Before the war, the Sunni Arab village of Makaseb just west of the capital was a favoured resting stop for Saddam Hussein. He trusted its residents so much he would wander over from his nearby palace unaccompanied by his usual retinue of bodyguards. Hussein so loved Makaseb - perhaps it reminded him of his birthplace in a village near Tikrit - he showered locals with gifts, privileges and jobs. Physician Ahmad Alwash Shalaan remembers the generosity. 'My president used to visit us and give everyone money. He used to give the young people work on his farms.' But with Hussein gone, the village is fading away. 'Now, about 90 per cent of the people from Makaseb no longer work here. The village has been changed forever.' The occupiers did not merely replace the country's leadership and open the way for elections, as the US had said it intended. The war brought about a revolution in the balance of power, reshaping the country and the identities of its people. The ousting of Hussein has elevated Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims - brutally oppressed by his Sunni Muslim regime - into the new rulers. And in Sunni Arab strongholds like Makaseb, princes became paupers. 'We have lost a lot,' says Muhan Nasser Hossein al-Jabouri, an elderly farmer who once tended Hussein's fields. 'We continue to lose more every day.' As the village's clout wanes, the number of visitors dwindles. 'Right now, we have no honour. It's not the natural way things should be,' he says. Across the road, Arkan Khaled Mahmoud, 29, looks after his family's few chickens. Before the invasion, he worked for Hussein making munitions. In the aftermath he has watched his life drain to nothing, he says. 'I used to have a good salary and a good living,' he says. 'Now the Americans give nothing to me.' Many Sunni Arabs feel the triumphant Shi'ites have taken over not only the government but the best jobs as well. Clothing salesman Nazar Abu Yusuf, 30, from Karada, says he was pushed out of his job at a large hotel because the new manager wanted to hire Shia friends and relatives. 'I went to 11 ministries and at each one I was told the same thing,' he says. 'We won't hire you unless you know someone here or are related to a minister.' The Shi'ite Muslims waited 1,000 years for power, first under the Ottoman caliphate, then under the Sunni-led monarchy established by the British and finally under Hussein. And they waited as US troops entered their country. A small number sided with the radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr, and violently opposed the invasion. But most were eager to assert the strength of their numbers and take political control. In January's election, a Shi'ite alliance won 140 of the 275 seats in the new National Assembly and 182 of its members are Shi'ites. Sunni Arabs hold 17 seats. 'It's hard to even think about what it used to be like before,' says Abdul-Karim Mahdi, who works in the Ministry of Public Works. 'We used to live in fear. We used to unplug the phones whenever we talked with each other inside the house. With Saddam gone, at least there's hope.' Sectarian hatred remains. Boutique owner Muhamad Jawad recalls an incident in which a long-time Sunni friend derided the late Shi'te leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Hakim, killed by a car bomb in 2003. The friend described him as having deserved his fate. In another incident, the son of Mr Jawad's Sunni Arab friend referred to a passing police car as 'bastard Shias'. 'The masks have fallen off the faces of many of the people I know,' he said.
