KIRKUK, Iraq — Midway through the U.S. commanding general's proclamation of peace and brotherhood here Saturday, gunfire erupted outside the heavily fortified government compound where he was addressing town leaders.
"Get back! Get back!" U.S. soldiers shouted at hundreds of Iraqi civilians, mostly Kurds, gathered between coils of concertina wire to plead for jobs or help in regaining homes and land taken away during Saddam Hussein's regime.
In a frantic attempt to escape the gunfire behind them, the crowd had pushed forward, prompting U.S. sentries to fire machine-gun salvos in warning. The panicked throng then rushed off, snagging skin, clothes and documents on the barrier protecting the U.S. troops who are still the only authority in this oil-rich city the size of Denver.
Minutes later and a few blocks away, running street battles broke out between knife-wielding Kurdish youths and Arabs who witnesses said were behind the city hall shooting incident. By midafternoon, shops were shuttered and streets that had been teeming with commerce in the morning were empty.
It was clearly the wrong day to declare victory in the coalition's fight here against the enemies of law and order.
But Army Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in northeastern Iraq, carried on with his address to the civic leaders, insisting that the disturbances were the work of a criminal few and that the resuscitation of Kirkuk would go on undaunted.
Conditions in Iraq's most important oil city have indeed improved dramatically in the five weeks since 173rd Airborne Brigade troops arrived April 10. Water, power, banks, schools and a fledgling police force are up and running, and the U.S. troops are paying public workers from seized government coffers.
But the panic incited outside the government building and its spillover across the Khasa River was an ominous reminder of the work yet to be done to secure the peace.
It was also a pointed reminder that the Pentagon-run Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance has yet to put its oar into the postwar rebuilding effort here, leaving the 2,500 U.S. troops of the 173rd Airborne to shoulder both peacekeeping and restoration of public services.
"ORHA is not functioning yet. They're here, but they're remodeling their offices," Najib Salihi, chairman of the Free Officers and Civilian Movement long opposed to Hussein's Baath Party regime, observed caustically.
