We are breathing better. Iraq's deputy oil minister even bragged about how sanctions have been good for the oil industry in certain ways, having forced Iraqis to develop a domestic capability rather than rely on foreign oil firms. Because Iraq has become so isolated, most of these are invisible to Americans. While food is more plentiful these days, child mortality remains dangerously high. Many people have sold their household belongings just to get by.
Life is toughest on the young, who are often obliged to drop out of school to help their families.
A desperately poor enclave of 2 million, this was the only place our minders grew visibly nervous the longer we stayed. Journalists, they told us, have been pelted with rotten fruit in the past. But we wondered whether our minders' true concern was that we might find in Saddam City the roots of real anti-government sentiment. For now, the peoples' anger is directed at Washington. But current U.S. policy risks producing an entire generation of Iraqis who hate not just the government but the American people.