Quietly Surviving in A Not-So-New Iraq

In the last years of Saddam Hussein's rule, eager for some relief from Iraq's dreary state-run television, a businessman named Emad T. Yousif bought an illegal satellite dish. He set it up on his Baghdad rooftop, making sure that it couldn't be seen from the street or his neighbors' houses. Only then did he realize that he had gone too far.

There was no way to prevent his young children from letting slip a reference to the new entertainment they were suddenly enjoying, which might get back to their friends' parents, which might get back to the regime. Such was life during what Iraqis call "the Saddam time": the very real possibility that the parents of your kids' friends would rat you out.

He dismantled the dish.

Yousif enjoyed some personal prosperity and a whispered, furtive liberty under the Baathist regime, always striving to avoid any undue attention from the vast intelligence apparatus that helped keep Hussein in power. Balding, oval-faced, eyes slightly downcast, Yousif played the gray man well.

Five years into the U.S. effort to remake his country, Yousif, now 53, plays that role still. If the essence of freedom is the opportunity to assert oneself, Iraq has a long way to go. Now as then, Iraqis who want to survive shrink back into themselves, lie low, let attention find someone else.

Satellite dishes are no longer a problem; everyone has them. And the Stasi-like repression of the dictatorship is over: Government agents no longer visit Yousif once a week to ask after his well-being and whether -- polite smile -- the intelligence service might be of some help. He is certain no one is vetting his e-mails or recording his overseas phone calls.

But in this post-Saddam time, other threats impose themselves. Material ostentation draws kidnappers, political engagement invites assassination, and time spent outside the seeming safety of four walls carries the risk of being caught in the middle of horrific violence. In 2006, Yousif's cousin, an engineer, "was driving in the street, and they shot him," Yousif recalled when I met with him in Baghdad in March. The family has no idea who killed the man, or why, or even if there was a reason.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress last month that levels of violence had significantly diminished. But Yousif is still afraid to live in the high-end Baghdad neighborhood where he has built his dream home, because from time to time there are "accidents" in the area. Accidents? "I mean killing," he explained in his clear but sometimes imperfect English. "We don't know the reason behind this killing, but it still tells you that it's not under control."

The chaotic aftermath of an invasion intended, in part, to promote democracy has convinced Yousif to stay as far away as possible from power: "We are people not involved in hot issues, which is politics or religion or whatever it is. We are normal, neutral people. I believe most of Iraq is like this. And we got experience from the old regime how we can manage ourselves."

In October 2002, Iraq beckoned the international media to cover a referendum on Hussein's rule. The scores of foreign reporters visiting Baghdad overwhelmed the Ministry of Information, enabling me to slip away from my government "minder" and take a taxi to Yousif's office. I arrived alone and unannounced, bearing an introduction from a mutual friend in Jordan. Yousif took me into his confidence.

We spent many hours together over the next few days, mainly in his SUV, driving around Baghdad at night. He told me that he felt safest in the car, which he was certain was not bugged. Meeting anyplace else -- his home or office, my hotel, a restaurant -- attracted undue attention.

Then the country manager for a Swiss-based agricultural products company, Yousif enjoyed an enviably productive life in an atrophied economy. He was proud of his nation, his family, his career. He despised Hussein for the Iran-Iraq War and the U.N. sanctions the dictator had provoked by maintaining the illusion that he was hiding weapons of mass destruction.