Out Of The Wreckage

YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME

SIGNS OF LIFE: Despite the ruined buildings and red-hot confrontations on the streets of Baghdad, Iraqis are emerging from the shadows and starting over

Oh, the hours Saabreen Kheithem spent memorizing Saddam Hussein's speeches. An aspiring journalist in Baghdad's working-class Al-Aylaan district, Kheithem, 20, could recite many of Saddam's landmark orations word for word. It didn't take much prompting from her mother, Muntaha, for Kheithem to launch into a singsong rendition of his classic 1991 "mother of all battles" harangue. Before the war, she believed this talent would help her land her dream job as a reporter at the official Al-Iraq newspaper. After all, she said, "the job of any Iraqi journalist is to convey the thoughts and wishes of the President to his...

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