Elation Gives Way to Dread of Daily Life

Many Lost Fear Of Hussein After His 2003 Capture

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 -- Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had been dead no more than 11 hours, but to Um Noor, he might as well have died three years ago.

"We've forgotten about him," Noor said late Saturday afternoon, as she stood in the jeans store she owns in central Baghdad.

Like many Iraqis, Noor once feared Hussein, who rose to power 24 years ago by ruthlessly wiping out his enemies. When U.S. troops ousted him in 2003, many Iraqis believed their days of living in fear were over.

But three years later, Iraqis are still a terrorized people. Now, instead of Hussein, they fear the car bombs that maim and kill every day, the kidnappers who snatch people off the streets in broad daylight, the mortar shells that fall on residential neighborhoods. And they fear each other, as Shiite Muslims fight Sunni Arabs in what is spiraling into a civil war.

Despite an infusion of billions of dollars in reconstruction funds from the United States, they are watching their quality of life deteriorate. They spend hours each day with no electricity. They wait in long lines for fuel. And they pay higher prices for food while their salaries remain the same.

"Everything is worse," Noor said. "What did we gain from him being gone?"

The initial jubilation among many Iraqis following Hussein's execution Saturday morning gave way to the realization that his death would not bring an end to the daily violence that Iraqis now endure or improve the services they could once count on.

Noor, a petite 36-year-old, struggles to pay the $300 a month it costs to rent the space for her store in the Karrada district of Baghdad. By the time she buys fuel for the generator to light her shop, there is little money left to provide for her two daughters. She has fewer customers now, she said, because people cannot afford to buy jeans with rhinestones and bows that sell for $20 or more a pair.

"With all that we are facing, I have to face this," she said, eyeing her front door nervously. She was there alone and it was getting dark, almost time for her to lock up. She used to keep her shop open until midnight. Now she leaves by 6 p.m. to avoid Baghdad by night. "I'm a woman alone," she said.

Sameer Dawoud, 62, has owned an art gallery in Baghdad since 1984. People bought art back then. Now, they don't want to brave the streets to browse the works hanging on his walls. The frames on his paintings of the Tigris River and Arabian horses are dusty. Several nearby art galleries have been shuttered.

Dawoud said he does not expect Hussein's death to end the violence that keeps his customers away. "Whoever is playing on the field, he will continue playing," he said.

Many Iraqis said Hussein became irrelevant long ago, when U.S. troops found him hiding in a hole near his home town of Tikrit in December 2003. He emerged looking dirty and bewildered, erasing the image most Iraqis had of him as a figure bent on domination.