Drug Addiction, Dealing See Boom In Baghdad

BAGHDAD — With a poor security situation, no central government at the helm and U.S. military inaction, drug addiction and trading has found a fertile breeding ground in the Iraqi capital.

Drug addiction had earlier been limited, with death sentence as a punishment and strict government control to keep the wide-known slogan "No talking about politics, no drug taking," up and running.

But with the U.S. forces trundling into Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s ouster, mixed feelings of relief and regret are running high among people here, who have felt that they have got rid of a long-running dictatorial oppressor but have lost security and other key benefits in return.

"Every night, some armed young men push into the area to sell drugs, with the help of friends of the inhabitants," Khaled Nuri, a grocer, told IslamOnline.net Monday, June 2.

"Drugs easily found its way into the hands of Iraqis but not the democracy and freedom touted by the occupiers," said Nuri, echoing many of Iraqis' anti-American sentiments coupled with the frustration that the U.S. and British forces backed down from earlier promises of a better future.

A U.S. official told reporters earlier in the day that the U.S. administrators have decided to "select" a small group of Iraqis to serve on an interim advisory council rather than convene a national conference sought by many Iraqis to create a transitional national representative authority for their country.

Nuri said that the spread of drug addiction and trade was also boosted by growing unemployment rates and a large number of cafes in the capital.

'Suspicious' Silence

What infuriates Iraqis is the lack of measures by the U.S.-installed police to crack down on emerging drug barons.

"Strangely, neither local police, nor occupation forces raided these areas and protect our youths from these poisons whose sources are unknown," said Nuri

In Al-Muridi market, the trade found a ground, leaving inhabitants as concerned as disgruntled that their children might fall prey to the phenomenon in light of great psychological frustrations after the invasion.

"We hate those traders, but we can not face them. They are gangsters. They could act in revenge," lamented one inhabitant, who refused to give his name.

"In Saddam's era, no one ever thought of getting drugs; but now the atmosphere is dominated by criminals and drug dealers who are accompanied by those who protect them," he added.

The phenomenon carries a moral change in a presumably religious society, whose members began fingering the occupying forces for complacency.

"The invaders encourage drug dealing, or where were all these drugs before the U.S, forces pushed into our areas?," wondered Islamic preacher Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Al-Kufi.

Qufi called on Iraqis to be as vigilant and face these affairs that "corrupt our generations," said Kufi.

Civil Attempts

Facing this phenomenon, the Muslim Youth Society championed a campaign to raise the awareness of Iraqis to the threats of drugs and "erase all traces of occupation that destroyed the cohesiveness of the Iraqi society," said the society’s chairman Anis Al-Rawi.

Shiite scholars also warned against the spread of drugs, alcoholics, and prostitution after the U.S.-British strikes. Others called for setting up committees to stand up to the new threats in the absence of an Iraqi government.