A witness to war.

• Author: Kelly, Kathy

I've been in Baghdad with my colleagues from Voices in the Wilderness since October 24. We are members of what we call the Iraq Peace Team, and we are intent on staying here even if George Bush dispatches the bombers and the tanks and the troops. A few days ago, I traveled from Baghdad to Amman to meet three new members of our team. Our kind driver, Sattar, knew the road so well that he could warn me when we were approaching a bump. "Kathy, don't spill your coffee," he said.

During the drive, I told Sattar about the various news reports we'd heard following the U.N. decision to approve Resolution 1441 and the drastic disarmament terms set out by the U.N. Security Council. I was surprised that he knew so little about such an important development. He told me that he and most people he knows aren't following the news very closely. They feel responsible to maintain a semblance of ordinary life, to keep busy, so that they won't succumb to panic and the overwhelming frustrations caused by evolving news reports. "Kathy, really," he suddenly blurted, "I am so scared."

While in Amman, I watched incredulously as CNN aired a U.S. military tape showing a three-dimensional simulation of urban areas in Baghdad. Suddenly, I was seeing an accurate rendering of Abu Nuwas Street, and then the Al Fanar hotel, our home in Baghdad. The tape precisely depicts our immediate neighborhood, detailing the main intersection, walkways, buildings, and alleys. It didn't show any people. Military planners can prepare for war with precision, confidence, and an eerie certainty about "the neighborhood." But residents endure agonizing uncertainty with not a single realistic plan for survival should an attack occur.

Back in Baghdad, Lamia, an English professor at Baghdad University, didn't want to talk about impending war. She seemed relieved when I quickly changed the subject to shop talk about teaching English as a second language. We compared notes about methods, assignments that work well, predictable problems in course work. I could have been talking with any co-worker at the community college where I last taught E.S.L. courses--except that Lamia's classes may be suspended before the semester ends, disrupted by war.

Amal, on the other hand, doesn't hesitate to tell me what she has heard through the grapevine about U.S. war plans against Iraq. Amal has also been an English teacher at a secondary school, but she couldn't support her family on the meager salary. Now she...