'Dark, but free'

Iraq's infrastructure remains shattered and residents of Baghdad face daily hardships that would be unimaginable to the average American. But Iraqis say they can bear the present because of their hopes for the future | Bob Jones

FOR ARAM IZAT, APRIL 9 WAS both the worst and the best night of his life. Baghdad was falling. U.S. tanks rumbled through the streets, shots and explosions split the air, and the city's skyline burned. He should have been hiding inside, like everyone else in the city, but his wife had other ideas. After nine months of pregnancy, she decided April 9 would be a good night to deliver their first son. That's how Mr. Izat ended up careening through the streets of Baghdad, waving a white sheet out the window so he wouldn't be mistaken for a Fedayeen suicide bomber.

Living near the airport, the 24-year-old hotel clerk had already experienced some of the most intense fighting of the war. He personally lost 10 friends, all civilians whose homes were destroyed in the fierce fight for Saddam International. He lived in constant fear of the errant bomb that could crash through his roof at any minute, killing his wife and unborn son. But nothing, he says, could compare with the sheer terror of running the American gantlet on the way to the hospital that night. Only the moans of his wife coming from the back seat kept him going.