A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (26 page)
Read A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal Online
Authors: Asne Seierstad,Ingrid Christophersen
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Editors; Journalists; Publishers, #History, #Military, #Iraq War (2003-2011), #Language Arts & Disciplines, #Journalism, #Social Science, #Customs & Traditions, #Sociology
BOOK: A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal
9.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
The desk is bolted to the wall and cannot be moved; the bed is already some distance from the window. Barbara Cartland is nowhere to be found, nor her make-up box. The advice about enough sleep and minimising mental strain comes from another world. The protection gear and mask are by the bed but I don’t have the strength to carry them with me everywhere. I hope I am acting upon the advice about keeping my thoughts clear; in fact I make myself believe that my thoughts are crystal clear. The strain invigorates me, I am super-concentrated. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, yet I’m working twenty hours a day. I don’t feel myself; I’m writing, reporting, recounting. I am aware of everything, don’t trouble yourself, dear editor.
Amir has a friend called Abbas. He looks like a beach bum: sleek brushed-back hair, tight jeans, cap and colourful T-shirt. Like Amir, Abbas drives for foreign journalists. In contrast to Amir, Abbas is quick and fearless, at least that is what he says. While Amir never utters a word against the regime, Abbas is more outspoken.
- We live in a prison, he will say to someone he trusts. - We are being slowly suffocated.
Abbas looks back with nostalgia to the years when he could travel, had money and lived the good life. - This life is the dregs.
But Abbas is not one to mope. He is full of good humour and his one care in life seems to be how to keep the various girlfriends from each other and not least from his wife. He describes in detail how he gives one presents, invites another to the park, disentangles birthdays, and during missile attacks attempts to render a little extra solicitude to all.
- But not in the western way, he insists, as if it is clear to all what ‘the western way’ is. - I just give presents and maybe we kiss. They’re not really girlfriends, but friends.
I envy Pascal, who is working with Abbas. He does what few drivers do - he supplies Pascal with stories.
One afternoon Pascal knocks excitedly on my door.
- I have come across a deserter, he says when he is well inside.
Abbas had taken him to his relatives’ house. They were talking about this and that, food supplies, targets bombed, the weather. A young man entered the room and sat down. Pascal asked him where he was from.
- Hillah, he answered.
- Hillah? What was the fighting like there?
- We had no chance. We had no will. I left.
- Left?
- I ran. No one fired, no one pursued me. Here I am.
- He has deserted, Abbas explained. - Deserted!
Pascal has a scoop. No one else has met a deserter; most of us have hardly met anyone at all. We are limited to controlled interviews with tea vendors and tea drinkers, battery vendors and battery buyers, people in bread queues, people who sell bread. It is all the same - Baghdad on the surface. A surface that keeps its secrets.
One evening Pascal tells me Abbas’ story.
- He used to be high up in military intelligence. He worked for the regime, but increasingly had doubts about it. He kept his thoughts to himself, but as he saw through the cruel oppression, he started to talk to his nearest and dearest. One of his girlfriends worked in the same office. After a while he got tired of her and wanted to get out of the relationship. She begged for just one more night. The next morning he was arrested. She had placed a microphone in the bed. The girlfriend had tried to get him to criticise the regime, and in spite of not having said much he was imprisoned for four years. Had he been more talkative that evening he would not be here now. When he got out he had lost his job in intelligence. He started driving. But no one must know this, not until Saddam has gone; not even Amir.
One day Pascal lends me Abbas because Amir is visiting his family. I find him crying in the car. Suspecting the worst, I get in. Has someone in his family been struck by the night’s bombs?
- My best friend returned from the front in Najaf yesterday, Abbas sobs. - Dead. We buried him yesterday afternoon. He left a wife and three small children.
Hamid was the commander of a detachment at the Najaf front, 200 kilometres south of Baghdad. Abbas knew nothing about how his friend was killed, just that he had met death in the desert.
- He was like a brother to me. We grew up in the same street, did everything together. We got drafted to the military together, served together. Now he’s gone, Abbas cries.
- Hamid is already a martyr, he says bitterly. - I might be the next one.
- You?
- If the Americans come, I’ll fight too. I’ll never ever let them take Baghdad. Pascal will have to find himself another driver.
The previous day Amir had told me: - If the Americans attack Baghdad I can no longer drive for you.
- OK, I said, thinking he would be hiding in his mother’s house.
- If they do I must defend my country. My brother has already enlisted and this afternoon I’m going to the Baath Party to collect a weapon.
- You must do what you have to do, I answered.
- They said their targets would be military. Since when was a pregnant woman a military target?
An increasing number of Iraqis talk about taking up arms should the Americans capture the town. The propaganda is doing its work: it is the duty of every citizen to fight for their fatherland. But is that the reason for Abbas’ and Amir’s sudden patriotism? Or has the press centre ordered all drivers to tell us they desire martyrdom? Is Kadim behind it all?
Knowing what Pascal told me about Abbas, I find it difficult to picture him fighting for Saddam.
I have never liked the Ministry of Information; now I hate it. I loathe walking into the building, or up onto the roof to send my TV reports. Invariably the recordings are interrupted by planes overhead. Then we rush down the stairs and stand waiting in the car park until the planes disappear. As if that were safer. When I use my phone I keep to the edge of the car park, as far from the buildings as possible, but within the official area, in order not to break the rules. TV transmissions are made in the daytime as no one wants to remain near one of the Americans’ main targets in the evening.
Despite my dislike of the Ministry, I am obliged to come. The press briefings take place here; the compulsory bus trips depart from here. One day we are gathered for a briefing on the first floor, we hear the sound of low-flying planes. A huge boom reverberates close by. Broken glass tinkles, followed by a screech and yet another boom. People plunge headlong out of the building, certain that another missile will strike at any moment. As usual I have set up my phone outside and the thought rushes through my head: Do I leave it?
No, I can’t leave my phone. As people run past me I hastily pack the cables, the phone and the aerial. The planes whine above us, we can hear the bombs dropping. I close the equipment bag and make a dash for it.
Amir is waiting with the engine running; Aliya is already in the car. I throw the phone into the boot. Amir puts his foot down and we are off, away, away from this awful place where bombs fall one after the other. I decide never to return as long as the war goes on.
That evening the Americans drop a large bomb on the Ministry. The anti-aircraft defences on the roof and the minister’s office are both hit. The top floors catch fire. According to rumours, al-Sahhaf himself was in his office when the attacks started. He got out unscathed but fear got hold of him. Next morning a notice proclaims that the press centre has moved - to the Hotel Palestine. From now on we will be able to use our satellite telephones from our own rooms. What a relief! No more rising at the crack of dawn, connecting the phone in the dusty car park, transmitting outdoors. No more playing the hero during live broadcasts, scouting for approaching planes.
Uday, Kadim and Mohsen move into the empty offices of Iraqi Airways. Three gruff men sit outside at a table bearing a piece of cardboard with the words Press Centre, and an image of a hand pointing towards the door at the back. The men fiddle with long lists in Arabic, drink tea and smoke. God knows what is on their lists.
- We’ll arouse suspicion, says Amir. - It’s not a good idea to drive around the same streets too long.
There is a man I want to find. I have searched all the monasteries but didn’t find him. He gave me the name of a monastery but no one knows its whereabouts, or they won’t tell me. Having driven round in circles in Karada, Baghdad’s Christian district, Amir gets nervous. I insist on continuing the search. We knock on doors and ask but no one has heard of St Anne’s. In a church a man gives us directions. A blue gate, he says, but we never find it.
- Someone is following us, Amir gasps suddenly. A black car really is driving behind us through the narrow lanes. We hotfoot it back to the main road. The car follows us right back to the parking lot in front of the hotel, where it passes us slowly.
- Hell, they got my number. As soon as they spotted your blonde hair they’d have been interested. They’ll think we’re looking for something we shouldn’t be looking for. I saw the militia observing us. I wanted to turn round but you were so keen on finding this priest. Sorry, you won’t get me back there again.
Baghdad is drenched in fear. Everyone is watching everybody else. The ruling elite are also fearful, of being annihilated by the Americans, imprisoned and humiliated in front of their subjects.
I return to the hotel, disappointed at not having found Father Albert. As I pass through the glass doors Kadim’s voice sounds over the loudspeaker: ‘Press conference with the Defence Minister. Take your seats immediately.’
It would not hurt to hear what the Defence Minister has to say. Anyway, it’s time to show my face to Uday and Kadim. I am an infrequent audience at the daily briefings, and am forever being hauled over the coals by Kadim.
From reception into the auditorium the soldiers stand to attention, in two lines, rifles at the ready. I sit down directly in front of Kadim.
- Did you watch Saddam? Antonia asks. I shake my head, while the well-informed RTL correspondent brings me up to date. Nothing earth shattering. What is sensational is the fact that the man can actually deliver speeches on this, the seventh day of the war. In spite of American efforts to stop Iraqi newscasts, they keep on broadcasting. The Iraqis have several mobile TV transmitters, their whereabouts unknown to the Americans. Every day, whether a new recording or a re-release, the president pops up on screen. He talks of heroic battles and the need to stand together. He charges every Iraqi with the responsibility of defending the country.
- Do not wait for orders, take the initiative yourselves if you are attacked, or whenever the enemy draws near, he says.
- Those sandbags on the street corners, is that what they should throw at the Americans? Antonia laughs. She is a fascinating woman. Come sandstorm, rain, wind or bomb attacks, she always looks as though she has walked straight out of a shampoo advert. She is one of Germany’s most popular TV journalists and is nicknamed ‘Correspondent Lionheart’ for her quick-witted and engaging reports. Owing to RTL’s tight schedule she does not have much time to walk around and engage people in conversation. When we meet in the evenings I relay the mood of the town and she updates me on the news front.
After a forty minute wait the Minister of Defence rolls into the auditorium. He is the fattest Iraqi I have ever seen. The place is teeming with soldiers, some watching the doors, others watching us. The Kalashnikovs are cocked.
The minister’s voice booms across the auditorium.
- The enemy tried to surround Najaf yesterday, Sultan Hashim Ahmed starts. - Their lines were broken, however, by our attack, and they retreated to the desert with heavy losses.
I remembered Hamid who fell near Najaf. Would he be remembered? Or his fellow soldiers? No, according to the fat man in the green uniform it was the Americans who suffered heavy losses.
Hamid might get a grave in Baghdad but he will not figure in any death statistics. They do not exist, not now, not during the last Gulf War. The authorities never report military defeats, just victories. ‘The Iraqis continue their heroic jihad against the invading powers,’
al-Thawra
had written this morning. The reports of Iraqis pushing American and British troops back are spiced up with details: ‘One helicopter, eleven tanks, twelve armoured personnel carriers, two unmanned planes were rendered harmless. We caused the enemy heavy losses, a large number of dead and wounded lay on the battlefield. Their forces are in shock and chaos thanks to our intrepid soldiers.’ Not a single line about the thousand soldiers allegedly killed by the Americans in the desert during the battle for Najaf. They, like Hamid, are only remembered and mourned by their relatives and friends.
al-Thawra
had written this morning. The reports of Iraqis pushing American and British troops back are spiced up with details: ‘One helicopter, eleven tanks, twelve armoured personnel carriers, two unmanned planes were rendered harmless. We caused the enemy heavy losses, a large number of dead and wounded lay on the battlefield. Their forces are in shock and chaos thanks to our intrepid soldiers.’ Not a single line about the thousand soldiers allegedly killed by the Americans in the desert during the battle for Najaf. They, like Hamid, are only remembered and mourned by their relatives and friends.
Other books
Death of a Darklord by Laurell K. Hamilton
A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner
The Tooth Fairy by Joyce, Graham
Letters to Penthouse XXXVI by Penthouse International
Chasing Tinsel (Miranda Vaughn Mysteries) by Ellie Ashe
Edge of Time by Susan M. MacDonald
The Ooze by R.L. Stine
Ice by Lyn Gardner
Dusk by Ashanti Luke
B00B15Z1P2 EBOK by Kollar, Larry
