Religious Study Confronts U.S. in Iraq

By Mary Ann Zehr

The role that religion will play in postwar Iraq is a potential political powder keg for U.S. companies and nonprofit organizations charged with remaking primary and secondary schools there, as well as for the Bush administration and the government that emerges from the United States-led occupation.

People are watching to make sure those American groups, hired by the U.S. Agency for International Development, don't use federal money for curriculum and teaching in ways that violate the U.S. principle of church-state separation. The issue is sensitive in Iraq, too, because one Islamic sect—the Sunnis—has historically dominated the leadership ranks, even though another— the Shiites—is in the majority.

For the time being, U.S. education contractors say they are preoccupied with transferring personnel to Basra, Iraq, and figuring out how to equip Iraqi schools with furniture and materials. Still, they acknowledge they're taking stock of larger issues that may affect their longer-term...