Iraqis await the inevitable.

Chauffeurs carrying journalists around Baghdad (Iraq) are keen to show their love for their leader, so the radio wails eulogies to Saddam Hussein. In private, however, Iraqis are more likely to tune in to broadcasts from abroad, such as the French Arabic service, Monte Carlo, the American government's Radio Sawa and, increasingly, the Voice of Iran. Iraqis are divided as to whether the Americans are coming as liberators or oil-raiders. The Iraqis who struggled to rebuild Baghdad's bridges, museums and shrines after the last Gulf war are not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of seeing them knocked down again. Iraqis hear that America will bestow democracy, as it did in Japan and Germany after the second world war.