Fear Drives Baghdad's Housing Bust Under Threat and Desperate to Flee, Some Families Sell at Any Price

By Megan Greenwell Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 21, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD -- Esad Ismael broke the most important promise he ever made.

As his father lay on his deathbed two years ago, Ismael, 43, vowed never to sell his family's home. His father and grandfather had spent all their savings to build the sprawling two-story house in Baghdad's wealthy Mansour district 70 years ago. Family memories were tucked between every tile on the floor.

But Ismael, a Sunni clothing merchant, was living in an area that was falling under the control of the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia. Mindful of his promise to his dying father, he refused to move even after he began finding death threats pasted to his front door. After his brother was murdered, he gave up.

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Along with failing to 'greet us as liberators,' the Iraqis somehow stumbled on their way to a real-estate boom. Some people just don't know an up market when they see one.

Hard to know just what will be left in the wake of our war, other than shot-up taxi cabs and wrecked housing.

* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Iraq War, check out Opinion-Columns.com