"Don't hate me because I make it possible for you to bury your dead"

"Death business booms in Baghdad":

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Hussein Mohammed never dreamt that roadside bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad would make him a fortune.

"With every victim that falls to an explosion and suicide attack, the demand for coffins increases and my work flourishes," said the coffin-maker in his tiny shop in the heart of the war-torn capital.

But not all Iraqis are happy.

"Lots of people have asked me to change my job and I always answer: If I didn't make coffins, how would you bury your dead?

"I am happy with what I'm doing. I remind many people of death and when they see me they remember God and return to their faith."

But Mohammed's constant smile angers some.

"Once a lady told me: 'You're always happy because you earn your living from the death of people and for that reason you always need them to die'," he said.

Absolutely right. He's providing a needed service. Perhaps his critics would prefer the old days of dictatorship, when Saddam Hussein, his sons and their cronies had hundreds of thousands murdered, then buried in mass graves without coffins?