Can a Political Victory Be Built in the Ruins?

With missiles whistling overhead and a U.S. warplane flying so low that it seemed it would touch the minaret of the neighborhood mosque, the political scientist leaned back heavily Sunday and said such force could come back to haunt the United States.

“The blood, destruction, continuous bombing,” said Wamid Nadmi, who dubs himself part of the “patriotic opposition” to Saddam Hussein’s regime, “these will be remembered by the Iraqis and will make it very, very difficult for the Americans to rule directly or indirectly.”

The future of Iraq seemed an appropriate question to ponder at a time when the prospect of a U.S.-British military victory seemed increasingly clear. In an in-your-face message to Hussein early today, elements of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division seized one of Hussein’s palaces in the center of the city.

Nevertheless, the British-educated Nadmi warned, the United States should not expect an easy political victory in Iraq if the war is won.

A member of the Baghdad University faculty, Nadmi is one of the few independent critics of the government who has managed to work inside Hussein’s Iraq. Over the years, he has made carefully balanced, principled appeals for greater democratization while couching them in respectful terms that have allowed him to retain his position and avoid suppression.

While he is sympathetic to the goal of bringing democracy to Iraq, after 18 days of war and mounting casualties, he said, he believes that the U.S. administration is losing the battle to be viewed as “liberators.”

Nadmi lives in a comfortable two-story house in one of Baghdad’s northern districts with his wife, two daughters and two sons, relatively far from the ground battles of recent days. But even here the war has touched them.

Since it began March 20, many of the windows of their house have been shattered by explosions nearby. To keep out the dust and sand that blows through this city constantly, they have put up plastic sheets.

And the noise has been terrifying, Nadmi said. During the course of an hourlong interview, at least four missiles flew over the house and exploded a short distance away, shaking the house violently.

“My daughters were horrified,” he said. “I even had to send one daughter out of Baghdad. I don’t think there is anywhere in Iraq where it is safe enough to think rationally.”

Asked to sketch his view of how Iraq might emerge after the war, Nadmi -- who before the conflict complained that “the U.S. and Britain are intent on aggression and invasion” -- was pessimistic about the chances of a smooth U.S. administration.

“It will be extremely difficult for any person, no matter how big his hatred for the regime and no matter how great the opportunities are, to cooperate,” he said.

In contrast to other periods of Iraq’s history, he said, “I don’t think there is a great deal of animosity toward the [Iraqi] leadership now.” Rather, he said, referring to the U.S. and British leaders, “a great deal of hatred is being expressed now against Bush and Blair.”

The U.S. administration lacks credibility among many Iraqis when it discusses the war, he said.

They hear U.S. radio broadcasts and think that some of the charges laid at the feet of the regime -- such as reports that civilians are being marched out in front of Iraqi soldiers as human shields -- are untrue and simply crude propaganda, he said.

Iraqi propaganda has been bad too, he said. “I would like Iraqi radio and television to give out more actual information about the situation in Baghdad,” he said. “But it is mostly just [pro-Hussein] songs you get there.”

Nadmi said that in contrast to 1991 -- when their country had invaded and occupied Kuwait -- many Iraqis still are not convinced that the United States had reason to attack them this time. In addition, he said, many believe that Hussein bent over backward to try to avoid the war, even making humiliating concessions to accommodate the U.N. resolution on weapons inspections.

Hussein also has scored points for displaying courage, Nadmi suggested, such as when Iraqi television broadcast scenes of him touring neighborhoods (U.S. officials are not convinced that it was Hussein) at a time when the American forces have made no secret of their desire to kill him with a missile strike.

All this has led to a degree of loyalty to the government and an ambivalence toward the U.S.-led invasion that many people familiar with Iraq over the years may have found surprising, he said.

It happened even in his own family, he said, pointing to an incident involving his 12-year-old. “My son came out yesterday and then he ran into the house with tears in his eyes, because he thought Baghdad was invaded and the country is collapsing.”

And when government troops have marched through the city, he said, “people were shouting to the army and supporting the army.”

“The [U.S.-British] alliance has lost the war politically,” he concluded, “even if they come to a successful military conclusion.”

It was becoming increasingly difficult Sunday for the government to disguise its deteriorating military position. Information Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf was forced to acknowledge that U.S. troops had not been ousted from the city’s international airport -- contradicting his account of the previous day, although he claimed the U.S. forces are being “pounded” and barely hanging on there.

And when government minders took journalists to see a destroyed Abrams tank -- which they neglected to say had been destroyed not by Iraqi forces but by its own crew when it became disabled -- the reporters and Iraqi troops with them all scattered in fear when a U.S. plane flew over.

One man who did not run from the planes was a diminutive soldier, Salam Hamza, 39, who identified himself as a noncommissioned officer in Iraq’s Al Quds Brigade, a paramilitary group whose stated aim is to wrest Jerusalem from Israel.

Hamza said he had taken part in the previous day’s firefight with a U.S. tank column, shooting at it with his Kalashnikov rifle.

“We were confronting them bravely,” he said. And he vowed that they would do the same in coming days, even giving up his life, if necessary, and leaving his daughter, 13, and son, 9, fatherless.

“They will not care because Abu Uday [another name for Hussein] is there,” he said.

“He is like a father to everyone.”

Hamza said he knew the Abrams tank could not be harmed by his bullets but he fired anyway. “We would like them to feel that there are a lot of people resisting them.”

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Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.