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"People are talking much more freely, which is astonishing," says a West European who has lived here for several years. "There has been a huge change in the past 10 days. A lot of people are saying they are ashamed of what their country is doing. You actually hear people talking about the possibility of a change in government."
A shift in the mood seems to have begun several weeks ago, when Baghdad announced a treaty agreement with Iran and gave back to its mortal enemy the few spoils of its war in hopes that Tehran would join the struggle against the U.S. "The people do not understand how Saddam could do that," says a Baghdad shopkeeper.
"Nobody likes Saddam, because we now fight all the world," claims a young man who served five years at the Iranian front. "Nobody in the world likes us anymore. All the Iraqi people feel this way," he asserts, which is clearly not the case. "If the whole world is your enemy, what kind of politics is ( that? We just finished the war. The main interest for the Iraqi people is food. And now we lack almost everything."
"In the past two weeks many people have really begun to worry, especially after all these fiery statements by Saddam," says a man in his 50s, an intellectual who has lived here all his life. "Some people have started going north to the resorts." Most, however, are working class or poor, and cannot afford resorts. "They have been led to think that fighting the Americans will be like fighting the Iranians. The leadership knows how bad it will be -- but not people in the street. Still, they are saying, 'Haven't we had enough war? Do we need another war, and why?' They don't care about Kuwait. The big mistake journalists make is to think Saddam enjoys the support of the people. We call him 'Big Charlie.' He is not popular, among ordinary people especially. There is a ferocious silent majority in the country -- silent and silenced."
Many people here, living on what could be ground zero if America's awesome military machine is unleashed, go about their business with surprising cheerfulness and equanimity. In what might be a scene from a 19th century Ottoman tapestry, two dozen men play dominoes and gamble at backgammon in a stately hall on the banks of the Tigris. At 1 a.m., on the other side of the river, some 30 young men watch Indian movies on TV in a yard behind the city's open-air fish restaurants. In the noonday sun, Irish and Dutch hostages play water polo in the hotel pool. Relatively few soldiers patrol the streets. A couple of hundred at most man defense and ministerial facilities, bridges and the outer gates of the presidential palace. In the past two weeks Saddam has not made a public appearance, but he pops up often on TV, greeting the latest Arab dignitary or Palestine Liberation Organization official who has come to Baghdad to express solidarity.