After the fall of Saddam Hussein, who will put Iraq back togerther again? Nermeen Al-Mufti reports from Baghdad Baghdad's Al-Fardos Square assumed a new symbolic identity after the toppling of former President Saddam Hussein's statue on 9 April. After three weeks of occupation, the square has taken on another role, as a platform for free speech -- almost like an Iraqi Hyde Park. Angry groups gather here on a daily basis, in front of the Palestine Hotel where foreign journalists and American forces are quartered, and air their opinions on the changing balance of power in Iraq and the region. Near the site of Saddam's fallen statue stood Ammar Ahmed, a PhD student of Baghdad University, in a crowd who were chanting "No to the Americans." When I told him that many opposition parties and figures had, in fact, asked the Americans to stay he replied, "they know if the Americans go, nobody will elect them." Meanwhile, Suleyman Ali, a Palestinian student at Baghdad University, was trying, along with dozens of Arab students, to talk with any American officer they could find. They were desperate for information on whether they would be able to complete their studies under the scholarships awarded by the Iraqi government or Ba'ath Party. Here, in tumultuous post-Saddam Iraq, the erstwhile long-time leader has assumed almost legendary status and locals speak of him with mixed emotions. Hana Abid, a professor of economics, was nostalgic for the iron fist of the old regime. "I had no idea that some Iraqis hate this country so much that they could even loot the National Museum's library, or the Fine Arts Museum. Somebody told me that trucks full of people from another Arab state looted the National Museum." The question that ripples through the crowds and security forces here is whether or not Saddam Hussein was betrayed. "We were ready to fight in and around Saddam Airport," says Captain Najm Ghazi of the elite Republican Guard. "But all of a sudden we were ordered to withdraw. We were told that the orders were from the president. The next day we discovered that Baghdad and Saddam had been betrayed. Why, when and who? Nobody knows." He added that all members of the two highest echelons in the Republican Guard were from Tikrit, Hussein's home town, or from among Hussein's son Qusay's closest associates. "We always used to say that Saddam was good at creating mercenaries. He paid a lot to those journalists who wrote lies, and to officers who were no good at conducting wars." According to Ghazi it was those same mercenaries who betrayed the country saying, "those were the ones who took a fortune from the Americans to betray him." "It's so sad," he added. "Thousands of people were killed by American bombs. If they were going to betray him, why didn't they do it from the first day? I'll never forget what happened here." On the much-discussed issue of Hussein's whereabouts, 57-year-old teacher Sameera Al-Jabouri, seems certain. "He will be back -- surely in the coming weeks," she said. "We are sure that our president will return. He may have been a dictator; he may have been unjust, but at least he was Iraqi -- not an agent of America." "If not Saddam," adds her 30-year- old daughter, Noor, "then somebody must come to save Iraq from this occupation and the 'opposition', who are all agents themselves." Saddam Hussein once said "32 states waged a war against us, but still we did not evaporate." According to a high- ranking official in the office of the president, who wished to remain anonymous, "many top officials decided to try to oust Saddam Hussein in an effort to protect Iraq from occupation," He added that "the ministers for defence and military industrialisation, Sultan Hashim Ahmed and Abdul Tawab Mulla Huwaish, spoke to the President and his son Qusay and tried to persuade them to leave Iraq for Iraq's sake. Hussein and his son reportedly become livid with anger, and the fate of those two ministers and forty high- ranking army officers still remains unknown. The details of this meeting spread like wildfire through the office of the president, and people started making arrangements for their safe exits, leaving the country to its fate." The places I encountered in Abu Ghareeb in the western section of Baghdad and the suburb near the Al- Kadhimiya district bore witness to real battles between Iraqi and American forces on 5 and 6 April. An American tank and two other vehicles were standing beside the Arabic Petroleum Institute, all three vehicles destroyed. Determined to find an answer to the riddle of the fall of Baghdad, the deserting Iraqi forces and the delivery of the city to the coalition forces on a silver platter, I asked some people their opinion. Ibrahim Hazim, a young captain in the armoured division of the Republican Guards, simply said, "I still don't know what went on in the minds of the commanders. They pulled a whole division out of Kirkuk in broad daylight without providing any air cover, which meant the reinforcements never reached Baghdad." "American bombardment of military targets was extremely heavy," commented Ahmed Hasan, first lieutenant engineer, adding that "entering a war without air cover is a big mistake." But what about the hundreds of Iraqi officers who swore allegiance to Saddam Hussein, vowing to protect Iraq and burn the Americans? Zaid El- Hamdany, an officer, maintains "it was all a publicity stunt for radio and TV to boost the moral of the Iraqis." But will the Iraqis keep asking what happened? The road to Baghdad is littered with burnt-out Iraqi tanks, arms and rocket launchers as well as countless shreds of military uniforms; in the military hospitals that had been looted and burnt, I saw hundreds of cheap wooden coffins and Iraqi flags. Ali Hassan, a sergeant in the Rasheed Military hospital said "if the deposed regime was sure that hundreds of thousands were going to be killed, then why did Saddam Hussein launch a suicide war?" While waiting for the answers, the Iraqis try to reconstruct the remnants of their shattered lives; a task which is far from easy. Nights in the cities remain unsafe; electricity supplies have been restored to some areas, but telecommunication facilities remain cut. Former General Garner has asked Iraqis to resume their work and studies. The answer was a bitter smile. Where are people supposed to go to after all ministries, offices, schools and universities have been looted and burnt; and where are the salaries? The Americans promised $20 to every Iraqi worker, the going rate for $100 being 150 000 ID. Two weeks ago $100 this was 270 000 ID. As for the future, nobody knows when the interim government will be established, and for the time being nobody cares about that 60% of the population whose lives depend on their salaries and the Oil for Food Programme. And in the words of an Iraqi, "The Americans say they are going to fix everything, but can they fix our broken hearts?"
