For Iraqis, a Symbol of Unkept Promises

Outside, the squat schoolhouse glistens with fresh lime-green paint, courtesy of the renovation spree launched by the U.S.-led coalition. Inside, the floors are buckled, the blackboards are scarred, and the bathrooms are little more than open-air sewage pits. There is one working water fountain for 1,125 students, who must pick their way through a parking lot strewn with mounds of trash to get to the school's front doors.

"They promised to make it a paradise," said Hana Abbood, a teacher of Arabic language at Shura. "But all they've changed is the paint."

To many Iraqis in the area, the sorry state of the school is a symbol of how the coalition has failed them.

As much as civilian casualties or detainee abuse, the erratic reconstruction of their country has turned Iraqis against the occupation. Many people welcomed last year's invasion, hoping that the world's only superpower could elevate their wretched standard of living.

But a year later, the promised $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction money is only now hitting the streets. Projects have been delayed by insurgent attacks and rampant corruption, committed by Iraqis but blamed on the Americans. Baghdad's boulevards are lined with trash. Geysers of sewage erupt in even the wealthiest neighborhoods of the capital. Unemployment is epidemic nationwide.

Misgivings are particularly sharp in neighborhoods such as the one in northwest Baghdad that surrounds the Shura school -- predominantly Shiite Muslim areas that were neglected under the Sunni Muslim-led government of President Saddam Hussein, which have turned against the occupiers.

In an acknowledgment of the problem, the military has begun to step up basic services in northwest Baghdad, from sewer service to garbage pickup.

The complaints of inadequate rebuilding frustrate occupation officials and the dwindling ranks of Iraqis who support them, because progress is not nonexistent. Although schools such as Shura sit in disrepair, numerous others have been renovated. The coalition has dramatically boosted the salaries of teachers and other government workers and sparked a consumer mini-boom.