After an Iraq Bombing, a Quick Return to NormalBy TIM ARANGO

[Stillw8n]

BAGHDAD — On Wednesday morning, a suicide car bomber struck a police station tucked between a row of upper-middle-class homes and a city block packed with storefronts offering the necessities of urban life: a bakery, barbershop, falafel place.

The only thing extraordinary about the attack, which killed eight police officers, including one female officer, was how ordinary it was.

Over eight years, Iraqis have become efficient and precise in cleaning up and resuming life after bursts of violence that in other cities in other parts of the world would elicit outpourings of emotion and a halt to normal routines. These scenes are now habitual, evidence of a still capable insurgency — lethal, yes, but with only limited ability to disrupt politics and the lives of survivors.

“What can Iraqis do?” said Emad Kareem, who reopened his bakery hours after the attack, shattered windows and all, after bringing one of his workers to the hospital for an eye injury. He quickly fixed the damaged ceiling tiles and estimated the destruction would cost him between $2,000 and $3,000. “This is the life we have to live every day.”

The blast, which along with several others around the city amounted to the deadliest violence in the capital in nearly two months, occurred around 9:30 a.m., and Hussein Abbas, who runs a local business selling windowpanes, said he received the first call for repairs at about 11 a.m.

On Thursday morning, he and his workers were busily unloading glass panels to replace the windows of a shop stocked with stationary, books and mobile phones, located just next to the falafel shop, where the slain policemen usually took their lunch of rice and okra.

“It is a normal situation,” said Shakir Abbas, the owner of the falafel place — unnamed, he said, because he has not received an official business registration from the government. Mr. Abbas, speaking as matter-of-factly as he did when reciting his menu items (salad, falafel, rice, chai), ticked off the names of the slain police officers he knew — Majid, Ahmed, Samari.

“People are depending on their god,” said Mr. Abbas, who spent the hours after the blast sweeping glass and discarding food. He waited until the next morning to reopen, “out of respect for the martyrs.”

Around the corner, the barbershop was open, but three men sat idle, drinking tea and smoking. Pristine new mirrors were affixed to the wall, but no one had come in for a haircut.

Down the street, past a man sweeping up glass and the incinerated husk of a yellow Saba, a cheap Iranian car that provides the bulk of Baghdad’s taxi fleet, a crane operator fixed a broken streetlamp just outside the main gate of the targeted police station.

“After two hours, life was back to normal,” said one policeman who didn’t want his name used because he did not have permission to speak to a reporter. Another man outside wore a black, Harley Davidson t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Operation New Dawn.” He said he bought it at a local market, and had no idea the phrase was the latest moniker for the departing American military’s mission here. “Really, I am astonished,” he said, laughing. “I will burn it!”

Another man, a local neighborhood leader who refused to have his name in print because he already had survived two assassination attempts — he unbuttoned his shirt to show the bullet scars, revealing a Browning pistol tucked in his waistband — said, “you can see work is going on, and it’s normal.” He said that he can’t imagine a time when his country will be free of terrorist attacks, with or without the Americans here.

“Iraq will continue to deal with this,” he said, standing near a gated driveway, where a man appeared and invited a reporter in to his home.

Rafid Qeryaqos, a Christian jewelry salesman, apologized for not offering his guest a Pepsi or even a bottle of water. He lost his dog, Katie, in the attack, and as he stood in his foyer, amid piles of debris and a floor covered in bits of glass, he pointed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary, which withstood the blast.

“This saved my life,” he said.

Back at the shops, the owners obligingly grumbled about the deficiencies of the security forces and their suspicions that neighboring countries were supporting terrorism here. But mostly they wanted to sell their bread and their tea and cut hair.

Zaid Thaker contributed reporting.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world ... middleeast