FREEDOM HAS A TERRIBLE ENEMY

In an instant, he became one of hundreds of intellectuals and public officials who Iraqi officials say have been assassinated since May in a widening campaign against Iraq's professional class.

"They are going after our brains," said Lt. Col. Jabbar Abu Natiha, head of the organized crime unit of the Baghdad police. "It is a big operation. Maybe even a movement."

These white-collar killings, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, are separate from -- and in some ways more insidious than -- the settling of scores with former Baath Party officials, or the singling-out of police officers and others thought to be collaborating with the occupation forces. Hundreds of them have been attacked as well in an effort to sow insecurity and chaos.

But by silencing urban professionals, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces, the guerrillas are waging war on Iraq's fledgling institutions and progress itself. The dead include doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats and judges. "This works against everything we're trying to do here," the general said.