The Iraqis are Ready to Purchase Their Freedom

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) In a country wracked by violence, a tiny bookstore in a dusty mall offers a quiet corner where customers can escape the misery and the owners can dare to sound hopeful.

Here students too poor to finance their studies can borrow books for a week at 20 cents each, and the two men who own the Iqra'a bookstore can indulge their conviction that their business is also a mission.

Such positive attitudes set Mohammed Hanash Abbas and Attallah Zeidan apart in a country where the prevailing mood has been shaped by three wars since 1980, almost 13 years of crushing sanctions, the humiliation of foreign occupation and the brutality of the insurgency.

''I don't just see light at the end of the tunnel, I see light at the start and throughout the tunnel,'' says Abbas, 41, in a typically upbeat remark. His partner Zeidan, 39, agrees.

''We must live like other people,'' Zeidan says. ''Let a million of us die. That's the price of freedom. Have you heard of any society that gained freedom without sacrifices?''

On a recent afternoon, they mused about the Jan. 30 election, the Sunni-led insurgency and the large U.S. and foreign military presence in Iraq. Personal matters came up too how business has gotten steadily better since Saddam Hussein was ousted in April 2003, their plans to expand the store, why Abbas isn't married yet.

While their openly upbeat attitude is unusual, their views are not uncommon among the many Iraqis who have neither taken up arms against the Americans nor actively cooperated with them.