Today a Government-owned newspaper in Baghdad carried an appeal by eight Iraqi intellectuals to the Government to be more democratic.

"We became oil junkies," an Iraqi intellectual said.

Some Iraqi intellectuals welcome the idea, saying their country will never have a successful democracy until its citizens face the truth about Mr. Hussein.

Shawkat, a cantankerous Iraqi intellectual, was one of the good guys.

The cafe became popular with foreign reporters seeking comments from Iraqi intellectuals on the changes roiling Iraqi society.

"They said the same thing when they overthrew the king in 1958, that life would get better, and look what that brought us," said one Iraqi intellectual.

An Iraqi intellectual could, for example, criticize Nebuchadnezzar's rule in a scholarly work, but the intelligentsia could read, between the lines, an attack on Saddam Hussein.

But in Boston, Washington and London are Iraqi intellectuals who do not think so.

"This used to be a rich country," said an Iraqi intellectual who described himself as having been a fervent supporter of the Hussein Government.

Virtually every group in Iraq and many Iraqi intellectuals decry the idea of dividing power along ethnic lines, or thinking of each group as monolithic.