BAGHDAD, March 4 -- The regular shoppers at Mohammed Jassim's small food store are among Baghdad's best-informed residents: teachers, businessmen and government employees who avoid the sanitized fare of state-run television and listen instead to crackly short-wave radio broadcasts.

As they gab amid the rows of canned vegetables and bagged grains, there is little regard for the Iraqi media reports of diplomatic successes and cooperation with arms inspectors. They have heard President Bush say repeatedly that he intends to topple President Saddam Hussein's government by force.

"Everyone is certain that the Americans are going to attack," Jassim said. "It's just a matter of days or weeks."

After months of shrugging off the danger and going about their business, many Baghdadis are coming to regard war as inevitable.

What confuses Jassim, however, is how few of his customers appear genuinely worried or have prepared beyond collecting extra food rations doled out by the government. A handful have drilled wells in their back yards. A few families plan to stay with relatives outside the city. But nobody, he said, is hoarding basic commodities.

In the United States, government warnings about a possible terrorist strike sent people to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. In Iraq, however, when the president warned last week of imminent war and urged the population to dig trenches in their yards, there was no rush to grab shovels.

On the surface, the sprawling Iraqi capital feels calm. Rush-hour traffic clogs bridges spanning the Tigris River. People show up at work and school. They go to movies and pack restaurants. Construction workers continue to repair the gargantuan limestone-walled headquarters of Hussein's Baath Party, which was struck by U.S. cruise missiles in 1991 and 1998 and likely will be a target again.

The facade of normality, many residents say, is propped up by a combination of resignation and confidence. They recall the months after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Baghdad lacked electricity and running water, when food was scarce and disease rampant, and they wonder whether any amount of preparation would be enough to comfortably ride out another war and the aftermath. Even if they wanted to stock up on supplies, most insist they cannot afford to do so; sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait have eroded the financial cushion they once had.

"What can we do?" said Mahmoud Shakir Kanoush, 43, a government clerk, as he walked through an exhibit of out-of-date civil-defense equipment at a downtown park designed to show off emergency preparedness. "Should we buy enough water and fuel for three months? For six months? Where will we put it? How can we afford it?"

The displays next to him did not inspire much confidence. One of the fire extinguishers was manufactured in 1964. The gas masks appeared to be a few decades old. A bomb disposal kit was missing several parts.

"I'm counting on God," Kanoush said. "That is our only option."

That attitude appears to be widely shared around the city. Mosque attendance has been increasing over the past few weeks, according to religious leaders. When a score of Iraqis were questioned in Baghdad's labyrinthine main outdoor market, nearly a dozen men offered virtually the same response when asked why they were not doing more to prepare: We trust God to protect us.

The experience of U.S. airstrikes in 1991 and 1998 has also generated a sense of confidence and complacency about another attack. "We're used to American bombing," said Kyas Jabbar, 31, a teacher and former soldier. "It was very devastating, but we survived."

Many here, even those with access to outside sources of information, assume that a U.S. invasion would result in air attacks similar to those in 1991, when bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Baghdad largely at night, allowing people to move around during the day. They express surprise when told about published reports in the United States that the Pentagon is considering a massive opening wave of airstrikes that would continue without pause for at least two days.

"People don't understand," a diplomat here said. "They think it will be like 1991. They don't realize the Americans have a different strategy this time."

Some residents -- it is impossible to know how many -- have reasoned that it would be foolish to try to weather the war in Baghdad, either out of fear of the airstrikes or concern that a change of government could make them targets of retribution. Commercial flights to neighboring Jordan and Syria have been packed with wealthy families who intend to spend extended vacations with relatives.

"We have money and we have these," a leather merchant said, holding up a stack of green Iraqi passports as he and his family flew from Baghdad to Amman, the Jordanian capital. "I'd be crazy to stay."

Yet many others with the means to flee said they had opted to stay, largely out of concern they might lose their houses to legions of poor, angry people who might burst out of slums and into wealthy areas if the government collapses.

How friends, neighbors and enemies will react in the event of a U.S. ground invasion is perhaps the biggest worry for Baghdad residents. In conversations with more than a dozen Iraqis in bookshops, art galleries, teahouses and even luxury hotels -- away from the bravado of gun-toting street demonstrations and government-organized shows of force -- there was no consensus on what might happen.

Some argued passionately that members of the Baath Party and elite military units will resist aggressively, as government officials contend. A few people -- college-educated Iraqis speaking outside the presence of government officials -- insisted they would fire on U.S. troops in their neighborhoods.

Others maintained that most residents would sit out an invasion at home, quietly welcoming a change in government, and predicted that any opposition would melt away after a few days. "Everyone wants political change," said one businessman. "But everyone is scared about what will happen. We hope it will be fast, but we are not sure."

The businessman, like others who spoke freely, said he still hoped "regime change" could be accomplished without war. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if things would change without a bomb?" he said.

"That is probably a fantasy," he added after pausing for a moment to think. "There will probably be many bombs."

Although several reinforced underground bomb shelters have been built around Baghdad, it is seemingly impossible to find anyone who plans to hunker down in one. The February 1991 bombing of a large neighborhood shelter in Baghdad's Amiriya district, which is said to have killed more than 400 people, mostly women and children, has stoked fears that the U.S. military, which said the Amiriya shelter was being used as a command bunker, might strike one of them again.

"There's no way I would go in one of them," said Kanoush, the man at the civil-defense exhibit. "People are afraid. They are still shocked by what happened last time and they worry it might happen again."

Kanoush said he and his family plan to ride out the war in the same way his friends and neighbors will: at home. "It will be safer there," he said.

These days, what little digging there is in Baghdad is not for trenches but for wells. In an indication that some residents are starting to take war preparations seriously, well drillers have been deluged with requests to bore under homes for potable water.

Alaa Hadi, a former plumber, supervises three crews who install 18 wells a day across the city. At 9 a.m. today, two of his employees arrived to find water for Hamid Sayed, a businessman and father of five, who became convinced two days ago that war was imminent.

"It was because of the news," he said as two mud-specked workmen used a hand-cranked rotating shovel to bore a 30-foot hole in his front yard. "I heard that Iraq promised to destroy the missiles but the Americans did not respond positively. They did not say they would withdraw their troops. If Iraq does this and America continues to threaten us, then how can we avoid war?"

Two hours later, the drillers hit what they thought was water. After pumping out gallons of thin mud, they brought up clear water and Hadi grabbed a handful. "Ack," he gagged. "Salty."

Sayed was not bothered. The brackish liquid, he said, would be used for bathing and laundry -- and it would be shared with his neighbors.

"Nobody else on the street is doing this," he said. "I guess they're not that concerned."

But once the war starts, he predicted, they would soon be beseeching him for water. "They can have it," he said. "If there is a war, we will all have to help each other."