Letter from Baghdad

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 23:08:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I stood outdoors in Baghdad talking with two men in their 20s who sell cigarettes from a street cart. The more gregarious of the two, whose English was excellent, asked me outright, "Isn't your country a democracy? Doesn't George Bush have to listen to his people if it's a democracy?" His friend chimed in with the questions I'd been asked a half dozen times already that morning, "Will he bomb us? Can't you make him see that we are not against Americans?"

The argument we hear in the United States - the one President Bush repeated in his speech to the nation Monday night -- is that we are not against the Iraqis, but against Saddam Hussein. That the sanctions and the impending attacks could have been stopped had Saddam Hussein acceded to UN demands. But that argument doesnt ring true for the dozens of Iraqi people I spoke to. I was told before I went not to ask the Iraqis how they felt about Saddam; speaking about him could get them in serious trouble. So instead our conversations focused on this country. They blame the U.S. government for their suffering during the Gulf War and the subsequent 13 years of sanctions. To a person they say they love Americans but despise our president and his administration.

Salon.com > Maura Stephens

Letter from Baghdad