“There are books that are very dangerous, that invite and encourage suicide bombers, that explain the joy and pleasure and immortality that will come to those who perform suicide bombings,” said Mr. Hmood, the deputy culture minister. “How do we deal with it? We will ask the publisher to sign a document promising not to bring such books into Iraq. We are not a security ministry, but we can help the security situation and make the publisher feel he has a commitment to follow the law and that he will be punished if he does not.”

Book publishers say the new policy could be the death knell for Iraq’s once vibrant industry.

“After the fall of the previous regime we were optimistic,” said Ghada al-Amily, manager of a Baghdad publishing firm, The House of Arts and Cultures. “But instead of activating and encouraging publishing houses, they are incapacitating them.”

Taha H. al-Shebeeb, an Iraqi writer of 10 novels whose politically tinged work often put him at odds with Mr. Hussein’s government, called the current plans “an awful retreat.”

“If this is true, I will hold a press conference where I will burn my novels and say that I had been mistaken when I objected to the policies of the previous regime,” he said.

Ahmed Mohammed Raouf, chief engineer for the State Company for Internet Services, said he had mixed feelings about censorship.

He held a similar position in Mr. Hussein’s government and remembers being ordered to filter any site that was even remotely “antiregime.”

“We are a technical ministry, not a political ministry,” he said. “Our job is to bring the systems, the tools, but not to decide what can be said. We are engineers and technicians.” He added, however, that “the situation had gotten out of control.”