Comfort in a Cold Place

At another time or place, the unknown gunmen who smashed Alaa's front door and ransacked his home in January might have been armed burglars. But this was Baghdad, a few days after Saddam Hussein was hanged. "They were aiming to kill me," says Alaa, a television producer who was at work at the time. "I covered every day of Saddam's trial and his execution. Of course people wanted me dead. I ran." Three weeks later, Alaa, 29 — like many interviewed for this article, he did not want his last name to be used — peers out of a high-rise apartment...

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