No Forwarding Address

In southern Baghdad, west of the Tigris River and away from the traffic-choked heart of the capital, lies the middle-class neighborhood of Saydia, an area of wide, palm-shaded avenues and ocher-colored villas—some fronted by sloping lawns, others hidden behind tall fences. At the time of the American invasion of Iraq, the neighborhood was ethnically mixed and relatively desirable. Saddam Hussein’s government had awarded some of the houses to high-ranking military officers, but the community also included nonmilitary Shia and Sunni families, often headed by successful entrepreneurs. A lively commercial drag sliced through the neighborhood and offered a meeting place, often late into the night, for the men and women who lived there. Today many of the neighborhood’s homes and shops are shuttered or abandoned, and its streets are empty. All but one of the roads into and out of Saydia have been sealed off by the Iraqi forces in an ...