In America, no taste for war by Pete Hamill, New York Daily News 02-15-2003 Over the past three weeks, I've visited a number of U.S. cities: Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Denver, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Calif. I've talked to many of my fellow Americans. And there was one astonishing common thread: Not a single person wanted war with Iraq. Not one. This was, of course, a completely unscientific survey. The polls show that at least 60% of Americans support a possible war against the wretched regime of Saddam Hussein. But as I talked to news dealers, taxi drivers, people at restaurants, people at bookstores, I just couldn't find anyone who wanted to dislodge Saddam with a ferocious war. "What did he ever do to us?" came up, over and over again. Virtually everyone supported the campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not one believed the Bush administration's feeble attempts to link Al Qaeda to Saddam. "We've got more reason to go to war against Saudi Arabia," one book dealer said. "That's where the Sept. 11 terrorists came from." All had theories about the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq. All mentioned oil. Some (in California, of course) had theories about the secret machinations of the Papa Bush-connected Carlyle Group, which will reap huge profits (they insist) after the war ends with an American triumph. Sons of the father Some offered Freudian explanations of an unconscious contest between Bush the Younger and Bush the Elder, who failed to "get" Saddam in the Persian Gulf War. A few mentioned the workings of the "Jewish lobby" (with barely disguised anti-Semitism). Many pointed out that most of the war hawks had ducked military service during the Vietnam era, when they were of draft age. "They never went to war," one Vietnam War veteran said in Los Angeles. "They think a war is some kind of Super Bowl. They don't know. They don't know." Many — particularly women — opposed a war with Iraq because it almost certainly will trigger more terrorism in the United States and could collapse the wobbly economy. "My son is 8," said a woman in Berkeley. "He takes the bus to school every morning. I don't want him to die for the ideas of George Bush." Women feared domestic terrorism more than men. In several conversations, they imagined gas mains being exploded, bridges collapsed, schools destroyed (here in New York, such fears are focused on the vulnerability of our subways). They didn't mention the shifts in the "threat levels." They live every day now with some level of threat, and it must have escalated with the message from Osama Bin Laden a few days ago, which did not support Saddam, but declared that a war against Iraq would be a war against Islam. "What happens if this does collapse the economy?" one woman said. "What if my husband is thrown out of work? Who pays the mortgage? Who pays for food and tuition? George Bush? I doubt it." Frittered away good will These practical questions — based on overlapping fears — got more specific at the airport in Denver. I was talking to a woman who worked for United Airlines, which is already in bankruptcy, and struggling to survive. "If there's a war," she said with a forlorn shrug, "we're doomed." Some of the people I met have given up any hope that the war can be averted. "We don't have any say in it," an old lithographer said to me in Denver. "Stop kidding yourself. There's nothing any of us can say to head it off. Forget it, man." He and others noted that much of the world is now against the U.S. for its planned war against Iraq. The enormous sympathy sparked by Sept. 11 has vanished. People all over the world now despise the Bush tough-guy stance in foreign affairs, and its cowboy vulgarity. (A recent British poll listed Bush as a greater threat to world peace than Saddam or Bin Laden). All had other ideas about how to deal with Iraq without killing thousands of human beings and then enduring an occupation that could last decades. "Keep talking," one said, expressing sentiments I heard from many others. "Talking is better than shooting. Respect the UN and NATO. Stop the bullying talk. Bring in more inspectors, another 5,000 if you need them. ... Keep Saddam in quarantine, but don't start killing civilians." Much of this talk was loaded with emotion, of course, and not always filled with logic. That's probably because of the absence of logic in the whole discussion of a new Iraqi war, and the lack of information about its aftermath. Who will police a conquered Iraq? How many troops will be required? How long will they stay? Above all, who will control the oil? These questions have been on the table for months. The answers are a great vagueness. One person I spoke to said that — at the very least — Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair must pledge that their countries will not earn a cent from the post-war Iraqi oil industry. Others raised wider questions. How can an essentially Christian occupation force expect to exist tranquilly—and for decades — in a Muslim sea? How will the planet's one billion Muslims react to the inevitable killing of Iraqi civilians? Will the end of Saddam be the beginning of something infinitely more ghastly? A few Americans on my journey expressed the wan hope that Saddam would resign and go off somewhere, the way old-time Latin American despots used to go. There must be people on the White House staff with the same hopes, and that could explain the endless tough-guy speeches as a form of bluff poker. Others remarked on Saddam's age — he's 65 — and hoped for a sudden case of cardiac arrest. Others imagined a dozen men with guns entering his office and pulling off an Iraqi primary. But most felt without hope. The war was coming, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Soon they would see the dead on television. Soon they might see the dead on the next block. Here came the horror. And they all spoke as if they were living through the last days of peace.