In the middle

I've finally seen Baghdad's middle class, or at least what looks halfway between poverty and palace to me. I've spent a few days touring the Mansour district of Baghdad, a collection of neighborhoods just west of the Tigris. Some homes were surrounded by garbage dumps that doubled as horse paddocks. Some houses were mammouth, with driveways, nice cars and blooming flowers.

And some houses, finally, just looked like they were built for one family, one right after the other. They were a little shabby, more Rosanne than Cosby, certainly, but then Rosanne is our middle, whether anyone on either side of that line wants to admit it or not. These Baghdad neighborhoods had yards, running water, furniture in their homes, run-down Chevys and Kias in their driveways, and satelite dishes on their roofs. Some had old appliances in their yards. One washing machine we peered into had half an unexploded mortar in it, thanks to an insurgent attack on U.S. soldiers a few weeks earlier. The officer I was with keeps reporting it so that a special team of soldiers will come get it. It's been there for more than a month. He told the kids in the house to keep away from it. They nodded that they would.

Perhaps it's little surprise the people in these neighborhoods weren't as friendly to the U.S. soldiers. Some waved, but most didn't, as we patrolled the neighborhoods. In some ways, they were too busy living: going to the bank, the market, the dry cleaner, wherever. Yes, I saw a dry cleaners and much more. Two main commercial strips cut through the district, and they are filled with shops, restaurants and businesses. Wedding dress shops selling sleeveless dresses, clothes shops with short skirts and short sleeves for women, travel agencies next to money exchange stores, jewelry stores with hundreds of gold bracelets and necklaces for sale. The kitchen store sold thermal-carafe coffee makers. Nurseries stretched on for acres, and florists stocked live, not silk, flowers. The furniture stores sold elaborate couches and chairs. The ice cream store looked tempting.

It must run on a miracle, or a generator the size of a blimp. All these businesses were open on Sunday, most running without electricity. The same cycle of brownouts that affects the homes in Baghdad affects the businesses, so that even a grocery store I was in was selling yogurt and cheese out of a refrigerated case that had not had refrigeration in a few hours. A few of the richer merchants set their generators out on the sidewalk and run the cord inside. Most, though, just wait for the few hours when the power comes back on.

Not everyone was happy to see us. The grocer asked the soldiers not to come back. They had been there three times in three weeks and he was growing fearful of an attack. The florist shop we walked by locked its doors to the soldiers.

In the same area of the city, I went to two council meetings, a neighborhood-level, and a district-level. The first had six members, and we met in a recreation center that looked as if someone had used grenades during a game of dodge ball. The electricity was off, and it was in a closed room with one door. I can honestly say I've never sweated so much as I did during that 90 minutes. Sweat just poured from all our heads, and we all just kept wiping it away. The councilors were complaining to the American and Iraqi officers about killings in the neighborhood. The officers asked for any clues about how the muders happpened. No one said anything. That conversation, that kept going round and round, lasted 45 minutes.

The U.S. officer there was trying to get the board to prioritize its problems (leaking sewage on one street, an illegal trash dump on another) with absolutely no success. The Iraqis were trying to get the American to do something about the Iraqi police, who they say are corrupt. The officer said it was out of his hands. That lasted another 30 minutes or so. Finally, the officer asked the members if they could invite some local imans to the next meeting to try and build some trust on all sides. The group nodded, and one councilor said he'd try.

These councils were formed during the coalition provisional authority, the U.S.-run government that made decisions before last January's election. As Iraq continues to form its new government, under a U.S.- suggested timeline, it's unclear whether these small councils will continue to exist. They have no budget, and they have no power to make anything happen. Their role, as far as I can tell, is to help the Americans know what is wrong in each neighborhood, whether it be insurgents, leaking water pipes or crumbling schools. The soldiers also hope, as with any mission, to make a few friends and build a little trust. It's hard to see whether that's happening. At the neighborhood meeting I went to, a 31-year-old lieutenant who at home is a CPA is trying to tell Iraqi men in their 40s and 50s how to make their neighborhoods better. It didn't look convincing to me either.

At the larger district meeting on Wednesday, the crowd of 20 councilors was more forceful and more realistic in their complaints, but they were just as powerless. The head of the traffic cops came to complain that his men have to stand in the sun all day. Couldn't they have umbrellas? An Iraqi police general came and listened to complaints about how corrupt his officers are. When they arrest someone, shouldn't they have a warrant? The Iraqis all talked. The American officers sat on the sidelines and, with the help of their interpreters, took notes. If anyone gets any umbrellas, trash clean-up, improved sewage system or anything else, it will be because of those officers. They are the ones with the budget.

Then came the drama that I was there to cover. An Iraqi woman had been killed in the crossfire a few months earlier, and the Army was there to pay the family $4,000 in consolation payments. The military has limits on how much you can pay in these circumstances. Generally, I think, it's $2,500 for a child, up to $2,500 for an adult, and up to $500 for property damage. In this case, a special arrangement was made to pay $2,500 for the woman and $1,500 for the family's car, which the insurgents had used as shelter during the shooting.

None of the Americans, however, knew that the woman's fifth-grade girl would be there to take the money and to try to tell off the Americans. She got about two minutes into her speech before she broke down. It was so awful, I couldn't take pictures of it. The district council chairman held her, and her father took over. He refused the money, said Americans spend more on show dogs and probably said a lot more things that the translator left out. The soldier trying to give the money, a 44-year-old paralegal who has a grown daughter of her own, convinced him to take the money for the little girl. He signed the paper, and then in the most horrible momemt, the paralegal counted out the sum in $100 bills. The sound of those crisp dollars being counted is the worse thing I've heard here, by far.

This little girl and her father, though, also struck me as being far from improvished or rich. The man wore trousers with a belt and leather shoes. The girl wore a clean yellow T-shirt with rhinestones hanging off it, blue jeans and sandals. They could walk into Northpark, or the Carousel, or any mall in America and look right at home. At least, that's how I saw them and that's how most of the U.S. soldiers might see them. And because they look so familiar, I think many soldiers and officers here -- who are working under orders to make this Democracy work -- are confused and even hurt when the Iraqis don't always go along.

Certainly many Iraqi people support the elections, the new government, the new military. But I wonder who doesn't, besides the guys who are too busy killing anyone to stop and articulate what exactly they want. It strikes me that this girl and her father, and their lost mother and wife, might represent those people caught in the middle, those who might not want either American values or terriorist militants. They just want their life to be better. I wonder if that will happen.