Iraq enters the new year without former president Saddam Hussein but also without proper electricity, communication, fuel and other vital services whose reconstruction has been set back by a worsening insurgency, officials said.
"I could say that the reconstruction is very slow," said Hamid Alkifaey, spokesman for Iraq's interim governing council.
The country needs more money, investment and help from international agencies, he said.
"And the security situation is also impeding the reconstruction but we are determined to go on and to get started. We believe that security will be the key to reconstruction," Alkifaey said.
US-led coalition forces face daily roadside bombings, suicide attacks and more but they aren't the only victims.
On Dec. 8, 51 South Korean power workers who had been helping restore power to Baghdad left Iraq following the ambush killing of two colleagues.
"The problem is security. Security affects everything ... That has certainly cooled some interest," said Mohamed El Roubi, an Egyptian lawyer representing foreign companies in Iraq.
"We don't know the situation tomorrow, so how can you plan for 2004?" asks Saad Al-Zubaidi, an architect and counsellor to Iraq's interim minister of construction and housing.
Officials said years of neglect before the March and April war that overthrew Saddam, as well as looting and sabotage after, added to damage inflicted during the conflict itself.
Al-Zubaidi said his ministry was ready last June to start rebuilding roads, housing and government buildings but security and a miserable tapestry of other problems led to delays, although some projects are underway.
"I don't mean to draw a very grim picture," the silver-haired, London-educated Al-Zubaidi said between Gitanes cigarettes.
Earlier that day he'd received more bad news. A French firm interested in providing soft loans for sewage and water rehabilitation delayed a visit to Iraq citing "the security situation."
At the ministry in charge of the world's second largest oil reserves, spokesman Asem Jihad said the industry's recovery would have been further ahead without sabotage.
Still, he expressed satisfaction with the pace of rehabilitation and said production in the first quarter of next year is expected to reach 2.8 million barrels per day, the same quantity as before the war.
That could ease the frustration of motorists like Amar Hamoudy, 31, a taxi driver waiting to buy gasoline in a Baghdad line more than 1km long.
"There is no reconstruction, just cleaning the roads," he said.
Most attacks on the oil infrastructure have occurred on the Kirkuk to Baghdad pipelines but the number of incidents has decreased as the ministry improves security, Jihad said.
Attacks also threaten Iraq's electricity network because the pipe running north of Baghdad is a dual line carrying not just oil but also gas used for power generation.
"What makes things worse is the explosion and sabotage to the oil and gas pipeline," said Basil Al-Khateeb, spokesman for the electricity ministry.
"This will decrease the fuel supply to the generation system," he said.
Al-Khateeb said Iraq's power network is producing between 3,500 and 4,000 megawatts, or about one quarter of what is needed. The ministry hopes to double that amount next year, he said, "but it's not enough."
Baghdad is subject to rotating power blackouts.
Telecommunication workers expressed optimism that the landline service can resume and a cellular network begin operation early next year.
At Baghdad's Al Waya exchange workers are connecting two temporary exchanges in white trailers to about 27,000 phone lines in the district. US forces bombed the exchange before looters and saboteurs did even more damage, said an Iraqi supervisor at the site.
The supervisor, who declined to give his name, said neighborhood residents arrive every day to check on the progress.
"They say, `God help you,'" he said.
Above the damaged exchange is a cellular telephone tower to be operated by Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding.
"They're coming up to implementation," said El Roubi, who represents the firm that won a licence to operate in Baghdad and the surrounding area.
Two other operators were selected for separate parts of the country but a Pentagon probe of alleged corruption in awarding the three licenses was likely to delay implementation, the Middle East Economic Survey reported.
Al-Zubaidi said financial limitations have placed "a big question mark" over his department's plan to build 1 million homes by 2010 in a country facing a "catastrophic" shortage of accommodation. He said the housing ministry needs US$5.6 billion for next year but had only received US$500 million dollars by this month.
That's not what Najah Assai wants to hear.
His family has been squatting in a tiny room at an abandoned Iraqi air force building since their landlord increased the rent on their Baghdad home just after the war.
"We were dreaming we would have our own house, our own car," said Assai, 25, a roadside cigarette vendor. "The situation is getting worse day by day."
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