If Iraqi doctor-turned-politician Rajaa Khuzai jotted down all her memories, their impact would be deeper than the most tragic movie one has seen.

"Freedom, which you can smell in the air, is the most precious thing in your life," Khuzai told IANS at the dining hall of the headquarters of the Art of Living foundation in this suburban town near Bangalore.

She spoke of how things are different today for her people from the days when the US-backed sanctions against Iraq began to cripple the economy at the height of Saddam Hussein's reign.

"Things are better now. Do you know that I, being a trained doctor, used to work for one dollar a month? After Saddam Hussein's fall, all of a sudden, things have changed.

"We started earning $600 a month," said Khuzai, the chairperson of Iraq's National Council for Women.

Khuzai does not even want to remember the days of insecurity under Saddam when the Iraqi security forces killed her younger brother.

She speaks about her experiences as a doctor in troubled Iraq, where insurgents fighting the US forces continue to carry out suicide attacks.

"One day during the tensions, I conducted 22 caesarean operations in candle light. I cleaned the patients with water from a river.

"But after a while, when all those 22 women came to me carrying their newborns, I could not resist my tears of joy," she said, her eyes brimming over.

She remarked that life in Iraq was still far from perfect.

"There is no sense of security there. You send your children to school and worry about them throughout the day, whether they will come back safely.

"Anything can happen at any moment. Car bombs can hit you anywhere. But you have to live with it," Khuzai said with a long sigh.

The scare factor, she said, has become an impediment to reconstruction activities.

"The other day, there was the inauguration of a new power plant. Some children, on their way back from school, went to a function. Suddenly a car bomb went off and they were killed.

"Who wants to invest in such a place?" Khuzai questioned. "They have to spend more money in security than a project."

But Khuzai said the Iraqi people were hopeful even in the face of so many problems. "We are working with lots of hopes in hour hearts. We should consider ourselves lucky to see the light of freedom," she said.

Asked what she felt on seeing photographs of Saddam Hussein in a shabby condition in prison, Khuzai became furious.

"He deserves it. That's Allah's punishment. You don't know what he did to us, his own people in Iraq. He led a life of extravagance when his people died in the street without food and water.

"He imported special cakes from France to celebrate his birthday. And now you see where Allah has sent him."

But Khuzai, a mother of seven, said she did not want the US-led coalition forces to remain in Iraq for long.

"No one can bring us democracy and freedom from outside, it should be from inside. The US soldiers never tried to learn Iraqi culture. Many times, they humiliate us," she said.