A year after the fall of Saddam

Jerusalem Post ^ | Apr. 9, 2004 | MATTHEW GUTMAN

[yonif]

As I lay in the dirt of a drainage ditch next to the Baghdad-Amman highway, pinned down in a cross-fire between insurgents and an American convoy, I was seized by a single thought: Get to an oasis, get to Baghdad.

A year to the day after Americans and Baghdadis hauled down Saddam Hussein's massive statue in the city's Paradise Square, his own resplendent gift to himself, Shi'ite militants and Sunni insurgents have seemingly blasted away hope for security. When asked, Iraqis will say that without security, their food tastes sour, their sleep comes in fits, and the American dream of the pursuit of happiness is fruitless.

Despite the violence, that some fear might pitch Iraqis into a full-fledged war against the coalition's occupation, Baghdad remains something of an oasis. It was in this oasis, at Paradise Square, in fact, that Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's brutal regime officially fell. The crackle of small-arms fire ebbed, and we (driver, translator, and I) scrambled into the car and sped toward Baghdad, specifically to Paradise Square.

Ali Muhsen, 55, a moneychanger in Paradise Square for the past 15 years, remembers well the day "Saddam" fell. "It could not be compared with any other happiness, for that at least we are in debt to the Americans," he said.

For 15 years, Muhsen worked with one eye on his money, the other for Mukhabarat [secret police] agents. Minutes before the last time he was arrested, Muhsen had bought a tire. He told his captors that he worked as a mechanic, not a black-marketer. "They sent me to prison along with my tire. It was very useful, actually. I sat on it to stay above all the sewage that overflowed from the cell's toilet."

Times have changed. Muhsen no longer needs to weigh his money. Inflation skyrocketed under Saddam, and since large bills were often counterfeit, people like Muhsen dealt only in notes equivalent to 10 cents.

"Counting the thousands of bills was too time consuming, so we had to weigh the money on a balance."

Now there are 25,000-dinar notes, and no successful counterfeiters, said Muhsen. The dinar is finally stable, and Iraq, as he will attest, boasts a free-market economy enabling Iraqis to purchase 300,000 cars in the past year. Even better, he hauls in eight to 10 times the money he made then. "And best of all," he said counting a wad of cash as he spoke, "I don't have to look at Saddam's face anymore, either on the bills or the statue."

With the certainty of Saddam's demise, banknotes with his face on them are out of circulation and have become something of a novelty item. Muhsen said he would gladly have handed some over, "but I burned them all."

Sleeping with their wives, Baghdadis like to say, was only thing they could do without the written permission of the government. "Now a year later, we can say anything to anyone we like," Muhsen said.

In addition, power plants churn out more electricity than before the war. Salaries have increased tenfold and more. Still, construction, save for the concrete pylons protecting government and Western sites, remains at a standstill. Unemployment is rife, a critical failure that padded the ranks of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army with those who have nothing better to do.

And while there is a glimmer of hope, the bulk of Iraqis remain as destitute, if not more so, as under Saddam.

Across the way from Muhsen's kiosk, Saddam's saluting colossus – that Iraqis joke looked like he was hailing a cab – has been replaced with an amorphous bronze statue that obliquely symbolizes a crescent moon, a sun, and a mother with her children. Its base is splashed with graffiti. Spray-painted in light blue is the word "peace," in English, Arabic, and oddly enough, Hebrew. Posters of on each column of the circle's colonnade announce an April 8 International Women's Day sponsored by a new organization – Women's Freedom in Iraq.

Even in the Sunni-dominated areas, often allotted favored status by Saddam, a paradigmatic shift has occurred. Thousands gathered at the Umm al-Kura Mosque in west Baghdad Thursday morning to demonstrate against coalition forces' operations in Fallujah and to organize a convoy of food to break the US blockade around the city.

Saddam had built this tacky glittering mosque. Its piece de resistance is four minarets designed to look like AK-47s, muzzles pointed skyward. The demonstrators hurled abuse at their enemies: "Patience, patience, Jews, the army of Muhammad is coming" and "Death to America."

However, a favored slogan of the early parts of the occupation: "With blood and with our souls, we will redeem you Saddam" had been altered. The word "Saddam" had been dumped in favor of "Islam." Raed Rasul, a self-proclaimed "small-time businessman," walked by Muhsen's desk. He berated the US-led occupation forces for failing to provide security, but then backtracked slightly. "Iraqis have to adopt parts of American morality," he said.

He recounted that the previous day he had been herded out of a bank by a security guard. As he was being ushered down the steps, an American soldier "told me to 'have a nice day.' That was very nice."

That's not all. "You will never see an American throw a cigarette butt on the ground. They never cut a queue, even though they can."

Maybe, he said, it is in the small things.

[Gunslingr3]

interesting

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[First_Salute]

Nice catch; thanks.