"I don't know of any weapons of mass destruction," says Hadi, 74, a balding wrinkled man with liverspots, commenting on the growing row over whether the US and British governments fudged intelligence in the countdown to war on Iraq.

The burning question for Hadi and his friends at his sweltering shop off central Baghdad's Al-Shahuda square, where Saddam lived in the 1960s, is when the US forces will restore power and safety to the nation, which they invaded on the pretext of finding a lethal arsenal.

"We have a security problem and no electricity," says Hadi.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons mean very little to him.

The same applies to the political storms in Britain about "sexing" up intelligence or the White House admission it had used false information about an Iraqi attempt to buy uranium in a January speech.

Hadi is not a political man.

Ask him about Saddam, the barber, who doubles as an amateur doctor and performer of circumcisions on baby boys, remembers the young Saddam for his remarkably dark buttocks when he treated the future dictator's tonsilitis in the 1960s.

Asked about the Baath years, he wishes he could somehow have benefited from his slight connection to the dictator. Judging by his fly-infested shop, he never did.

Regarding the Americans, he wishes electricity was up and running and he was not relying on a huge generator to churn out power and that he felt safe at night.

But the customers and friends in his small box-like barbershop are much more fiery. Hadi's friend Latif Sadoon, 34, suspects the worst as Washington and London own up to dodgy intelligence in the rush to war.

"The Americans are not here for the liberation of Iraq. When they came they said they were here to help Iraq, but until now, we see nothing better," says Sadoon, who sold his furniture shop this spring after the US-led war ushered in harder times.

"They came for the oil. They did not come to help us but to suck our resources."

Even some American soldiers take a jaded view. Sunglass-wearing US army Sergeant Homer Dollar and his men are surly, baking in the summer heat guarding a burnt out branch of the Rashid Bank, set on fire during the post-war looting.

"I think some of the intelligence was exaggerated," Dollar says about the US information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"All that bulletproof evidence wasn't there."

Dollar concedes he is a bit disgruntled. He was set to leave the service last month when the top brass indefinitely extended his tour.

Now he finds himself on street patrol, giving money to barefoot Iraqi kids to buy him mini-pizzas and falafels from the market.

But not everyone is fuming about the mystery of weapons or the anarchy in Iraq.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who argued to the Senate Wednesday the war on Iraq was about a future threat as much as any clear or present danger, could take heart in the words of Ali Hussein, a dry cleaning shop employee by Shahuda square.

"Saddam deserved to be gone, even if he did not have weapons of mass destruction," says Hussein, 23, as an air cooler blows in the cramped shop.

"Saddam was killing the Iraqi people. Thank you Mr Bush."

WAR.WIRE