Though many aid workers were turned back, others were allowed to stay. Iranians were becoming angrier by the day as the mullahs arrogantly refused help from countries like Israel. A cab driver in Tehran was heard saying: "What nerve these mullahs have to turn away aid offered by the Israelis...those poor people over there are constantly dealing with those suicide bombers, who are probably financed by the clerics of the Islamic republic of Iran, and yet they are kind enough to offer us their aid and these audacious zealots over here threaten to attack them!"

Though the European aid workers are treated with respect, they also receive a great deal of aloofness. The arrival of a U.S. colonel and his aides in Hercules C130 military transport planes, however, proved to be a raging success. Iranians had gathered in the Kerman airport to greet them with arms full of flowers, shouting, "AMRIKAAYEE...KHOSH AMADEE" (American, you're welcome). Iranians hugged them and hung on to them as if their "saviors" had come. Departing Americans were met with pleas from the crowd, begging them to stay. One of the American aid workers involved said that she was shocked and deeply moved to receive such a reception.

Khatami and Khamenei's visits to Bam, however, lasted no more than a scant hour each. Though they were surrounded by "walls" of bodyguards, they could not be shielded from harangues and insults hurled at them...