Iraqi Hopes for Future of Friendship With U.S. : Mideast: ‘We do hate Bush,’ says resident of neighborhood ripped by stray cruise missile.

While Raid Khalid was repairing his windows Tuesday on Street No. 909, a suburban neighborhood shattered by a U.S. cruise missile gone astray two nights before, he paused to reflect on the nation that had delivered the destruction--and the “great moment” today for Iraq and America.

It was the eve of President-elect Bill Clinton’s inauguration, a turning point in the Iraq crisis and, Khalid said, a moment of hope in the increasingly desperate lives of 18 million Iraqis.

“I really hope now to see the opposite relationship with America--a relationship of friendship, of brotherhood and, yes, of good business,” the young merchant told a visiting reporter--out of earshot of the officials who monitor the thought, speech and conduct of the Iraqi people.

“Iraqis don’t hate the Americans,” Khalid said. President Bush? “Well, we do hate Bush, I’m sorry to say. But this, this destruction and death, this is between your Bush and our (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein). I think if Clinton does the opposite of what Bush did, he will get so much more from the Iraqis, from the Arabs, from this new world he speaks about than Bush could even dream about.”

This was a burst of optimism, to be sure, in the midst of the Iraqi crisis. But it was a mood that swept Iraq on Tuesday, even before Hussein launched his latest diplomatic overture to the West.

From the grass roots of Khalid’s middle-class Karrada neighborhood, hit when Iraqi antiaircraft fire apparently diverted a Tomahawk cruise missile from its target Sunday night, to the highest levels of Hussein’s regime, which had all but invited the attack through its defiance, there was a feeling that, perhaps within hours of Clinton’s swearing-in ceremony, U.S.-Iraqi relations would change.

The buoyant mood bloomed even before Hussein offered what his regime said was a new initiative to Clinton to resolve the crisis through diplomacy. The Iraqi leaders appeared to be shifting from confrontation to reconciliation as Bush leaves office and Clinton becomes President. Diplomats, analysts and key officials have indicated that the Baghdad regime may seek to shift its protest sites from the battlefield to the conference room.

The clearest indication of the new policy came--ironically--in last weekend’s news conference by Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, whose angry talk then was aimed at separating the issue of Iraq’s compliance with U.N. cease-fire resolutions from that of the “no-fly zones.”

While Aziz’s rhetoric may have helped prod the United States into launching a cruise missile attack on a Baghdad manufacturing complex Sunday night, almost lost in the torrent of words was the minister’s answer to a direct question on Baghdad’s approach to the incoming Clinton Administration.

“This is a very important and sensitive question,” he said, choosing his words with care. “Iraq never described itself as an enemy of the United States. . . . Now, a new Administration is coming in. President-elect Clinton has emphasized that he is keen about the implementation of U.N. resolutions and he is keen on dealing with Iraq on the basis of international law. We do not have a problem with that stance.”

Aziz then said Iraq is willing to talk rather than fight, but only after Baghdad sees the end of what he called “Bush’s policy of personal vendetta against Iraq.”

Hussein’s personal press spokesman, Abdul Jabbar Mohsen, put those same thoughts in print Tuesday. Although he stressed that he was offering a personal, not an official government view, Mohsen wrote in the ruling party newspaper, Al Thawra, that most Iraqis believe Clinton will bring a different approach to Iraq.

In an “open letter to President-elect Clinton,” Mohsen wrote: “Mr. President, the people of the U.S. did not elect you to continue those policies (of the Bush Administration). Be with change. Be with a real new world as you promised.

“Iraq is not an enemy to America and does not want to be,” he wrote. “It is only an enemy of colonial and barbaric policies practiced against it, whether by America or others. . . . Let me offer you my free advice: Hostility toward Iraq . . . will deny the very fundamentals on which the legitimate interests of your country stand.”

At the heart of the American interests in most Iraqis’ eyes is, as Khalid said, Clinton’s stated concern about the ailing U.S. economy. Iraq--which has some of the world’s largest oil reserves and is a war-battered, internationally sanctioned nation--is starving for American grain and technology. It already has said it will appeal to economic concerns during Clinton’s early days in office.

But neither the Iraqis nor their leaders harbor illusions about Clinton. The months since Bush’s electoral defeat have brought a blizzard of state propaganda explaining that, when it comes to Iraq, Israel and the Middle East, all U.S. Presidents pursue a similar course. The Babel, the Baghdad daily owned by Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, reminded its readers in a Tuesday editorial that “American Presidents always start lying to the people.”

For the Iraqi people, there is a fundamental perception on every level of society that the U.S.-Iraq crisis--which has impoverished their lives and and isolated their nation--is wholly the result of a war between two men.

“It’s their deep conviction within the regime, and without, that with Bush, it was personal,” said a senior diplomat in Baghdad. “They don’t expect a lot from Clinton, but at least they think he will be better because he was not involved in the Gulf War.”

One diplomat noted that the regime sees Clinton as “the first real point of light for the future--something, anything, to break this impasse. At the very least, the international community outside of the U.S., Britain and France is hoping against hope that Clinton, even if he shares Bush’s goal of removing Hussein, realizes that Bush’s approach has failed. After all, Bush’s last day is today, and Saddam will certainly be here tomorrow.”