BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Mohamed Majed's makeshift bar is situated in a trash-strewn parking lot beneath a highway overpass somewhere in the Baghdad sprawl.

It's got half a dozen plastic tables and chairs, a barbecue grill, a cooler filled with cans of beer and a boombox pumping out Arab pop tunes. It's got plenty of cheap whiskey and gin. It's got the open air.

It isn't much. But after 8 p.m., the place is hopping with tipsy customers stopping off for a nightcap.

"Everyone expresses themselves their own way," says Majed, a skinny 25-year-old with an easy laugh. "Some write graffiti. Some start a newspaper. We like to drink."

For decades, Saddam the dictator tortured and punished political dissidents who protested his rule. For years, Saddam the teetotaler also prevented his people from enjoying a drink in public.

Up until the 1980s, many Iraqis loved to drink. At parties, Baghdad's middle-class professionals placed a whole bottle of whiskey in front of each guest.

But after his defeat in the first Gulf War, Saddam got religion. Or so he said, reinventing himself as a devout Muslim.

Saddam started going to mosque on Fridays and sprinkling his talks with religious references. He launched a faith campaign, and in 1996 he banned drinking in all public places.

"If you were out here drinking or set up an unlicensed liquor store, you'd be arrested and jailed for at least six months," said Majed.

Of course, Saddam couldn't go too far. His oldest son Uday was a nasty and violent drunk. For fun, he got sloshed and fired off assault rifles at parties.

So Saddam didn't ban booze. He just made it difficult for ordinary folks to drink outside of their homes. Liquor sales plummeted. Many in the booze and nightlife business -- mostly Iraq's Christian minority -- left the country.

With Saddam gone now, the drinking business is taking off. The U.S. occupation force won't let Iraq impose customs on imports, so liquor is cheap and sales are way up.

Behnam Ishar, a Christian who runs a liquor store in the fancy Karada section of town, says sales have grown 10-fold in the post-Saddam era.

Not everyone is delighted that Iraqis have rediscovered booze. Sitting cross-legged in his mosque, Mullah Mohamed Baqi Mostafa al Bayati recounts the evils of alcohol. He condemns the sharp increase in drinking among the young, saying it will lead to anarchy.