Baghdad pain still deep one year later

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The first anniversary of the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein was a day like many others in Iraq: a mortar attack in a northern city, an attempt to kill a politician and news of a U.S. Marine cut down by rebel fire.

Overall, Saturday was average by recent Iraqi standards.

The millions of Iraqis who exulted in Saddam's downfall did not publicly celebrate the day, nor were there street protests from those who enjoyed his patronage -- partly because public gatherings are vulnerable to suicide attackers, car bombs, shootings and other violence.

Even those who opposed Saddam are uncomfortable with the invasion and extended occupation of Iraq by foreign armies.

Many Iraqis fear daily they will be caught in the crossfire of the conflict between U.S. forces and anti-American insurgents and other shadowy assailants, and said they felt more insecure now than they did before the United States launched military strikes.

People speak of a city hurting. Some complain bitterly of the lack of security. A few talk with near nostalgia about the days of Saddam Hussein when they walked the streets without fear. Problems are blamed on the American occupiers, or foreigners in general, or the new political order that followed Saddam's ouster.

"Baghdad is wounded, and its wound is deep," said Samar Qahtan, a 30-year-old actor. "When Saddam was overthrown, we felt a great joy. Occupation is the price we had to pay, but it must end soon."

Seeing recovery

Signs of recovery are spreading. Festering heaps of uncollected garbage can still be found in most parts of the city, but some streets have never been cleaner, people say. Stores stay open until 10 p.m. or later. Schools and universities are open and so are police stations, prisons and hospitals.

Unemployment is down from 60 percent to 30 percent or less, thanks to reconstruction work, the return of trade and the gradual rise of civil service ranks to prewar levels. Crime remains a problem, but violence and other serious offenses have dropped by 33 percent, occupation officials say.

Electricity is back to prewar levels, meaning there are periodic daily outages that can last eight to 10 hours. An uninterrupted power supply is predicted for June.

Baghdad's streets are clogged with jams of cars, trucks and buses, and motorists still run red lights with impunity to add to the chaos. But order is slowly being restored as more traffic cops take to the beat.

Yet, this remains a city under siege. Barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and sandbags are nearly everywhere -- outside hospitals, banks, embassies, some homes and the headquarters of the coalition on the west bank of the Tigris River. Explosions, many unexplained, routinely rock the city. Bursts of gunfire are frequent, but don't attract much attention.

The violence reported on Saturday included:

Insurgents fired four mortar rounds at the offices of a Kurdish political party in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday but missed and killed a driver on a nearby street, Iraqi police said. Guards fired at the rebels; three party members and a passer-by were wounded in the shootout.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, Iraqi police said Subhi Saber a Turkman politician, survived an assassination attempt Saturday. Assailants opened fire on Saber's car, injuring his driver, but the politician escaped.

Hours after U.S. Marines officially took control Saturday from the 82nd Airborne Division of a swath of territory west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said rebels had killed a U.S. Marine in the area, Anbar province, a day earlier.

Terrorism is expected to remain a problem. L. Paul Bremer, Iraq's chief U.S. administrator, says attacks are likely to intensify over the remaining months before the planned transfer of power back to Iraqis on June 30.

A recent poll conducted for ABC News and several other news organizations said about 70 percent of Iraqis surveyed have high hopes for the future and say their lives are going well. About half were upset by the occupation, although few people wanted coalition troops to leave soon. The poll found the biggest worries were jobs, security and basic services.

Baghdadis' concerns are reflected in banners, posters and graffiti being put up everywhere. They point to the struggle to cope, to reinvent Iraq, to come to terms with the changes.

A poster depicting some of the bloodied bodies of the March 2 Kazimiya religious shrine bombing offers a bitter lament: "My God, if this makes you happy, then take more until you are fully satisfied."

Across the Tigris, in the Sunni neighborhood of al-A'azamia, a banner outside a Sunni mosque "regrets and condemns" the March 2 attack, seeking to reassure rival Shiites of Sunnis' good will. "Saddam + U.S. thieves," charges graffiti scrawled on al-Jumhuriya bridge across the Tigris, a short distance from the main gate of the coalition headquarters.

A huge billboard erected by the occupation authority shows a policeman pointing a finger Uncle Sam-wants-you style: "I fight thieves, highway robbers and terrorists. I don't do it to be rich, but because I am a member of the Iraqi police. What have YOU done for Iraq?"

Some people complain that the U.S. military hasn't done enough for them.

Mohammed Ahmed, a former government worker whose family is one of several hundred with homes inside the "Green Zone" that houses the coalition headquarters, is angry about stringent security checks. The father of five says he spends 2 to 2 1/2 hours waiting every time he drives home.

"We are humiliated and insulted," he said, sitting in his battered, Brazilian-made red Volkswagen in a line of cars stretching about a half-mile at 10:30 p.m. "We were much more comfortable under Saddam. My children are afraid to go to school. We are scared to drive at night."