AMMAN, Oct 18, 2007 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Wearing white dishdasha (traditional Iraqi clothes) and turban around his head, Turky Talal sits in front of a fish restaurant named Almahar (Shell in English) located in the Garden Street in central Amman, looking at cars passing by.
Turky, the sheikh of one of the biggest Iraqi Sunni tribes, came to Amman to escape the violence stirred up after the United States launched the war against Iraq in 2003.
Moving between his house nearby and the restaurant operated by another Iraqi refugee dominates the daily life of the 65-year-old sheikh, who is reluctant to speak and looks empty in his eyes.
"How can he do? How can we do? We just sit here, counting cars (which) come and go and talking with our fellow men," said Najim, who left behind his business and properties in Baghdad to come to Amman four years ago.
Najim, in his sixties, owned several knitting factories in Baghdad. But the Iraq war, which has derailed the Saddam Hussein regime, led to the faltering of his business and separation of his family, he said, adding that his mother and brother fled to Egypt.
Najim expressed the keenness of his family to go back home. But all in a sudden, the old man asked "how can we go back without security installed there?"
Turky and Najim are among tens of Iraqis who come to the restaurant everyday.
To them, the two-story restaurant, which enjoys high popularity among the Iraqis in Amman, provides a platform to meet old friends and talk about the latest situation on their homeland, besides authentic Iraqi-style grilled fish and pancake.
The owner of the restaurant, Abu Haisam, in brown business suit, said the U.S.-led invasion changed all in Iraq, noting it is the rich resource especially oil that caused the war.
The American-led war against Iraq led to the division of Iraq into three parts, with the north, the middle and the south in the hands of the Kurds, Americans and Iranians respectively, said Haisam in white hair.
"Iraq and Baghdad are ruined," said Haisam who at that moment vehemently wanted to express himself. The war resulted in the inter-fighting and separation of Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqis, who used to live together and marry each other, said Haisam, a father of five sons.
Haisam said he was satisfied with his life now in stable and orderly Jordan, whose government has done a lot to accommodate an influx of Iraqi refugees, who have posed heavy strain on Jordan's already scarce natural resources.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated that more than 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland for safety abroad to wait out the war, with 700,000 and 1.2 million spilling into neighboring Jordan and Syria respectively.
Asked when he will return to Iraq, Haisam, frowned, said the heaviest headache ever for him was that he can not return his own home and that his family could only go back home after the Americans leave.
"But when will they leave? They come here for oil. Why do they leave? Why?" he fired off a string of questions.
There are now 168,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, the highest level since the war began in 2003. The Bush administration has not envisioned a timetable of withdrawal yet.
Customer Suhaim, whose family fled Iraq in 2003, said that for thousands of Iraqis Jordan is a safe haven, but the bulk see their savings depleted by the high cost of living and could not get a work permission from the Jordanian government.
Suhaim, however, fortunately got the work permission and now works in an electronics company. Though she can make ends meet, Suhaim said she still wanted to return to her house in central Baghdad.
"As one saying goes, dry bread at home is better than roast meat abroad," she said, adding that "we want to be back for our root is there."