Iraq Then and Now: What's Been Won and Lost

When I first came to Baghdad, Saddam Hussein was still in charge, and Iraqis lived in the sort of fear I had read about in old spy novels set in the Soviet Union. The dictator's network of spies and informants was reputed to reach into every neighborhood, every home, every family; so Iraqis — whether top government officials or the man in the street — were afraid to speak their mind to a journalist. It didn't help that I was always accompanied by a state-appointed minder, whose job was to ensure that nobody told me anything that might reflect poorly on the great leader. Whatever I asked, whoever I asked it of, the answers would be carefully calibrated to become an homage to Saddam. Even a simple inquiry about the price of eggs would be met by something like: "Well, thanks to our beloved President, eggs are ..."

Driving through Baghdad one afternoon before hostilities started, I pointed to an imposing-looking building and asked my driver what it was. To my surprise, he grew wide-eyed in terror, hit the gas and simultaneously reached across and grabbed my hand, yanking it away from the window. "Don't point at that building, don't even look at it," he said, his voice cracking in fear. "I will explain later." After we had driven out of that neighborhood, he told me the building was the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the dreaded internal spying agency, and my driver feared that even looking at it too closely might bring us — or him, anyway — no end of trouble.

After the war, whenever we passed the old Mukhabarat HQ, my driver and I got a childish thrill by pointing to it, for no good reason. It is only the smallest of many, many freedoms that Iraqis gained after the U.S.-led coalition toppled the dictator. They also got the right to vote, satellite TV, cellphones, the ability to travel out of Iraq, and a new education system that doesn't brainwash children into worshiping Saddam.

But Iraqis still live in fear. The pervasive violence that has wracked Baghdad since the summer of 2003 has killed or injured tens of thousands, and has made random, unpredictable death a fact of Iraqi life. I've lost count of the number of times Iraqis have told me, with biting sarcasm, that it's a little hard to appreciate the benefits of the new education system when schools and schoolbuses are regularly being bombed. They point out, too, that democracy has brought to power leaders who are sectarian partisans or kleptocrats, often both. Other new freedoms are appreciated, but not in the way you might expect. Satellite TV is nice to have when violence keeps you locked indoors for long stretches of time. When you do go out, a cellphone allows you to keep calling your family every hour, to reassure them that you are still alive. As for the freedom to travel, more than 2 million Iraqis have fled their country.

In many material ways, things are a lot worse than they used to be. Many Iraqis now get less state-supplied electricity and water than they did under Saddam. Those who can afford it use private gas-powered generators, but the price of gas has grown manifold. Inflation is rampant: prices rose 70% last year. And quite apart from the sectarian violence, crime rates have soared.

Will things get better? Experience has taught Iraqis not to be optimistic. In recent weeks, some things have got better — but it is hard to know if they will last. The massive, U.S.-led security operation in Baghdad has brought some relief. The daily death toll, which had risen to 100 last fall, has dropped. Sunni terrorists continue to kill innocent civilians with car bombs and suicide attacks, but at least the Shi'ite militias have melted away. U.S. military commanders see this as a victory, but few Iraqis are so sanguine. They know that the American soldiers will leave, and worry that the militias are simply waiting them out, regrouping and rearming in the shadows.

They worry, too, that their political leadership remains deeply venal and inept. Corruption has become so endemic, the families of those killed in sectarian violence are sometimes forced to bribe officials at the Baghdad morgue to release the body quickly. An Iraqi may point to a government building now, but it is usually with a finger of accusation.