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Newsweek War in IraqNewsweek 
Tea Talk
Our correspondent canvasses the cafés of Baghdad to find out what the average Iraqi thinks of the U.S. occupation
Iraqi Men Smoke In Tea Shops In Baghdad
Mario Tama / Getty Images
The pulse of Iraq: a teahouse in the old section of Baghdad
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Joe Cochrane
Newsweek
Updated: 03:26 PM PT  Jan. 30, 2004

Jan. 30 - Karem Ahmad Ali has a message for George W. Bush: I want my car back. The 45-year-old Iraqi,  a political prisoner during the 1980s, was carjacked on a Baghdad street just weeks after the U.S. military toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime last year. Sitting with friends in a local coffeehouse, Ali spoke almost longingly about life with the tyrannical dictator. “Saddam was a bad man, but at least it was safer,” he says. “Now, even the teenagers have weapons, and we’re all living without security.”
 
Gauging public opinion about the American occupation is not easy, given the religious, ethnic and cultural differences within this country of 25 million people. But if there’s one thing all Iraqis have in common it is their love of coffee- and teahouses, so it seemed a logical place for me to see what the man on the street is thinking these days. At the Mitani Café in central Baghdad, the complaints were mainly about the rampant crime and terrorist attacks—things that never occurred when Saddam ran Iraq. Neither did the daily power outages, uncollected piles of garbage on city streets and infuriating traffic jams, my impromptu panel reminded me. “Is the great United States unable to bring electricity back to us?” asked one customer.

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How the Iraqi population views their quality of life these days could complicate the U.S.-led reconstruction effort, especially considering that the Bush administration has changed its tune on the justification for toppling Saddam. One year ago, Washington claimed Saddam remained in material breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding he give up his weapons of mass destruction. But since the United States has failed to find any weapons, the Bush administration is now saying the invasion was justified because Saddam was “a grave and growing danger.” While that may sound good, even the average Iraqi knows that the U.N. resolutions said nothing about Saddam having to go simply because he was a bad man. “The Americans think the Iraqis are dumb,” our waiter said as he served a round of tea and sweetened Arabic coffee. “Even with their technology they couldn’t find any weapons.”
 
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The patrons were also up in arms about Bush’s recent State of the Union address, during which he asserted that “the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.” That may be true, but here’s something to ponder: the vast majority of Iraqi men and women I spoke to during the past month say that Iraq is not a better and safer place. One customer said budget restrictions imposed by the U.S.-led provisional authority had cut his government pension by two thirds. Another said American soldiers stole his wallet while searching his car at a roadside checkpoint, and he had to complain to their superior officer to get it back. Mohamad A. Hadi, the coffeehouse’s short-order cook, said he lost his job as a chef at the Foreign Ministry, dashing his dream to run a canteen at one of Iraq’s embassies abroad. “Mr. Bush should help me get that job back.”
 
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Despite the bluster at the coffeehouse, I doubt many Iraqis truly want Saddam back in power. The former dictators’s long record of human-right abuses, war crimes and atrocities speaks for itself. And Iraqis must surely know that if the U.S.-led invasion never happened—if Saddam were still in charge—his psychopathic son, Uday, would still be alive and likely to be their next president. The vast majority of Iraqis want the United States here, but in exchange they expect America to deliver on its promises of democracy, security and economic prosperity. And in a land that dates back thousands of years and where honor is everything, the Iraqi people want respect. “If the Americans leave now, there will be civil war,” says Ali, the former political prisoner. “I want them to stay—we all do—but I want my rights.” Not to mention his car.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

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