Ali Khalid racked up a small personal victory over the privations and uncertainties of war yesterday. He satisfied a food craving that recalled the few years he had spent in the US as a child.
”I don’t know what came over me, but I really really wanted to eat spaghetti,” he said. ”So I went out and drove around until I found some shops that were open. I bought some fresh meat and some pasta, and now we have already had our dinner.”
It was one of the small accomplishments that are helping the people of Baghdad get through this war, hour by hour, day by day.
Yesterday the US army was barely 96 kilometres from the gates of the city. Iraqi officials assumed an air of panic, with vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan hinting strongly to Arab governments that they use their oil exports to effect a truce.
The concussive force of US missiles makes the ground shudder even during daylight hours. Nights continue to be sleepless with the muezzin of mosques calling Allahu Akbar as soon as a part of the city comes under attack.
But the people of Baghdad have developed a rhythm for coping. The city seemed subdued yesterday, with fewer cars on the streets, but residents put this down to a dust storm that turned the sky yellow.
More shops are opening their shutters, with barbers and fax shops plying their trade, as well as grocery stores stocking the basic necessities. A garden centre set out spring annuals yesterday; fruit stalls went back into business.
The long petrol queues that formed on the eve of the war have disappeared as stocks hold, and TV stations maintain their schedules. The government-controlled Iraq Daily has not missed a day since the war started, although it fills its eight-page format by printing each page twice.
Families are using the daylight hours to visit relatives or to stroll around their neighbourhoods. Children are let out to play, though only within shouting range of home.
On Monday Khalid achieved another small milestone. He found a garage open and replaced his brake discs.
It would be a gross overstatement to say Iraqis have grown used to this war, or that their feelings of dread have subsided. While people in the suburbs, far away from military installations or Saddam Hussein’s palaces, feel relatively secure, they know that disaster can strike with even the tiniest error in American guidance systems, and that in the confusion of these times, no one might ever know.
”Didn’t you hear what happened in our neighbourhood?” asked one professor. ”Adhamiya was hit. The glass in our house was shattered and the fear among the children and our ladies was terrible.”
But Iraqis seem determined to keep a check on their fear — if only for the sake of their children.
”You can see the faces of the older kids, the eight- or nine-year-olds; they are watching their parents for any sign of flinching,” said the American peace activist Kathy Kelly. ”So their parents are very careful not to react to the bombing. They want their children to think everything is normal.” – Guardian Unlimited Â