Beneath the yellow sky of a gathering dust storm, Iraqis hunkered down for a long and unpredictable siege on Wednesday, gripped by only one certainty: come what may they will not set foot in the city's bomb shelters.
Amid an atmosphere of apprehension, Baghdad's 34 bomb shelters were oases of calm, with piles of rubbish and debris accumulating at their gates. A few had caretakers in residence, but there was no sign of Iraqis seeking shelter, or panic. The structures are impressive, 2m-thick walls of concrete and steel rising out of the ground, equipped with ventilation and air conditioning systems, three-tier bunk beds, generators, showers and food for 1,200.
They were ordered from Finland during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, with thick steel doors built to withstand conventional bombs, chemical warfare and radiation fallout from a nuclear attack.
Iraqis see them as death traps. "Why would we ever go there?" asked Lena, who lives about 300m away from a shelter. "Do you want us to suffocate and burn?"
Faith in the city's civil defenses vanished in a single night during the 1991 Gulf war when a laser-guided bomb drilled through the thick concrete roof of the Amariya shelter in western Baghdad, incinerating more than 400 Iraqis sheltering there. Only 14 survived.
The shelter has been turned into a shrine to the dead -- refurbished during the past few weeks as Iraq stood on the brink of another US bombardment -- with a guide drawing attention to the dark blotches on the concrete floor marking the spot where people were killed.
"These are from 12 years ago, but the blood has stayed fresh until now because they are martyrs," said Intesar al-Samarie.
So have the memories. While the wealthy are splashing out on portable sealed chambers -- as advertised relentlessly on Iraqi state television -- the poor are unlikely to overcome their dread of shelters, despite the offer of food, electricity and water. "Nobody is going to go to the shelters," Samarie said. "There is just no way. Many people believe that Bush will do it again."
With US President George W. Bush's ultimatum entering its final hours last night, people engaged in a last-minute scramble for essentials.
Schools and colleges closed. Roads were clear, and shops drew down their shutters. A few did not open at all, emptied in the night by nervous merchants.
The remaining peace activists in Baghdad distributed leaflets for a final demonstration. Iraqi government ministers discarded their sharp suits for olive green uniforms.
Small clusters of soldiers gathered at main crossings, and at the small sandbag gun placements throughout Baghdad that appear to have been set up more to enforce the curfew than to defend the city.
"Anybody who has a job of defense, they can do it. But other people have to stay in their houses," said Khalil Shia Ibrahim, a Baath party veteran given charge of 1,000 households in the Habibiya neighborhood of nearly 8,000 people. "By now, most people should have food for three or six months, so there is no need for them to come out at all."
As Ibrahim went down his mental checklist of preparations as he assumes responsibility for a neighborhood at war, he did not even bother to consider advising his charges to move to the shelters.
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