Dream or nightmare?

Stories of Saddam's repressive rule are almost as numerous as Iraqi refugees. But even after coalition forces liberated the country, the refugees' memories are so vivid and painful, few have enough confidence to return | Bob Jones

In the shaky, shadowy world of Iraqi refugees, everyone has a story—even if it's sometimes almost too painful to tell. A petite, vivacious woman has only recently begun telling hers, some 20 years after it happened. She'll tell it to the press and to the UN workers evaluating her applications for asylum, but she can't bring herself to tell her husband, even after all this time. "Something inside him will broken," she explains in halting but determined English, asking that her name not be used.

The woman was 18 years old, a young bride walking down a Baghdad street, when a police car approached her. The two uniformed officers said her husband had been brought into the station and that he wanted to see her. She had seen these men before: They'd tried to enter her house while her husband was away at work, but she had barred the door, fearful of the Iraqi police force's reputation for violence. On this day, however, news of her husband's arrest overwhelmed her own fears. "I forget about everything," she recalls. "I just wanted to see my husband."