STREET CRIME.(The Talk of the Town)(Iraq)(Column)

The blast from the bomb that blew up the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad in mid-March knocked me out of my chair and sent my coffee flying out of its cup. A few seconds later, there was a burst from what sounded like a Kalashnikov. Gunfire has become routine in Baghdad, and there are explosions almost every day, but this was the biggest blast I had heard since Saddam's palaces and municipal buildings were being attacked by the United States, exactly a year ago. I am staying in the same hotel, the Palestine, I stayed in then, with its views of the Tigris and, on the other side of the river, the big Presidential complex, which is now occupied by the Coalition Provisional Authority, in what is called the Green Zone. (Everything outside its reinforced walls--in other words, the rest of Iraq--is referred to as the Red Zone.) A great gray plume of smoke was billowing into the night sky, and I went up to the roof to get a better view. Several other hotel guests were already there: Iraqis, Koreans, Italians, Spaniards, a number of Americans, a couple of South Africans. During the past year, hundreds of foreigners--journalists, entrepreneurs, the paramilitary representatives of private security firms--have made their way to Iraq. One entire floor of the Palestine is occupied by employees of Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary. When the elevator stops on their floor and the doors open, Nepalese Gurkha guards with snub-nosed submachine guns are standing in the hallway to check out who's getting off.

Baghdad is a much more dangerous place than it was a year ago. A few days before the Mount Lebanon explosion, someone set off a bomb in front of a perfume shop in the same neighborhood--Al-Karrada, a predominantly Shiite section of the city. The target of the attack, who died, was the brotherin-law of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. Jaafari's brother-in-law was not involved in politics, but he was presumably easier to get to than Jaafari, and killing him may have been worth it just to get a message across.

The fall of Saddam has improved the lives of many Iraqis, especially professionals such as doctors, engineers, and teachers, whose salaries have significantly increased. And the streets are clogged with traffic, which wasn't true before the war. A great many Iraqis took advantage of the temporary suspension of import duties at the border with Jordan and bought cheap secondhand cars. The Internet, which was strictly controlled under Saddam, is available everywhere, as are a wide variety of computers, domestic appliances, and cell phones. These life-style improvements notwithstanding, very few people venture out on the streets after dark, and almost no one I know dares drive after ten-thirty. This is ...