Free and Reckless.(free speech and independent newspapers blossom in Iraq)

After toppling Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, U.S. officials crowed that Iraq would soon see a rebirth of free speech and independent newspapers. Little did they know: since April the news business in Iraq has exploded. Upwards of 200 new daily and weekly Arab-language newspapers have popped up in Iraq--60 in Baghdad alone. On the same newsstand one can find the journal of the Iraqi Communist Party, an entertainment magazine with flashy photo spreads of Britney Spears and Shakira and the latest tracts from the supreme Shiite religious council. Iraqis who for 35 years read about little else but the vainglorious adventures of Saddam now find themselves awash in largely off-the-cuff stories about crime, electricity and political values. Desperate to learn what the future might hold in the bewildering world of U.S.-occupied Iraq, they flock every morning to tea shops and congregate on street corners--all avidly reading the "news."

And what news it is. Iraq's fledgling press has taken swift advantage of its new liberties, but most of the newspapers can at best be described as works in progress. There are very few trained journalists in the country, unsurprisingly, so most of the information produced is unreliable, inflammatory or just plain wrong. Facts are few, while opinions and conspiracy theories abound. Among the latest: Jews are planning to buy up property in Baghdad as a precursor to turning Iraq into a new West Bank. Along with this comes the "reliable" report that Iraqi oil is being pumped into Israel. Ahmed Fawzi, the recently departed spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Baghdad, described most publications as ranging between "political propaganda and mediocre journalism."

Many of the newspapers are associated with political or religious groups. Others blatantly incite violence against U.S. troops. The U.S.- led Coalition Provisional Authority, which struggles to monitor the chorus of voices, two weeks ago shut down a paper called Al-Mustakila (The Independent). The paper had printed an article calling for "death to all spies and those who cooperate with the United States; killing them is religious duty." Even those few papers that are professional are filled with a daily barrage of criticism of the Coalition's so far failed attempts to restore security, utilities and government to Iraq.

Experts say the cacophony is entirely predictable. Iraq had a vibrant and feisty newspaper industry until the monarchy was toppled in 1958. When Saddam took power 21 years later, he quickly, and literally, killed off the remaining independent press. After 1986, death was the official penalty for criticizing the government. According to the International Alliance for Justice, a French human-rights group, upwards of 500 Iraqi journalists, writers and intellectuals were executed or imprisoned, never to be heard from again. Rebuilding the business will take time, especially in the political hothouse that is the Middle East.

There are a few publications, however, that signal the return of an objective press. Al Zaman, or The Times, is generally considered to be the paper of record in postwar Iraq. Founded in London in 1997, Al Zaman is run by Saad Al-Bazaaz, the former editor in chief of the Saddam-era daily Al Jumhuriyah, who defected in 1992. Bazaaz brought in some Western-trained staff from London, and teamed them up with many of his former colleagues from Jumhuriyah. With a circulation of 75,000, Al Zaman covers Baghdad crime stories, the slow restoration of utilities and political news with a generally critical, but usually balanced, tone.

As for the rest of the press, educated Iraqis are mostly unimpressed. "This is rubbish--rumors and conspiracies," says Mustafa al-Khadimy, an Iraqi documentary producer and commentator for the respected London- ...