by Matthew McAllester
                     Middle East Correspondent, NewsDay 6/18/00

                     Baghdad, Iraq -- The washing machine sat in front of the rows of white
                     plastic chairs at the Sabalkh auction house. It was 10 years old, was made in
                     China and had a Japanese engine.

                     Sometimes it broke down and when it did, Raed Mohammed Abdul-Razak
                     would fix it himself. He bought it three years ago. At that point, the washing
                     machine was already seven years old.

                     It was the last thing of any value Abdul-Razak owned and now he wanted to
                     get $40 for it at the Friday morning auction or he was finished. And so was
                     his uncle. And their families.

                     "Yesterday the landlord started to say he's going to lose his patience,"
                     Abdul-Razak said.

                     That's the landlord of the shop Abdul-Razak rented. Until recently,
                     Abdul-Razak sold stationery there but now that school was over for the
                     semester and demand for notebooks and pencils had dried up, he wanted to
                     turn the shop into a juice bar with his uncle, Hassan Abdul-Razak. But they
                     were already 18 days late on the rent for the month and their only chance at
                     continuing in business, in finding a few dinars to survive on, sat a few yards
                     away on the concrete floor waiting for a bidder.

                     From different generations -- Hassan is 45, Raed 26 -- the two men have
                     experienced the eradicating impact of the 10-year-old United Nations trade
                     sanctions on Iraq's formerly huge middle class at different stages in their
                     lives. A decade ago, Hassan had it all. Raed was a teenager without a care in
                     a country that has the second biggest oil reserves in the world. Until the
                     sanctions were imposed, the government made sure that its many employees
                     were paid well, that the country's health care and education systems worked
                     well, and that private businessmen could run small enterprises like Hassan's
                     tea shop. Baghdad used to be full of Egyptians, Filipinos and Indians serving
                     tea and cleaning offices and opening hotel doors for Iraqis. Now the capital
                     is full of Iraqi engineers who drive beaten up taxis, teachers who sell car
                     parts on the sidewalk and small businessmen who show up at the numerous
                     Friday auctions to sell their ropey settees and tired air conditioners so they
                     can pay their rent.

                     "The embargo has made this kind of business flourish," said Nazar Rashid Al
                     Sabalkh, the owner of the auction house. When the sanctions started, there
                     were four or five houses in town. Now there are more than 50.

                     Hassan, Raed and Hassan's 16-year-old son Ali came to Sabalkh's warehouse
                     at 9:30 a.m. on May 19. For the second day running, a storm of russet dust
                     spiraled around Baghdad, floated in people's eyes and lungs, and formed a
                     film coating everything.

                     "I used to have a tea shop before the embargo," Hassan said, as he sat on a
                     white chair and waited for the auction to start. "Then, the tea bags were
                     cheap, the rent was cheap, the furniture, the salaries. After the embargo all
                     the costs went up. I worked day and night and ended up with very little. I
                     surrendered."

                     He closed his tea shop, Casino Al Salaam, in 1991. Since then he's been
                     buying and selling just about anything he could work a deal on. He and his
                     wife have four children and the family has moved into a tiny apartment.
                     They survive off the food ration the government doles out to all Iraqis each
                     month. It's paid for by the money generated by the Oil for Food program,
                     which is monitored by the United Nations.

                     Hassan had his livelihood snatched away from him. His nephew Raed was
                     deprived of his future.

                     "I didn't think about the future because it was so safe," he said. Instead, his
                     teacher father paid for Raed's tae kwon do lessons, his pocket money, his
                     school books. And then the embargo started and Raed had to leave school at
                     17 to help support the family. Now he has a wife and three children of his
                     own. His wife had never in her life had to wash clothes by hand.

                     At noon, the auction started. The auctioneer, a round man in denim, held up
                     clocks, a cassette player, a Casio keyboard and he took a few bids here and
                     there for the equivalent of a dollar or two. Hassan, Ali and Raed sat silently in
                     their chairs.

                     "One washing machine," the auctioneer called out. "Do I hear 50,000 dinars
                     ?"

                     Silence, but for the dusty wind.

                     And that was it. Raed and Hassan walked out of the auction area and sat on
                     the couch of someone else in need of money.

                     Disappointment tied Raed's tongue and he stared out into the dust.

                     "Now I'm going to sell it in the street," Hassan said. "We'll never go home
                     until we sell it. My wife needs money, she needs food. I am responsible for
                     that."