IRAQ: Baghdad is a pressure cooker, slowly simmering a massive stew at 50 degrees centigrade. Michael Jansen, who reported from Baghdad before the war, has
Into the mix in the pot have gone Iraqis of all varieties and stations, US soldiers and administrators, aid workers, UN officials, experts in many disciplines, little love and a great deal of aggro. And a mass of heavy and light weaponry.
No one can predict whether the dish which emerges will be tasty and nourishing or bitter and deadly.
The Iraqi capital is much dirtier and hotter than it was in mid-May when last I was here. Electricity is even more irregular and fitful and Iraqis complain that they never know when it will come or go. While a multitude of Iraqi households have little water, broken mains flood the street with both potable water and sewage.
The roar of electricity generators at shops, offices, hotels and households competes with the growl of traffic, swollen by the tens of thousands of second-hand cars which are pouring into the country from Jordan.
The centre of the capital is locked into a total traffic jam at noon every day.
Thousands of soldiers from the disbanded army and thousands of civil servants banned from work in the emerging administration sit at home with no expectation of deployment.
The soldiers collect benefits but not civil servants, teachers and others who belonged to the banned Baath party.
Iraqis feel increasingly insecure. There are 25-30 violent incidents a day.
Criminals who took part in the looting when the regime fell in April shifted to pillaging warehouses and shops, then hijacking cars and raiding homes.
Many women do not leave their homes for fear of kidnap, attack and rape.
Others go out only in the company of fathers, husbands or brothers.
Women who have jobs leave their work by four or five in the afternoon and hurry home.
In some areas the streets are nearly empty by half past five.
Last week US troops broke up a ring of gangsters who were terrorising customers and vendors at a popular street market in the heart of the city. Flea markets have sprung up wherever there is room at a busy crossing, outside the bus station or on corners.
Iraq does not lack entrepreneurs.
The marketeers sell anything and everything from tins of soft drinks to grubby used clothing, to new television sets and satellite dishes.
Women wearing black chadors flowing from the top of their heads to their toes float from pile to pile assessing the goods and haggling hard before agreeing on a price and pulling out fat bundles of Saddams - 250 dinar notes bearing the purple picture of the former Iraqi president.
They are the most common currency because Iraqis do not believe in the 10,000 dinar note which no shop or exchange will break without taking a heavy commission.
Nothing but a small boat-shaped loaf of Iraqi bread is less than 1,000 dinars. Money is scarce.
The majority of the five million Baghdadis have fallen on hard times. They no longer believe the occupiers' promises that "things will get better soon". Iraqis say either: "Nothing has changed", or "it's getting worse".
It is definitely "getting worse" for US soldiers on the streets.
They never know when they will be hit by a bomb, grenade or a burst of automatic fire. Consequently their fingers are light on the trigger.
Yesterday morning a soldier stopped traffic on a main road in the Karada district so that two armoured scout cars could turn round. When my driver, who did not quite comprehend what was happening, advanced a bit too far, the soldier's weapon came up, ready to fire.
Mistakes happen all too often.
Five civilians were killed last week by US special forces conducting a search at a house in the middle class Mansur district.
Nevertheless, some Iraqis, tired of staying at home at night, go out to visit relatives and go to restaurants.
Fear is no longer their master.
The occupation is strengthening its grip by increasing patrols and establishing checkpoints at choke points.
A bridge over the Tigris was blocked off yesterday morning, sending traffic elsewhere.
Sensitive facilities are not only surrounded by barbed wire but also by low fortifications made of cement blocks.
Long lines of vehicles form and bake under the noon sun.
Cars and their occupants are searched.
Security guards examine identity cards and credentials.
US officials and troops live within their stockades, growing more and more isolated from the city and its citizens.
There is a rumour that Mr Paul Bremer, the second US ruler of Iraq, is soon to be recalled from the Jumhuriya (Republican) Palace, the sprawling complex of grand buildings and dusty gardens from where Saddam Hussein once dictated how Iraqis lived and died.