At Ground Zero

When the darkness falls in Baghdad, you sit there looking out at the starry desert sky and you wonder, When will the gently twinkling lights be snuffed out by a sudden explosion of fire? When will the neon lines of tracers redraw the contours of the landscape in unthinkable ways? Will the trees and houses and mosques and suspect sites spreading peacefully toward the horizon be nothing but dust and rubble tomorrow? Will people die?

But when the sun comes up again, you wonder if the night was all a bad dream. Iraqis go about their business of struggling to survive. The cityscape looks the same, shabby but nothing worse. People talk about how little they slept, but they show no other outward signs of stress. This is a curiously surreal war that starts on schedule after dark and stops before dawn, its most intense drama and damage so far taking place mostly out of sight.

Iraqis have learned to be surprised by none of the disasters that two wars, a dictatorial regime and an American enemy have dealt them for two decades. They accept almost everything, not given to frantic preparation in the face of another frightening challenge. Yet they were startled by the suddenness of this latest trial. A few days ago, Baghdadis were worrying about which four hours of the day they would go without electricity.

For four nights now they have had something horrific to fear. But the lights still blazed in the city each night in typical Iraqi bravado. Shops show off wares that only black marketeers can afford to buy, and in the night-vision goggles of American pilots, they signal Iraq's defiance. Streetlamps cast a reassuring sulfur glow, though only a modest number of cars race the highway behind al-Rasheed Hotel downtown. It is not that Iraqis are afraid or battened down in their bomb shelters. There is little to keep them out after dark, even on a peaceful night before the holy month of Ramadan. Baghdad is worn down by an eight-year-old embargo. Iraqis hurry home at nightfall to count the nearly worthless dinars they have managed to earn this day, to plot and scheme how they will bring in a few more in a life of meager survival. What happens will happen. They have known neither peace nor prosperity for more than 18 years. Who are they to disagree when Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz comes on the TV news to say it matters little whether Iraqis die from crushing U.N. sanctions or deadly American bombs?

But only fools are not afraid when the warning siren sounds. Families huddle in houses, unable to close their eyes as they await the concussive smack of a bomb. Unlike Operation Desert Storm, when the country was pounded mercilessly for 38 days, Operation Desert Fox has come in tense fits and starts through the long nights.