Their apartment is on the top of a five-story building, and they raise chickens on the roof. Before the war, they stocked up on enough supplies to survive for six weeks, and they now fear that time is running out for them.

The mother of the household, Sara, said that they initially looked forward to the removal of the Saddam regime, “because we were promised that there would be a better future after Saddam was gone.”

The husband, who was a university professor and received a monthly allowance from the government, told Arab News that in the two months leading up to the war all the benefits stopped. They sat tight, hoping that the Americans, when they arrived and established order, would ensure that the allowance resumed.

Of course, that has not happened.

“The stores are almost empty,” the mother told Arab News. “The only stuff left is past its sell-by date, and even the prices for these items have gone sky high. This is not what we expected.”

“It’s nice to have this new liberation, this new freedom that everyone’s talking about, but life has got worse for us, not better,” she added.

“We would prefer to live under Saddam Hussein the way things were.”

The children, who were all born during the 12 years of crippling UN sanctions, became hysterical when this reporter entered their house because they are terrified of Americans following the intense bombing and all the bodies they saw in the streets.

“They’ve developed a psychological complex about the word ‘American’ or anyone who looks American,” the mother later explained.

Their education had been severely limited under sanctions. Often they would go to school only to find it closed, or even if it were open the teacher frequently failed to turn up. None of them were literate.