BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The call came hours before the first bombs fell. Hilmi al-Jarrah heard his daughter crying, "Please, Baba, come home. Come home!"

Al-Jarrah was in Amman, Jordan; his family was 570 miles away in the Iraqi capital. He grabbed his passport, a small overnight bag and the family dog, Rocky. After a 12-hour taxi ride through the desert, he arrived here, exhausted, unshaven, in need of a shower, but relieved to find his wife and four children safe in their grandmother's home.

Last night, the family gathered at the dinner table to break the first fast of Ramadan, the month-long period holy to Muslims. They feasted on dates, homemade lentil soup, grilled chicken and kabobs -- knowing too well that the crackle of artillery fire and the thunder clap of cruise missiles would soon end their quiet evening at home.

"Every time I go to sleep, I wonder if this will be my last day," said al-Jarrah's 19-year-old daughter, Nadine.

Nadine will sleep easier now. Hours after American and British air strikes pounded the Iraqi capital for a fourth consecutive night, President Clinton announced yesterday an end to the military operation.

For many Iraqi families, the past four days have been ordeal eclipsed only by the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Each night they braced for a pounding.

Last night was no exception. As darkness fell on the Iraqi capital, the al-Jarrahs closed the curtains on the floor-to-ceiling front windows they had earlier secured with tape. They drew their chairs close to the center of the living room in case a window was shattered by the bomb concussions. They lighted candles until the nightly power outage subsided.

The al-Jarrah children know the sounds the U.S. cruise missiles make. At the first rumblings, 14-year-old Ahmed said plainly, "They're hitting us again."

He walked over to the window for a look, but his mother, Farrouz, beckoned him to step back.

Nadine, an architecture student at Baghdad University, began a journal to share with her best friend in Amman. But she worried that her friend would never have the chance to read it.

In the first two days of the strikes, the family slept together in one room.

When the air strikes appeared imminent, al-Jarrah was in Amman where he works as a businessman. His daughters Nadine and Lana called him and begged him to return. Nadine asked him to bring the family dog.

"I was afraid I'd die without seeing him," she said of the shaggy dog she raised.

Al-Jarrah could have sent for his family. An investor in real estate, al-Jarrah has the means to relocate his family to Jordan, where they lived for four years. But he returned. He and his wife had decided months ago that this is where they wanted to live.

"We have to support our land, our country in any situation," said al-Jarrah, a former pilot for Iraqi Airways who lost his job when economic sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf war grounded the national airline. "Even in this situation, it's easy for me to take them out. But I feel we have to suffer like all the Iraqis.'

Nodding toward his four children, al-Jarrah said, "This is their land."

"We agree with him, too," said Nadine. "As he said, this is my land and I belong here."

By most Iraqi standards, the al-Jarrahs live comfortably. Their spacious stone house, bought during Iraq's boom days, has five bedrooms, a grand living room, and a bathroom for each member of the family. Al-Jarrah has an office and there is room on the first floor for an office for Farrouz, a dentist.

Ahmed loves to play billiards, while his younger brother entertains himself with computer games. Nadine is reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" and designing houses. And Lana, at age 16, is in college studying business administration.

But they understand that their neighbors have not fared as well. They no longer barbecue in the front yard because they know that other families may only eat meat once a month. The past eight years of sanctions have hit the Iraqi people hard.

"They are suffering too much," said al-Jarrah. "Even the good food I eat in my dinner here, you can't find it in the neighbor's house."

Al-Jarrah's cousin is a scientist with six children. He earns the equivalent of about $20 a month.

"How can he eat?" asks the 49-year-old former pilot. "This is not right to make the Iraqi people suffer in this situation."

Al-Jarrah has chosen to make his life here. He despairs at the thousands of educated Iraqis who have left the country in the years since the gulf war.

"Who is going to make this country?" he asks solemnly. "I ask the 4 million people who have left -- are they happy?"

Hilmi and Farrouz al-Jarrah are investing in their children. He hopes their future will be the future of Iraq.

"They have to rebuild Baghdad now," he said.

Pub Date: 12/20/98