From the NYT:
Iraqis Get Used to Life Without Hussein, and Many Find They Like It
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: October 26, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 25 — At the Hijra elementary school in a prosperous neighborhood of the city on Saturday morning, a class of fifth graders stood at attention when the assistant principal walked in and automatically began to chant, "Long live the president," Saddam Hussein.
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But their voices trailed off before they reached last word, and several students looked down at the floor.
"Things are totally changed now," said Enam Moussa al-Naqid, the assistant principal, openly delighted by the present state of affairs. "All the children are back and all the teachers, the same ones who have been here for 25 years."
When school reopened on Oct. 1, hundreds of parents, afraid for their children, waited out front at the end of the day to walk their children home. Now very few do.
On Friday evening, the American authorities lifted the curfew on Baghdad starting early Sunday morning, saying life here was returning to normal. Across the city on Saturday, numerous Iraqis agreed and provided ample evidence. Streets swarmed with people shopping and socializing. Coffee houses were packed. Families strolled; vendors clogged the sidewalks.
The manager of a travel agency said he is busy for the first time in more than a decade, primarily booking thousands of vacations to the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, where Iraqis had been forbidden to travel since 1991. "People feel free to travel now, and they want to go because there's amazing scenery up there, and it's clean and safe," said Ahmed Abdel Hamid, the manager.
Outside the city passport office on Saturday afternoon, dozens of Iraqis milled about, waiting to apply for travel papers. Rouda Jasim Ali sat under a tree outside the office, obviously proud as she held travel papers just issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority, written in English and Arabic.
She had never left the country before, "but now I am going to visit my uncle in Jordan," she said with a grin.
At the Ratidain state bank, Hussein Salman, an accountant, sat on a bag holding eight million dinars, or $4,000, in small bills. He was waiting to deposit it — something he would have thought twice about before the war.
"It's safer to use banks now because there's more stability," he said. One reason for the stability was the American M1 Abrams tank outside the front door with its gun pointed at the street. Inside, around Mr. Salman, the lobby teemed with three dozen people waiting for a teller. Before the war, "it was never crowded," he said. "Almost nobody came here."
To be sure, significant security problems remain, and not everyone is optimistic and pleased with the current state of the nation. Every day, including Saturday, attacks of one sort or another generally result in one or more deaths.
In the southern Iraqi city of Amara on Saturday morning, unidentified assailants shot and killed the police chief as he left a mosque after prayers. In Tikrit, The Associated Press reported, an American Black Hawk military helicopter crashed after taking fire from the ground. Five serviceman were wounded, the American military said. A United States military spokesman said three civilians had been killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb hit two civilian vehicles, which then came under fire on a highway 50 miles west of Baghdad, Reuters reported. An official at a local hospital said an Iraqi translator had been killed in the same incident.
No incidents were reported in Baghdad on Saturday. Still, everyone interviewed complained that they felt unsafe at times, though "things are getting better in a visible way, day by day," said Ali al-Sharif, a restaurant manager.
Behind him in the Alsaah Restaurant, six college girls sat at a table eating lunch — sandwiches and kebab. They said this was the first time they had been out together since the war.
"Life is getting back to normal; we are adapting to the situation, but we are still afraid of bombs," said Rana al-Bidhani, 22, a linguistics student. "It's good to go out again."
Before the war, young women were afraid to visit this restaurant for another reason. It was a favorite of Uday Hussein, the president's notorious son, who was known to pick up attractive women he encountered and take them back to his palace.
Suha Nazar, 20, was thinking of the violence in the city since the war, not the former leadership, when she observed that "now we feel we can walk in the streets."
Nonetheless, she added, "we are still a little afraid."
Mr. Sharif, the restaurant manager, said that for many months after the war, his only customers were men, who drank and smoked hookahs. But "since early this month, we started seeing families coming back," he said. "Now we have just one room for the men."
At the city courthouse on Saturday, the docket listed nine trials and hearings for crimes: two thefts of vehicles; two murders, one kidnapping, one possession of illegal weapons, two aggravated assaults and one possession of stolen property.
Assistant Judge Varrack Bassam seemed pleased to observe that he and the other judges could issue judgments without interference from the state.
"Before the trial was a parody," he said. If a friend of the government came to the court charged with a crime, "someone would come into the court connected with the regime and say it was better not to sentence him."
Last week, he noted, four judges were dismissed because they had served as judges in the former government's special security court for political prisoners.
As people strolled past his sweets shop, Yossif Abod, 43, was bellowing to anyone who would listen about the old days, when government security officers would pop in at his store, inquire where his employees were from and force him to fire any who were from southern Iraq.
"One time they fired my entire staff," he complained. "I had to close."
Now, he added: "This doesn't happen anymore. We need more security, but we are free from pressure now."
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