Coalition Provisional Authority and their partners in the Iraqi government, but that oversubscribed system is unavailable to private industry or the general public.
A Bahraini company, Batelco, briefly extended coverage to Iraq in June, proving, as has MCI, that service is physically and technically possible. But U.S. authorities ran it out of the country for jumping ahead of the competition for a license.
Without public cellphone service, contact between authorities and the populace remains hostage to stalled work on the heavily damaged national telephone exchange.
