MIXED FEELINGS AMERICANS BOTH SAVING, RUINING IRAQ.

Byline: Joseph Honig

THE voice on the phone could have been coming from around the corner. Strong. Clear. No echoes or static.

It came, however, from Baghdad.

It came on a day several more Americans lost their lives in a nation they hoped to rescue.

It came from my friend Anna, a 37-year-old Iraqi schoolteacher who wondered when - if ever - she could leave home at night.

``There are still too many guns here,'' she said. ``The teenagers have them. The old men have them. They will never seize all the guns in Iraq.''

This from a woman who knows - as do I - that Arab capitals traditionally are the safest big cities in the world, a state of affairs mostly unrelated to the dictatorships that govern them. Four years ago, I strolled through Baghdad in the dead of night, unconcerned about street crime or robbery. The notion that a family member might turn felon is such an enduring shame that urban assaults are one-in-a-million.

Until today.

The problems now - besides Saddam Hussein's faithful and assorted terrorists - stem from frustration, unemployment and sometimes Americans, my friend Anna recounted.

``We are,'' she said, ``mostly happy that they are here and that Saddam is, well, wherever he is. We are happy his family is gone, and his sons are dead, and you can say what is in your heart.

``But, at the same time, we feel occupied. The people who came to save us cause many Iraqis great shame and resentment. No one - except for Baath Party people - is sorry to see the horrible elite go away. There is, though, a great wound we feel when we see the U.S. running things.

``Even some anti-Saddam people here just wish the Americans would go home.''

Anna explained that months after our rout of a war, very little works in her city, in her neighborhood. She spoke to me on a satellite phone provided by a Jordanian profiteer. She said her rations are sometimes less than under the Hussein kleptocracy. She said the roads are owned by thieves. There are few nights without shooting. Police are weak, scattered and without cars.

Worse, she added, Americans now work in Saddam's palaces, buildings fortified by rings of guards. The impression, my friend related, is that the new governors are indeed isolated from - and somewhat fearful of - the men and women they've come to liberate.

``They say they want to bring democracy to Iraq,'' she continued. ``Peace, too. But there has never been an Arab democracy in all of history. Not in Egypt or Jordan or Syria. For thousands of years, Arabs have lived with tyranny. I am afraid - and my family is afraid - that three or five or 10 years of American occupation will not undo centuries of division.

``You will spend your billions and our oil industry will come back,'' she said. ``Our electricity and maybe our roads as well. But bringing real democracy to an Arab country, this country, may be an unattainable goal.''

Listening to Anna, who never got the postwar letters I sent her, I wondered about her divided nation - a cooked-up, carved-out country of religious and ethnic divides - and whether it will emerge as the world's most subsidized killing ground.

Who can say? Who can say if hundreds of years of blood feuds, tribal rivalries and plunder can be undone. Our government says yes. The voice from Baghdad had its doubts.

``The picture right now is so unclear,'' Anna advised me. ``We look at the Iraqis chosen by America to help rebuild, and we see businessmen and intellectuals and even some Baath party members who may not wish us harm but survived with silence about Saddam.

``The Hussein family,'' she added, ``was a shame on Iraq. We were afraid of them and lived with humiliation and dishonor. We need some way to recover our self-respect as citizens of a large and rich country. That is why people I know stare at your soldiers and their trucks and guns and feel as if Iraq no longer belongs to them - and may not for a long time.

``And I am talking about people who welcomed the United States as a savior.

``We look at some of the Americans, some of the soldiers, and see people who regard us with suspicion. In the meantime, there are not enough meals or clothes, and this city is still not safe.

``Not for you and not for us,'' the voice from Baghdad said.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

A U.S. soldier stands guard as two iraqi contractors rebuild a school at Jaafar al-Sakar. U.S. forces have been rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, but many Iraqis harbor mixed feelings over U.S. involvement.

Greg Baker/Associated Press