Behind all the bold statesmen and stateswomen,

behind all the celebrated heroes and winning,

behind all the blazing nightlines,

behind all the reports and reporters,

behind all the so-called reasons for war,

behind all these rhetorics...

lie the realities...

realities as faced,

by those most affected by the war....

though they are almost always,

conveniently forgotten.

Yesterday's strike took out two homes of an extended family of about a dozen. Tuesday's raid destroyed the local school, and on Monday a poor baklava seller, pitied by the entire neighbourhood, lost his wife, mother, sister, nephew, and two sons to American missiles.



The last five days have seen intense, round-the-clock bombardments, forcing locals to flee to makeshift underground shelters, or to relatives elsewhere in the city.



"We are beginning to believe that the Americans want to take revenge on us for what happened before," said Fareed Fathi.



"There are bombings - missiles and airplanes - all day long, and all night," said Walid Hathem, whose home was replaced by a giant crater a few hours before dawn yesterday. "It's continuous."



High above, a vapour trail from a US jet arced across the sky, and the ground shook from a nearby incoming missile.



As each day brings more people out into the streets of central Baghdad, the people on the outskirts of Sueb have spent their nights in tiny burrows in the mud - rudimentary bunkers reinforced with steel drums and scavenged wooden beams.



None of the shelters is large enough to stand in - nor sleep in. "There are 10 or 15 of us there every night," said Suad Abdur Rahman, a cousin and neighbour. "There is no room to lie down, no room to breathe. "We crouch one on top of another, with one child on each knee."



Despite such precautions, in Sueb as in other outlying areas, America's bombardments have brought almost daily casualties.



On March 26, an explosion killed nearly 20 Iraqis on the main road of Shaab, on the northern perimeter of Baghdad. Two days later, more than 50 people were killed when a US missile struck a crowded marketplace in the Shouala neighbourhood, a hurriedly built suburb for working class Shias not unlike Sueb.



On Monday, tragedy struck in Sueb when US missiles killed six members of the family of the lowly baklava seller, Ali Abdul Rasul, and five others living in the same road. Twelve houses were destroyed in the blast, hastily built one storey structures crumpled into the earth.



"The people living in this area are the very poorest people. It really is so cruel that we are being hit," said Taliya Ali Mohammed, whose house, down the road from Mr Rasul's, was strewn with shattered glass.



At 4am yesterday, after the children had cried themselves to sleep, the missiles destroyed two homes, leaving Mr Hathem with few possessions beyond a kerosene cooker and a television set. The entire clan felt the loss. They also witnessed it.



"When the missiles came in, everything shook," said Yas Khudayar, who shared a tunnel space of barely 2 square metres with a wife and five children. "We expected to be dead any minute."



"Just look at what those Americans have done," she said. "We hate them now more than ever. What have we done? Why should our children suffer? Saddam Hussein has not hurt us. He hasn't been a nuisance to us."

-The Realities of War-