BAGHDAD, Dec. 17 - Wedding night is underway, the public fountains are on, school is in session and, so far, the electricity works. The day after joint U.S. and British air raids sent a barrage of cruise missiles into Iraq, the country's capital went about its business without missing a stride.

Traffic along main city thoroughfares was lighter than usual for a weekend night, though by sundown carloads of newlyweds rode honking through the city, seemingly oblivious to the fact that another round of strikes was planned for their honeymoon night. Air raid sirens howled several times during the day, but by 9 p.m. there had been no sign of further U.S. military action.

So far, damage to the city has been light. None of the major landmarks, government buildings or communications towers in the center of town have sustained any obvious damage.

Iraqi officials are refusing to discuss casualty numbers from the bombing campaign, which began just before Thursday in response to what the U.S. and Britian say was Iraq's refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

So far, however, the strikes appear to have been focused elsewhere in Iraq; government officials overseeing the foreign press gathered here had little more dramatic to show so far in Baghdad than a giant hole in Karada Street, and, at a second site, a house whose windows were blown out and doors damaged by an explosion of some sort.

Neither damage scene seemed compatible with the force of a cruise missile, but residents along Karada Street and the owner of the house at the other site said that bombs of some sort definitely detonated in their neigborhoods.

"What did I do to America?" said Jassim Zuweiby, lying in a bed a Yarmouk Hospital in west Baghdad, his head bandaged from injuried in the explosion at his home. The incident seriously injured one of his four children, and Zuweiby said he was at a loss to explain why this is happening.

"During eight years we have given everything to UNSCOM," Zuweiby said, referring to the United Nations special weapons commission, whose issuance of a critical report of the Baghdad government earlier this week triggered the air strike. "Ask (President) Saddam Hussein to take revenge for me. I hate the government of the United States.

Iraqi officials were also reporting late Thursday afternoon that the air strike had destroyed a rice warehoues in Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit, and also that a stray bomb targeted at the southern city of Basra had exploded on Iranian soil.

At a press conference Thursday night, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Sahaf echoed the sentiments of the wounded man, contending that the U.S. response was far out of proportion to the problems that had developed between Iraq and the weapons inspection team.

In its report earlier in the week to the United Nations Security Council, UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler concluded that, by refusing access to building that like headquarters of the ruling Ba'ath Party, Iraq was keeping the commision from finishing the job it was delegated at the end of the Persian Gulf War. After the conflict ended, the commission was established to oversee the dismantling of Iraq's chemical, nuclear and biological weapons programs.

Since Iraq readmitted inspectors after a similar crisis last month, "the operated 427 inspections to 427 sites," Sahaf said. "There was non-cooperation in five cases...Because we are not working on Friday, we deserve bombardment," Sahaf said, referring to disputed inspections that UNSCOM wanted to hold on the Muslim day of prayer.

Calling Clinton a "corrupt, dissoluted and spasmodic ruler," Sahaf would not discuss casualty figures. However he did sarcastically list sites targeted in the first night of bombing, claiming they produce no results in terms of the disarmament goals the U.S. an Britain say they are enforcing.

They included, he said, the home of Saddam Hussein's daughter Hala - she and her family were not injured - as well as several buildings that Sahaf said were already under strict United Nations monitoring.

The list is likely to grow, perhaps substantially, by morning. Reports from the United States indicated that raids this evening will likely focus on targets in Baghdad, and involve B-52 and other aircraft.

If the outcome is anything like what happened with the initial, more limited attack, then Dr. Ali Gazala said he wants no part of it.

Acting director of Yarmouk Hospital, he said the areas around his hospital suffered 14 dead and 35 wounded, including what he said was a 13 year old boy killed by shrapnel while sitting on his front stoop. Residents of the Al Jihad neighborhood where the death occurred could not immediately verify that an explosion of any sort had occurred in their area.

"The casualty room was full and there was a lot of blood," he said.

On Karada Street, city workers late Thursday afternoon were still working to cap a gushing water pipe so they could drain and begin repairing a roughly eight meter deep hole in the road, a thoroughfare for one of Baghdad's more prosperous neighborhoods.

On a mound of mud beside it, residents gathered to watch the show. Ali Jooad surveyed the work as well from the center of what used to be his house.

An aging structure, it collapsed after the blast, though the structures and windows of neighboring buildings were not damaged. A cigarette vendor, a security guard and a third person were slightly injured, residents said.

"Down America," said Ammar Meki, 16, the only one to utter an other than welcoming word among a group of several dozen Iraqis who gathered around two U.S. journalists at the scene.

"Clinton does not like the Iraqi nation."