Parade Of The Dead Babies

By Johanna Mcgeary/Baghdad

Grim and desolate: that's both Iraq's landscape and its state of mind. The once proud city of Baghdad wears the rags of poverty: marble chipping off the extravagant examples of modern architecture built in an era of prosperity, doors and window glass for sale from middle-class villas, grime and time eating away the old tenements of the poor. Everyone in the streets looks shabby and tired. You see few smiling faces, and only the black-market profiteers and smugglers are well dressed. Sandy dust coats everything in a city slipping back into the desert.

A few try to escape it all. Kids squeal as they ride high on the Ferris wheel at the Luna Park fun fair, while their parents chat and stroll. At 10 a.m., boats blaring disco music ply the filthy Tigris River; for a few hours, Iraq's youth can try to forget their current misery and fearful future as they rock to the beat.

Over in Martyrs Square, it is Funeral Day. A woman in blue marshals the ranks of girl students bused in to chant, "They killed our babies," and in English, "One, two, three, four. We don't want war" as the foreign cameras come by. There is a tense quiet, though, as 57 orange-and-white taxis drive by, each bearing the small coffin of a dead child labeled with his or her name: Haider Hatami, 25 days; Mohammed, one month. The little bodies have been stored in hospital morgues, some for weeks, against Muslim law, stockpiled for these set-piece processions. The government brings in the protesters, pulling volunteers out of restaurants to join. But the marchers are expressing genuine anger, and most of it is aimed at America. "Our babies die because of you!" shouts a woman dressed in a black chador with a tiny weeping child in her arms. "We need peace and milk, not war!" cries another. "We have nothing left," chimes in a third. "War will only destroy us all over again." Their faces contort in fury and frustration as they grab our sleeves, desperate for money and attention.

In the 14th of Ramadan Cafe alongside the square, young men in frayed suits and old men in shabby jellabas sip tea or puff on water pipes, while backgammon counters slap, slap in the background. An old mural shows a young Saddam smiling; next to it a photo mural depicts an older, grimmer leader. There is nothing to eat here at the cafe except some custard puddings and a pile of Turkish delight. Holes near the roof line are filled in with little cardboard squares. The windows are half covered in tattered plastic. The men say they are resigned to more bombs destroying their city. "I cannot change it," says a 65-year-old backgammon player as his friends nod agreement, "so I do not worry. I will just defend myself and my country as I can." Americans, he says, "should not do this, because if they do, the world will turn against them." An unemployed engineer says there is no point in preparing for the worst. "What would we do now?" he asks. "If it comes, we will survive again."

No real signs of war fever disturb the bedraggled city. People say the army has been moving its tanks and guns into the desert, to remote desert bivouacs where they hope U.S. missiles cannot find them. Command centers near the highway to Jordan, the only land link out of this isolated country, have been abandoned as generals disperse to makeshift headquarters. Antiaircraft guns ring the airport where U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan landed for the talks that Iraqis dare to hope will forestall the bombs. "We want him to bring peace," says a shopkeeper watching the babies' coffins go by. "We pray to Allah to help him bring peace."

A visitor in the streets feels no tangible fear or frenzy, no outward anxiety that attack is imminent. Baghdad's new poor are worrying as always about their daily bread. A lucky man might earn 4,000 dinars a month, the price of a kilo of meat. Families get by on soup and rice, for lunch and dinner. Women in the streets peddle rings and bracelets to help pay rent; children beg everywhere, offering a few pathetic sticks of incense or just a sad look on their haggard faces. Middle-class families long ago sold off their television sets, rugs and extra clothes; now they flog basic necessities like bedsteads and chairs. One grimy apartment overlooking Martyrs Square contains nothing but blankets on the floor, one chair and a hot plate. Only the superrich can afford the 11 types of condiments and Uncle Ben's rice at the upscale supermarket.

Saddam Hussein looms over the square; an overly realistic statue gives him a sizable paunch. Yet where once Iraqis indicated at least in subtle ways how they despised him, the years of the embargo have turned almost all their ire against the enemy outside. If Saddam doesn't give them food, at least he stands up for Iraq's national dignity, stoking their patriotism and resentment. "Why do Americans only want war?" asks one of the funeral mourners. "We have nothing left. We cannot hurt you. But you still want to kill us." She turns away, then adds defiantly, "We are not afraid of you anymore."