Baghdad, Iraq ? The road from Baghdad airport into the town is nerve-wracking again after a few months of calm. A car bomb recently went off in an outdoor airport parking, leaving charred sections of car carcasses that shimmer in 110-degree heat.

To get a sense of how far the Iraqi capital has descended into near-anarchy, one has only to talk with Iraqi friends and colleagues. On my first night in town, here’s only some of the horror stories I heard.

Tariq (I’ve changed all names), who lives on the edge of Amariyah, one of the most violent Sunni neighborhoods, says fundamentalist insurgents have taken control of the district. “It’s a ghost town. Shops don’t even open in the morning,” he says. Five Shiite families who lived on his block fled after receiving death threats; a Shiite gardener was murdered when he refused to move.

Women in Amariyah are being forbidden to work or drive by the fanatics; one lady was shot dead while driving a car. Families don’t let their kids play in the streets because they fear gangs of kidnappers who are snatching children for ransom. Tariq has pulled his 4-year-old out of preschool classes. There is a new slang term, “alaasa,” which refers to locals who sell information to criminals about anyone in the neighborhood who has land or money.

Of eight friends I talk to that first evening, every single one has had a friend or relative kidnapped or killed. Zainab’s 21-year-old cousin was murdered before his family could come up with the ransom. The Sunni brother-in-law of my driver was murdered by members of a radical Shiite militia, the Mahdi army, who drilled holes in his head.

Though Baghdadis go through the motions of daily life, no one feels safe in this security vacuum. They see that neither U.S. soldiers nor Iraqi security forces are able to protect them.

The newly formed Iraqi government will fail if it can’t show Iraqis it can quell this violence. The five months it took to form the government, and the failure so far to agree on new ministers of the interior and defense, have encouraged the mayhem.

When it comes to restoring order, there is no post more essential than that of interior minister. The Interior Ministry controls the police, who have been hapless at best in fighting the violence, and at worst, implicated in criminal and sectarian violence.

Many Iraqis hoped that the man chosen as interior minister would be nonsectarian and professional. But Iraq’s political factions can’t agree on a name.

The best choice would be Kassim Daoud, a secular Shiite who served as minister for state security under Prime Minister Ali al-Allawi. He is now a member of parliament affiliated with the Shiite alliance.

A man of independent views, Daoud has thought hard about how to reform the security system. “The credibility of any government comes from how they perform on the ground,” he told me by phone from Dubai, where he was visiting. When it comes to security, “We have no credibility except for American support.”

He wants to take a broom to the Interior Ministry. “Many people were hired (over the past three years) with no experience. Some were criminals or had loyalty to (Shiite) militias or the insurgents,” he says.

Daoud wants to train thousands of new college graduates to move into Interior Ministry posts and get help in training them from the West. He would like to set up a “really credible” Iraqi intelligence system, which can track insurgents, to replace the weak one in the Ministry of Defense that is a virtual CIA adjunct.

He understands that only when security improves, and Shiites no longer look to militias to protect them, can those militias be absorbed into society. He wants Sunnis to stand up against insurgents, but he knows that the security system must protect such Sunnis; at present, they are likely to be killed.

Daoud is acceptable to Kurds, Sunnis and most Shiites. He is the kind of candidate who should have strong American backing. If he fails to get the job, it will signal that Iraqi politicians still can’t put national interest above sectarian leanings. Without competent professionals in charge of critical security positions, the country’s prognosis will remain bleak.