CRISIS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : Many Baghdadis Are Philosophical About War, but Others Try to Leave : Iraq: Citizens grab any bit of news, then embroider it imaginatively as if improvising on a musical theme.

Getting a refrigerator onto a clunky old Toyota sedan is no easy trick, Taher Abu Taher found, but darned if he wasn’t going to try.

“If I leave it here, someone will steal it. Some Ali Baba,” he grunted as he spat out the name of the mythical thief from “A Thousand and One Nights.”

He adjusted the dented Frigidaire atop the equally dented car, tying knot after knot on plastic ropes, with his wife by his side wondering aloud how it all will stay put along the bumpy road to Kerbala, where they have relatives and, they hope, a safe place to stay.

Abu Taher was playing out one of the seemingly few acts of willful self-help left to residents of Baghdad as the date for possible war drew nearer. January 15 is the one concrete milestone of life in the city. Everything else is clouded by rumor and uncertainty.

To the long string of customary Arabic greetings--good morning, good morning of flowers, good morning of gladiolus--has been added the skittish question: “Are you staying?” Or the more pessimistic: “When are you leaving?”

Journalists arriving from abroad are welcomed with surprise by acquaintances and then asked, again and again: “Are you staying after the 15th?”

Not everyone, of course, is trying to get out of Baghdad and the roads are not crowded with people on the move. Partly, this may be due to the fact that the population is accustomed to war after the 8-year conflict with Iran and also the reality that for many there is no place to go.

“My cousin’s house is full and they are poor,” said Ibrahim Tamimi, a tailor in the Qadamiya district of small workshops and retail stores. “We will be more comfortable here. Can President Bush promise that a bomb won’t fall on a farm as well as the city?”

A decision to leave or not is complicated by the lack of information available to Iraqis from their government. Left to drift in the dark, citizens grab avidly at any piece of news and then embroider it imaginatively as if improvising on a musical theme.

The other day, the government urged Baghdadis to buy extra fuel for emergency use, then reversed itself because of the danger that by storing gasoline in the home, residents were in danger of setting fire to the city--if enemy bombs from the air didn’t do it first.

For Iraqis, it was not enough to take this reversal at face value. The initial call was something like a civil defense test to see how people respond to government orders, commented the owner of a bookstore at a riverfront bazaar. A taxi driver whispered that President Saddam Hussein, in an effort to take the public’s mind off the possibility of war, was occupying them with mixed directives.

“It’s all psychology,” the driver said, as he tapped the side of his head with a stiff index finger.

The government appears to be more eager to prepare the population for war than for peace. Hussein’s bellicose speech to a group of Islamic supporters Friday was televised in full and dominated front pages. He has made no public statement suggesting that a compromise on Kuwait might be in the works.

By way of contrast, the visit of U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar received brief notice in newspapers and television.

The instability of daily life is most evident in skyrocketing prices of “open market” foodstuffs that Iraqis buy to supplement shrinking portions of rationed goods. Controlled-price rations of flour and sugar, for instance, have been cut by about 25% since August.

Some Iraqis and foreign diplomats attribute recent inflation not to dwindling supplies but to the eagerness of farmers to lay hands on money in anticipation of war. Other diplomats believe, however, that Iraq might have difficulty reaching the spring harvest of wheat before stocks are depleted.

Iraq appeared to be trying to entice Iran to break the international embargo against Baghdad with a new diplomatic blitz. A close aide to Hussein returned from Tehran, the Iranian capital, and announced that Iraq’s former deadly enemy had agreed to enter a new era of cooperation. Smuggled food from Iran already fills local markets.

Some manufactured items are in short supply in Baghdad, especially automobile parts. In the past few months, the cost of tires has risen twentyfold.

The scarcity has led to an expanding population of tire thieves, Iraqi motorists say.