The first in five years: a deathless day in Baghdad

Hussein, one of the McClatchy Baghdad bureau staffers who have contributed so much to our newspapers' coverage of the war in Iraq, couldn't contain his joy.

"Mike," he said in a tremulous voice. "For the first time since 2003, today we had no violent deaths in Baghdad!"

We looked at each other and shook hands.

Even though I'd only been here two days when he made the announcement last night--based on a library catalogue of official reports, Iraqi TV news, stringers and our own reporting, I knew how much that meant to him and all Baghdadis.

Since the U.S. invasion and during its occupation, hundreds of thousands of Baghdad residents have been killed, most of them in the crossfire between American/Coalition forces and insurgents of a dozen different stripes.

Hundreds of thousands more have fled--to the countryside, to other towns, out of Iraq.

So to have a day without violent death in this city is worth noting--and celebrating.

I'm almost afraid to write this, fearing somehow it will jinx the good news.

And, of course, in other parts of the country, the killing and wounding go on. In Mosul, in the north, insurgents and a combined American/Iraqi force are battling every day and night. Dozens are dying there.

Hussein's happiness calls to mind one of the more bizarre--and inspirational--episodes in our world's recent history of war. During the siege of Saraejevo, during the civil war in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, a long-haired cellist from the Sarajevo symphony dressed in his formal wear and carried his instrument to the scene of a bloody massacre that killed 22 people. Ignoring sniper rounds and the occasionaly mortar or artillery round, he played an Italian "Adagio" for 22 straight days.

Like the string quartet on the decks of the sinking Titanic, this cellist refused to be cowed by the forces of death. He played on.

We can only hope that the absence of death on Friday--the holy day of Islam--means many more of the same.

Not the Titanic...but the courage and hope of a Sarajevan cellist.

'Salam!'

Arabic for 'peace.'