THE TALK OF IRAQ: A Conversation on Tiptoes, Wary of Mines

November 30, 2003
By JOHN F. BURNS

AMIRIYA, Iraq — Knowing what ordinary Iraqis thought was never easy for Western reporters when Saddam Hussein bestrode the land. Now his secret police and information ministry minders are gone, but not Mr. Hussein himself. So his terror still radiates among Iraqis, many of whom condition their words and actions against the possibility he may return.

For now, to gauge the real mood of Iraqis, a visitor must listen carefully — especially when they gather in numbers, wary of what candor may cost if American troops are withdrawn before stability is established.

One such conversation developed when a reporter and photographer from The New York Times arrived in Amiriya, just outside Mr. Hussein's principal battlefield testing site, 35 miles southwest of Baghdad. In September, men from the village carried away three radiation testing towers, along with two dangerous steel capsules containing Cobalt 60, and some villagers developed signs of radiation sickness. Amiriya is at the southern end of the Sunni districts near Baghdad that have become, for the Americans, this country's principal badlands. If any village in Iraq should be Saddam country, it is this.

The conversation involved Muhammad Jasim, 38, who described himself as a farmer but emerged from a modern stone-and-glass house of the kind that were the privilege of Hussein loyalists. He was joined by Muhammad al-Hussein, 60, a farmer with the weathered face of a man who works with animals and crops; by Saddoun Hussein Alawi, 45, yet another farmer; and by Salih Farhan, 29, who said he had been a guard at the battlefield testing site and was now unemployed.

The conversation began with a visitor suggesting that the stakes in Iraq for America were such that Mr. Hussein, despite the insurgency, could not hope to return. Here is what followed.

Mr. Jasim: "Nonsense! Saddam's regime is not collapsing; Saddam is still there, he is still fighting, he will come back."

Mr. Hussein: "Yes, it's true, Saddam is still there, and we count on him, every last man among us. The Americans promised us the world, but we have had nothing from them except their bullets and their bombs. In every way, our situation is getting worse."

Mr. Alawi: "By the grace of Allah, peace be upon him, Saddam will kick the Americans out. . . . Saddam was brave; he was the emir of the Arabs, he was our leader, he was our king."

The men were asked if reports of Mr. Hussein's brutality, and of mass graves, were American fictions. They spoke softly to each other, then resumed.

Mr. Jasim: "Well, O.K., we didn't love Saddam, we have to be honest about it. He was a man of war, and only war: Because of him, I served 12 years in the army, I fought in Iran and Kuwait, I saw many of my fellow Iraqis killed, and what did we get? Nothing! It was a big mistake to attack Iran, and then to invade Kuwait, and it is as a result of that that men like me have seen their lives waste away."

Mr. Hussein: "Yes, it was a big mistake, invading Kuwait. But then, they say it was the Americans who ordered Saddam to do it, just so they could attack him for it afterwards. These things are never what they seem."

Mr. Alawi: "You're quite right, Kuwait was the Americans' fault. But Saddam really destroyed us by going in there like he did. For him, it was always like that. Right up to the end, it was war, then more war, then still more war."

The men were asked whether America should see the drumbeat of attacks on its troops, many of them within a half-hour's drive of Amiriya, as meaning that Iraqis want the troops withdrawn quickly, with power rapidly handed over to the transitional Iraqi authority.

Mr. Jasim: O.K., let us be honest here. Whatever we may say to foreigners like you, the truth is that we were never really with Saddam; in our hearts, we were always against him. But he is gone; what we are against now is America. It is different. We want the Americans to go home."

Mr. Hussein: "That's right. We wanted America to get rid of Saddam, but we didn't want Americans to trespass in our land. We didn't want the soldiers to come into our villages and break down our doors and defile the honor of our women."

Mr. Jasim: "So tell the Americans that what we want is for them to bring a suitable man to power, an Iraqi the people can trust, a man who will govern us well. Only when they have done that should they leave, and they will do so with our blessing. We don't want them to leave now. It would be chaos."

A crowd had gathered, and now shouted, "Yes, we agree" and, "The Americans should go home, but not right now, not until they have ended all this trouble."

Mr. Alawi: "Look, we really don't have anything against the Americans. We just don't want them in our homes, in our villages and towns and cities. Perhaps if they pulled back to their military bases, and just stayed to guarantee the peace, things would start to get better."

Mr. Jasim: "The thing is, whatever people tell you, we ordinary people never had got anything from Saddam. He stole the country's wealth, but did he give it to us? No, never! He gave it to his family, and to his tribesmen from Tikrit."

Mr. Alawi: "It's true! My son often used to say bad words about Saddam, and I would tell him to be silent. Then he would say, `What did Saddam ever do for you? Are you better off because of Saddam? Or are you just frightened?' And he was right. Saddam never did anything for people like us. All he brought was fear."

Mr. Hussein: "Yes! The truth is, Saddam gave us nothing but cruelty, he looked after nobody but his own family. He was a tyrant. He gave us nothing."

Mr. Jasim: "I say a prayer every day, five times a day. `God, give me five years without wars.' But we will never have peace as long as we must fear Saddam."

Mr. Farhan: "Saddam saturated us in blood, and with weapons. Why would we ever want him back?"

Mr. Jasim: "The truth is, if the Americans had stopped the looters right away, things would never have come to this, with people shooting and bombing them at every chance. Still today, the looting is continuing, and still the Americans do not stop it. But it would make things worse now if they were just to go away."

Soon after, as the reporter moved to leave, some in the crowd asked if the journalists had any baksheesh — a form of alms commonly sought by the poor. Mr. Jasim moved forward and said he had one more thing to add:

Mr. Jasim: "Tell the Americans everything depends on jobs. Look at us; not a single man among us has a job, not one of us can feed his family properly. . . . So tell the Americans to find us jobs, then everything will begin to improve."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company