In the Iraqi Capital, Gloom and Fatalism Are Pervasive

Four upper-class Iraqi women sat in the sun-splashed court of a graceful, 90-year-old traditional Arab house overlooking the Tigris River and asked: How can a civilized country like the United States be thinking about bombing them again?

“Where is your democracy, for heaven’s sakes?” one wondered.

That is a cry from the heart in this city where even this weekend’s compromise-seeking visit by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has done little to dispel a mood of gloom and fatalism, a general certainty that President Clinton intends to order a military strike soon.

From the battered orange-and-white taxis that pass under the omnipresent portraits of President Saddam Hussein to the careworn expressions on the faces of the men and women who glide through its streets, Baghdad looks tired even before any attack.

Yet beneath the grime, there are reminders of a once-proud metropolis. And among its people there remains the vestige of a cosmopolitan elite, members of old, rooted families who knew lives of comfort and who never imagined that the day would come when they would be unable to give a banana to a cherished grandson because it cost too much.

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The women in the walled garden, who drank unsweetened coffee and nibbled date pastries as they talked, are from such a background.

And they said they feel betrayed by an America they thought they knew but that seems to have reduced their country of more than 20 million people to one single, hated symbol: Saddam Hussein.

“You make it sound as if you can excuse yourself by saying that your bombs are accurate,” said Amal Khadeiry, who runs a gallery for antiques and fine art in part of the family home.

“What sort of logic is this? What sort of beginning is this for the 21st century?” she demanded of two visiting American journalists.

She has reason to be skeptical that U.S. weapons will strike only military targets. The house--built by her father--is less than 100 yards from the Junhurriyah Bridge over the Tigris in central Baghdad.

The bridge was hit with great accuracy in 1991, she said, but the concussions were so great that they blew out all the glass in, as well as a good section of, the family home.

At the time, she recalled with an angry voice, “We didn’t believe human beings were capable of such cruelty. And now. . . . “

She apologized for the disorganization in her shop. She was packing up the rugs, antiques, prints and tiled furniture because “I don’t want to have the same thing happen twice.”

Khadeiry was the only one of the group making such practical preparations. None of the others were stockpiling supplies or making plans to leave the city for someplace safer.

“We are fatalists. Even those who were not fatalists have become fatalists,” said Khadeiry’s friend Souad Radhi, 80. “I don’t try to clutter my mind with these problems. . . . Whatever we have, we’ll survive.”

But the women were excited by the harsh questions aimed at members of President Clinton’s Cabinet last week at Ohio State University.

At least, Khadeiry said, they know that not all Americans are against them.

“When we listened to it, we said, ‘This is the America I know, the Americans I used to believe in,’ ” agreed Radhi, who has been fond of the United States since childhood. “We were educated by the Americans. They were a certain standard that we lived up to.”

But much has changed, she said.

As she sees it now, the United States has grown deaf to criticism and seems determined to have its way and use military force--acknowledging that some Iraqi civilians will probably be killed--even though most other countries will disagree.

“President Clinton says he is caring for the Iraqi people,” Radhi said. But after seven years of economic sanctions and the latest threat of bombardment, “We don’t believe him.”

Even the “oil-for-food” deal approved by the United Nations to improve the material well-being of Iraqis is an insult, she said, because part of the revenue is siphoned off to pay U.N. personnel working in Iraq, and part goes for reparations that Iraq owes after its defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Iraqis are left with “crumbs from the table.”

“We don’t need pity,” Radhi said. “We are a rich country.”

But she has a message for her American friends: “The arrogance of success and power can destroy a person as well as a country.”

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After the war and the economic embargo, which has drastically reduced the standard of living of almost all Iraqis, the character of people has changed, said Murtaza Khafaf, 58, whose husband died of cancer and who is herself recovering from cancer.

With all the hardship and sadness, she said, “We started to be more down to earth. We don’t care for anything anymore. If you have jewelry, you don’t wear it. Nothing interests us.”

Are people depressed?

“Of course,” said Khafaf, but Radhi added: “I am so proud of the Iraqi women. Honestly, I think we’ve got such stamina.”

Iraq has been either at war or under sanctions for almost 20 years, pointed out Khadeiry, and memories of a better life are fading.

“All the fridges were full. . . . Nobody suffered,” she recounted.

But now she knows children who were puzzled when they were given meat to eat. They had never seen it before.

And she said she fears the added turmoil that might be unleashed if the United States carries out a heavy attack. She believes that the U.S. government has not thought through the effects of the blood bath that could follow.

“You create problems, and then you don’t know how to solve them,” she said. “You always leave a mess behind you.”