In minutes, I'm bored with waiting.

"Sam, what was it like growing up in America? Where did you grow up?"

She seems pleasantly surprised, and a little embarrassed. "Good ole Phoenixville, Pennsylvania."

"Is that a small city?"

"No," she laughs. "Actually it was more like a village! But, not like here. In America, village doesn't necessarily imply rural. Phoenixville probably has 20,000 residents. It's about an hour from Philadelphia, which is a big city."

"I know about Philadelphia. It is supposed to be the city of freedom and I know much of American history begins there. But in terms of history," - a fly is now circling over Sam's cup, and she flaps her wrist to chase it away, paying more attention to it than to me - "in terms of history, the original Philadelphia is actually here."

"What do you mean, here?"

"I mean, not here exactly, but in the Middle East. Amman was once called Philadelphia, and so was a city in Turkey. Americans didn't invent brothery love."

Sam pouts her lips in that shape that tells me she isn't sure she believes what she's heard. "Really? Didn't know that."

"So what's it like in Phoenixville? Is it beautiful?"

"No! It's ugly as sin. Well, that's not totally fair. It has its charms. These cool old colonial houses with big porches. Ours was kind of nice. But essentially, the place was a steel town, so it's pretty much dead. It's falling apart at the seams. Or it was when I was growing up there."

I try to picture a dead town, but I imagine Halapca, in northern Iraq. There are rumours that Saddam killed the entire village. But things like that don't happen in America.

Sam's eyes run back and forth across the blank wall across from us, like she's viewing an old film that only she can see.

"Why do you say that the village is dead?"

Sam holds up a finger. "A borough! We were actually a borough. Whatever that means. The borough of Phoenixville. Like the mythical Phoenix? And ville, like a little city. P-h-o-e-n-i-x-v-i-l-l-e."

I don't mind her spelling it out. Otherwise, the names are hard to grasp. I might have spelled it fee-necks-fill.

"Do you think it is anything like Birmingham, England?"

"Never been there. But I doubt it. That part of Pennsylvania, it has its own feel to it. It's basically, well, in a way I guess it's very American. It grew up around the whole Industrial Revolution." Sam draws her index finger down through the air, meandering this way and that. "There's a river that runs through that area and basically, industry sprung up around that, so they used hydropower for the steel mill. For years it was a sort of boomtown for immigrants from poor countries in Europe. Almost no one lived in Phoenixville without being connected to the steel industry in some way. My father grew up in Philadelphia but he moved to Phoenixville after he finished school to be an electrical engineer at the Steel Works."

I had never given much thought to what Sam's father might be, but I assumed him to be better educated than mine. More privileged, and more successful.

"He worked there for over twenty-five years and then one day in 1985, they closed the plant. Just like that," she snaps her fingers. "It simply devastated him and he hasn't worked since. If it weren't for my mother's work, I don't know how they would even survive."

"What does she do?"

"Teaches piano. Nearly every kid in Chester County - which goes far beyond Phoenixville - who knows how to play learned from her." Sam nods several times. "She was considered really talented when she was younger. She studied music at the University of the Arts, which was regarded as very prestigious." There is something in her face that looks wistful on her mother's behalf.

"Do you play as well, then?"

"Of course!" She wiggles her fingers with a dexterity that suddenly makes it very easy to imagine her at the keyboard. "How do you think I learned to type so fast?" She moves them more quickly now, as if she has a more upbeat tune to play. I can picture her fingers moving effortlessly from black to white.

I'd imagined every American's life to be perfect. Perfect houses, roads, cars. Perfect skin and perfect teeth. Nothing ever rotting, nothing corrupt, nothing, anyway, that one can see. Certainly Sam - with her beautiful face and her important job, everything about her seeming smart - could not have had anything but a perfect existence until she arrived in Baghdad.

A tall man towers over us, and his size startles me. I stand, and Sam, taking my cue, follows suit. He smiles widely and says, "How do you do," in perfect English. He holds out his hand. "Sheikh Faddel el-Duleimy."

"Oh, hello. I'm Samara Katchens from the Tribune, and this is Nabil al-Amari, who works with me." I notice that this is the phrase she often uses when she introduces me. Not translator or interpreter. A verb but not a noun. Nabil, who works with me. Works, do they wonder, doing what?

He holds out his hand to suggest we sit back down. "Please, please, make yourselves most comfortable."

"You speak English so beautifully," Sam says, with a look that mixes curiosity with flirtation. "Better than most Americans I know."

He laughs. "Even in Iraq we have many well-educated people," he says. "I wonder if most Americans realize that."

It is hard to place his age, due to the fact that he has a lean, handsome face, and a physique that seems equally young and trim. Only the wisps of grey near his temples make him seem any older than forty.

"I studied for several years at a boarding school in Switzerland. We had all our classes in English," he says.

"Oh," Sam replies, "did you enjoy it there?"

He pulls his arms in on each other and shudders. "I suffered from the cold. It was a good place to learn, but not to live," he says. He calls out to the coffee boy in the adjacent room. "Will you have a coffee? Tea?"

Sam's eyes brighten. "Yes, coffee please." He looks to me, and I nod that I will have the same.

He sits and spreads the extra material of his bisht, a black robe with fine gold embroidery at the edges, over the cushions.

"What can I help you with today?"

"Well, my friend, Jonah Bonn sent me. He spoke very highly of you and said it would be helpful to get your opinion of the current situation in Iraq."

Funny, I thought we were here for information on General Akram.

"What would you like to speak about?" he asks.

"Well, I've heard that several sheikhs are working out a cooperation deal with the Americans so that there won't be any resistance to them in this area."

He smiles and closes his eyes a moment. "Do you think that will work? They can sign, but it's only the beginning of what is going to be a very brutal fight."

"Really?" Sam sounds amused but interested. "I keep hearing that these are just little pockets of resistance, of Saddam loyalists and hangers-on that the Americans just have to shake out, and then it's done." Sam looks at me and then back at him, waiting for one of us to offer some agreement. "To be honest, I don't think there's much they can do at this point to put even a dent in the American military."

"I think you might be wrong there," Sheikh Faddel says. "I think maybe you are being influenced by the hopeful propaganda of your own government."

Sam opens her notebook to a new page. "Do you mind if I take notes?"

"That's fine," he says. "Look, the Americans are doing everything wrong."

"Such as?"

"Not getting a grip on the lawlessness. Everyone here is starting to think the Americans want this lawlessness. And then it will be an excuse for them to stay here longer, and longer, and they will say it is never the right time to leave. And by that time, they will have full control over all our oil resources."

"Not if these stupid saboteurs keep bursting pipelines all over the place."

"Yes, that's true."

"Kind of self-injury, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, you're only hurting yourselves by attacking your pipelines. They're your natural resources."

"It nice to hear an American say so." He reaches for the small coffee that has been left in front of him. I was so mesmerized by his odd charm that I had not even noticed that it had arrived.

Sam smiles and takes hers, too. She holds it up to her curled lips and blows.

"I am just joking with you, Miss, please tell me your name again?

"Samara Katchens. People call me Sam."

"Is that not a name for a man?"

"Sometimes."

"Interesting for a very beautiful woman to have a man's name."

Sam grimaces slightly and looks at her notebook.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I hope I haven't embarrassed you."

She gives him what I know is an artificial smile. "Not at all."

"We're not used to seeing foreign women like you in our country. It's a surreal situation, is it not, Nabil?"

I open my mouth to respond, but nod instead.

"Let me tell you why the Americans are failing here. From the very first day that Saddam disappeared and no one knew where he was, the Americans should have taken control of the city and made sure that it was secure. But instead, they let everything collapse into chaos and turned a blind eye while the criminals started looting all of the offices and villas and museums. And the banks. How are you going to stabilize a country if you can't get its financial resources under control? That was their first mistake."

When he stops to take a breath he notices that Sam, who has been taking notes at a quick clip, has stopped doing so. He says, "Please, write this down. The second mistake is you let this chaos continue for a long time, despite the fact that you are the most powerful country in the world and you have the best army. You just proved it. We are the most dangerous country in the Middle East and now you have conquered us. And it only took a matter of weeks! So what does that make the Iraqi people think? It makes us think that maybe the Americans do not want what's best for us. Maybe you want us to suffer, to make us appear backwards and in need of a foreign occupier to take charge of us, because we are so out of control.

"In the meantime, you give us no indication of turning over any control of the country to a new Iraqi leader - even a temporary one! You say it's too early. And then, in the meantime, your most senior official comes here and says that he is dissolving the entire army. No more Iraqi army. Bye-bye," he says, kissing his hand and then sending it away.

"And then," he continues, "all the Iraqi people should have to give up their weapons. We should have no defence at all. I wonder, can I ask you, what would happen if we tried to do that in your country? What would happen if a foreign army came to America and tried to take everyone's gun away?" He lowers his face to try to get her to focus on his. "Well?"

Sam stops writing and looks up. "It wouldn't go over well."

"No. No, it wouldn't. The problem, unfortunately for the Americans, is that they can't win."

Sam is trying to maintain a neutral stare, the one she gives people when she wants to refrain from reacting. "What can't they win?" she asks. "I mean, they have won, right? President Bush said yesterday that major combat operations are over."

Sheikh Faddel watches her for a moment. "It is very easy for them to win the war against a country like us. We are no match for American firepower. But they will never win the peace. Because the problem we have in Iraq is that we have never really been at peace unless one very strong party is in power and is, what do you call it, is dictating to the others what to do. The British realized that when they drew up the map of Iraq, and they knew we were the best candidates for being the bully, so they put us in charge."

He laughs and shakes his head, goading me to laugh with him. "Ah, Nabil? Am I right? Look, this is only the beginning. Sunnis from other Arab countries will come and fight alongside us and say it's a war to defend Islam. Shi'ites will come and say this is a chance to spread the revolution, to finish what began in Iran in 1979. Soon we'll be fighting each other as much as the Americans. I'm not talking about me," he says, patting his right hand hard on his chest. "I'm only trying to tell you how our people think. How do most people in the world behave when they stand to lose power?"

Sam isn't writing anymore, just blinking, listening, twirling the pen in her hand.

"But I'm sure you have some other questions for me."

"Well, this is all fascinating," she perks up, "but yes I do. Do you know a man named General Akram?"

"Akram, of course. He was one of Saddam's top military advisors, but he turned on the president after the Gulf War. Became convinced he could overthrow Saddam under the auspices of the Americans who ultimately did absolutely nothing to ensure the rebels' success. That was in the early 1990s."

"And today?" she asks.

"He was in jail for a long time, but then I heard he was released a while back. Not sure why Saddam didn't kill him; that's what usually happened to rebels. Whatever he's up to, he's got to be dancing a dabka now."

I hesitate to interject, but then I do. "A dabka is a dance, Sam."

"Smart man," says Sheikh Faddel. "But then again, not so smart that he knew how not to get caught."

The aide from earlier appears followed by three older shiyukh in black robes. He approaches Sheikh Faddel and then stops halfway across the room to kindly suggest that he should prepare to leave with the others. All of the shiyukh will be meeting a very important American military official at another house.

"May I take a few minutes to finish my discussion with the American lady?"

"As you wish. But we have been warned that the Americans like to start on time."

I whisper this translation to Sam as they're having the conversation. She seems very excited, but is trying to remain calm so that the others won't notice.

"That's pretty interesting," she comments. "What...who? Can we come?"

"I don't think so," I say quietly, clearing my throat as I do. "They are not suggesting that."

"Yeah, I know. But suggest it to them. Tell them we'd like to come."

"But I don't think-"

"Nabil, just ask." And I can see Sam trying to catch their eyes right now and smiling, as if to warm them to the idea even before they hear it.

One of them suggests that the Americans may not allow it. Another says he's not sure if a woman will be welcome because the Americans are meeting a group of tribal elders.

I translate these points for Sam who stares back at me bugeyed, indicating that she is both challenged and entertained.

"Well, it's the American way for reporters to have access to government meetings. That's what happens in a democracy. And I'm sure the Americans will have women with them, too." She smiles at them widely now, and then back at me. "If it's a problem, of course, I'll leave."

"No, no," says one of the wrinkled men, who has the most exquisite tribal robe, the gold trimming along the black fabric as intricate as a fine necklace. "No problem. Welcome. Welcome."

We file out briskly and pile back into Rizgar's car and tell him to follow the other vehicles. I watch Sheikh Faddel's convoy as they lead us past well-kept compounds divided by large patches of grassland and crops. In a few minutes, we're on a narrow road that's walled on both sides and suddenly Rizgar twists his head, quick and twitchy, and hisses, "What's this? Where are they taking us?"

Rizgar's instincts are surely what's got Sam through Iraq safely, perhaps with the help of God, but if Rizgar is worried then I am, too. Can Sheikh Faddel be trusted? But then we crest over a slight incline and I see there are many other cars, including some rather fancy ones, and a lot of men in the same long black cloaks, and suddenly it seems perfectly clear that we've come upon a tribal meeting, and I can see the light fill Sam's face like a child outside a sweet shop.

"Whoa!" she whispers. "Our boys are definitely up to something here." Rizgar continues to follow the convoy towards the clearing, next to the long white building where dozens of cars are already parked. "Maybe they're trying to do a buy-out of some of the Sunni tribesmen, to stop their resistance," says Sam. "I heard they were doing that a lot around here."

Sheikh Faddel signals to us and we follow him. He is in the midst of a cluster of other shiyukh just up ahead, walking into a hall with wooden double doors large enough to be the entrance to a moderate palace. He turns back and gives us another sign, with a crick of his neck, to follow him. We mill closer. And then I'm suddenly aware that there is an unusually tall and broad-shouldered man standing in our way.

"Uh, sorry, ma'am?" He is wearing crisp, tan trousers and a light blue shirt. "You from the press?"