by Anne Garrels
Antoon used to import paint cans. That’s simply too expensive now, so he’s taken to making his own. An educated man who is proud of what he’s achieved, he shows how his workers recycle old oil barrels, turning them into shiny containers for his paint. I turn off the tape recorder, hoping that Antoon will open up a little, and he does. He warns that there could be a backlash if the precarious gains of recent years are destroyed by a U.S. war. He says that young people are frustrated with no jobs, no income, and no way to start lives of their own. He warns that these young people, who have grown up knowing only war and sanctions, feel they have been condemned to isolation by the United States. This, he cautions, will be the generation the West will have to face. While Iraqis blame Saddam for their problems, they also blame the West.
Antoon speaks quickly, looking to see who’s listening. It’s complicated, he says. He thinks it’s much better for the Iraqis to deal with Saddam than for the United States to try to force him out. If left alone, he suggests, Iraqis will get rid of Saddam in as little as a year. Sa’ad appears and the conversation reverts to talk of paint cans.
Iraq’s private industrial sector has always been small, but to buy loyalty and to reward cronies Saddam has given the private sector more freedom to operate than in the past. He also uses the private sector to smuggle in goods so that shops can provide Iraqis with at least some of what they need, and at first glance I have to say they seem pretty well stocked. But the right to do business remains under Saddam’s control, and he takes his cut.
Next stop—an interview with private businessman Faris al-Hadi, who has a government-approved license to import household appliances. Until the ’90s, the government had retained a monopoly. Now, to skirt the sanctions, there are lots of private suppliers, and al-Hadi is one of the most successful.
Al-Hadi readily admits he resorts to smuggling with the full knowledge of the government. He won’t discuss the payoffs involved. Just about everything he brings in is outside the purview of the UN sanctions committee, and some items like microwave ovens are banned outright by the UN because someone on the sanctions committee thinks they have a military application. This is a risky business. There’s no way to insure illegal shipments, which arrive in leaky vessels from somewhere in the Gulf. One of his boats recently went up in flames and with it $60,000 in videocassettes. With the prospect of a possible war, al-Hadi says he’s put all shipments on hold. He’s dumping his current stock of television sets at below cost to avoid bigger losses later on, should the United States bomb.
What al-Hadi doesn’t say is as revealing as what he does. He does not offer fulsome praise for Saddam or his government, though he does hazard the opinion that weapons of mass destruction are not the key issue for the United States. Oil is, he says firmly, and he believes the United States will press for war regardless of what weapons inspectors might find.
OCTOBER 28, 2002
In his off hours, Amer disappears into the Al-Rashid’s Internet café, which piques my curiosity. Inside Iraq there are no cell phones, no instant messaging, and definitely no private e-mail accounts, but, nevertheless, the Internet has finally arrived. After long resisting, Saddam’s regime has cautiously allowed Internet access and the window it provides to the rest of the world, and it is now struggling to control the uncontrollable. In the late ’80s, the spread of fax machines emboldened and connected student protestors in China, and the fax helped undermine the coup-plotters who eventually tried to overthrow Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. What the flurry of faxes once did in those places, the Internet might do here.
Most in Iraq still get their information the old-fashioned way: in the absence of foreign newspapers and magazines, they search for uncensored news on scratchy broadcasts from the BBC, Radio Monte Carlo, or the Voice of America. When Sa’ad isn’t in the car, Amer is continually flipping stations for some “real news.” The Iraqis regularly jam VOA’s newest Arabic language service, called Radio Sawa, forcing it to jump frequencies and Amer to scan the dial for the latest position, but for a growing number of people, including Amer, the Internet is a growing addiction.
Though it’s run by the Iraqi Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the mundane scene in one of the nineteen Internet cafés in Baghdad represents a quiet revolution. Portraits of President Saddam Hussein act as screen-savers, but with the click of a button he disappears and you enter another psychic space.
The regime first permitted Internet access for government ministries a few years ago, but its lack of trust in its people, and the free flow of information, was evident. Back then, even high-ranking officials weren’t allowed to send e-mails from their desks. They had to take them to a central clearing office. The first e-mail center for the public opened in early 2000. This year, somewhat amazingly, they added Internet service, and now Iraqi universities are beginning to hook up. Access is so popular, and lines so long, that students are restricted to two hours a week. Recently the government took another major step, permitting some citizens to have Internet connections at home. At a little over $30 a month, this is much too costly for most, but where there are Internet cafés Iraqis can send e-mails and surf the subversive Web for just 50 cents an hour, and most seem happy to pay.
There are limits. The connections are slow because of poor phone lines, and when Iraqis try to access private e-mail boxes such as Yahoo! or Hotmail, they’re greeted with a blunt message: ACCESS DENIED. Everything is supposed to go through Uruklink.net, the government-controlled service provider monitored by Saddam’s agents. Sometimes, Amer says, it takes quite a while for e-mails to come through, which reinforces suspicions that the government is reading the messages first. Iraqis are cautious about what they say in their messages, and they develop elaborate codes, but Amer describes ways to circumvent restrictions by sending e-mails through other Web sites, and there are talented Iraqi hackers. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse for a sophisticated totalitarian regime for whom information is at once necessary and feared.
Mohammad, a university student, shows me how he can get to just about any news site on this particular night, but he says that if there’s aggressive news about Iraq you might find some of the sites suddenly blocked. And porn sites are always inaccessible.
As I look over their shoulders, I can see two students from Saddam University looking for information on lasers. They glance at me nervously, since lasers are such a sensitive subject for those trying to impede Iraq’s weapons programs. I suspect they don’t want me to see what they are accessing. They quickly point out that, while a lot of information is available for free on the Internet, they can often access only abstracts. To get an entire article they have to pay, but because of sanctions they don’t have credit cards. Money, they say, is the problem.
Amer says he regularly uses the Internet to communicate with an Austrian company for whom he’s become the local rep. He is helping them bid on contracts for water-treatment plants. Now I know what all those folders are in the trunk of his car. He says we will be able to communicate by e-mail when I’m outside Iraq, but once again he warns me to be careful about what I say or write.
A code has already developed between us. It started when we were passing the zoo. Amer mentioned that Saddam’s elder son Uday has a passion for tigers, walking down the street with them like some might walk their dogs. “Tigers” is now our password for Saddam and his circle. We have begun to trust each other in a society where no one trusts anyone. It’s a gamble we both seem to be taking.
I’ve barely arrived, but it’s already time to apply for the dreaded visa extension. Journalists come into the country with visas that last only ten days, giving the Information Ministry firm control over its flock. By now I’ve been let into the secrets of bribes, sycophancy, and groveling. Some reporters submit copies of their stories to show how friendly they are. Others buy officials expensive gifts. Some order lunch or dinner to be delivered to officials in their offices. I have given one ministry official a nice tie, but I have so far f
ailed to make any impression at all on the super-keeper, Uday al-Tae. He is the director general of the Information Ministry and the man who ultimately decides our fate. He is in his early fifties and once worked at the Iraqi embassy in Paris, where he reportedly ran a network of Iraqi agents in Western Europe. Eventually he was expelled from France, but he still loves to show off his French, and he has an eye for French women that hasn’t done me one bit of good. He is cutting back on the number of journalists currently in Baghdad, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be staying on. NPR, for better or worse, is not on his radar screen.
OCTOBER 31, 2002
President Bush used a campaign swing through South Dakota today to issue another in what have become almost daily warnings to the United Nations: “Do the right thing,” he said, “and force Iraq to disarm now.” He warned that if the UN won’t act and if Saddam Hussein won’t disarm, the United States will lead a coalition of nations to disarm him.
Iraqis say they hope their government will readmit the UN inspectors to avoid a military confrontation, but they also ask why the United States is pressing this issue now. And people in Baghdad seem gripped not by the uncertain future, about which they can do little, but by nostalgia for a great proud past which gave rise to the legends of The Thousand and One Nights.
I drop in on an elderly barber on Al-Rashid Street, the heart of what passes for old Baghdad. If the Americans bomb this area, Ikmat al-Hella says, they will take away the city’s memory. He’s a tiny man who sports a frayed shirt, ancient pinstriped trousers, and suspenders. He speaks a little English, and a friend of his speaks a little more. At seventy-nine he’s too old to be frightened. He recalls Baghdad in the ’30s and ’40s when it was little more than a small town. He regales me with reminiscences of the British occupation and Iraq’s brief fling with a monarchy, when he used to clip the beard of King Faisal until Faisal was killed in a military coup in 1958. Ikmat talks about the golden age of the ’70s, when newfound oil wealth propelled Iraq into the forefront of the Arab world and he would dance until dawn in the city’s nightclubs and risqué cabarets. He’s hardly the picture of a lady-killer, but you wouldn’t know that listening to his tales. A monarchist at heart, he says, “Revolution, revolution after revolution have brought us to destruction.”
Many of Iraq’s best and brightest have fled the country. It’s estimated that three to four million now live overseas, not an insignificant proportion of a population that is somewhere about 25 million. Once out of the country, they suffer the fate of so many exiles in so many other countries. They are dismissed at home by those who have had to stay and suffer. When I ask around about the exiled politicians and groups the United States is trying to back, Iraqis show little interest and even less support.
After my solitary walk, I hook up with Sa’ad to go to nearby Babylon, once the site of the Hanging Gardens, one of the eight wonders of the ancient world. It is now an archaeological travesty. It’s been reconstructed to look like a theme park. There are, however, still some raw ruins nearby where laborers continue to excavate Iraq’s glorious past for a mere $3 a month. One of Saddam’s many new palaces looms in the background. It’s forbidden to take a tourist snap of the site if the palace is in the frame, which pretty much eliminates all photography. Even with Sa’ad in attendance, or because of Sa’ad, an archaeologist refuses to speak. He is embarrassed and comes up later to apologize. He speaks good English and says, “It’s just better to be silent.” All in all, the trip is pretty much a bust.
Later, in a smoky Baghdad teahouse, patrons throw dice on backgammon boards. “War,” they say nonchalantly, “we’re used to it.” A combination of bravado and resignation is easily found here, but a couple of men take advantage of Sa’ad’s momentary absence to convey through furtive glances and knowing looks that they are eager for change. One man says, “It’s oil that got us into all this trouble.” He says oil is driving U.S. policy. “Oil is our blessing and our curse.” Despite being an American, I am warmly welcomed, with one old fellow grinning and saying, “I’m lucky to meet you,” as he tosses the dice.
A retired schoolteacher suggests that President Bush is making the situation worse for Iraqis by threatening to invade. “U.S. pressure is merely uniting the country and making Saddam more popular among the people,” he says. This seemingly safe comment is accompanied by a shake of the head as if to add, “Don’t you get it?”
In my constant search for string with which to weave some kind of story, we head out to the English Language Department at Baghdad’s Mustansariyeh University, where I fall into conversation with a charming forty-one-year-old man. A jeweller, with a passion for learning English, he’s attending night classes. He hints at a wasted life and unfulfilled dreams. He spent ten years at the front, first during the Iran-Iraq war, and then in Kuwait. He was captured by the Americans, who, he says, treated him very well—a treasonous remark. He says he never married because of the wars. Now, by studying English, he’s hoping to rebuild a shattered life. He wants to travel abroad but dares not say where. “Please don’t embarrass me,” he says as I push the issue, “please don’t embarrass me.” In other words, don’t get me into trouble by making me say more than I already have said.
The surreal nature of conversations here, monitored or otherwise, becomes painfully clear at the Iraqi Women’s Federation. I am trying to get at what has happened to Iraq’s middle class. Many middle-class women come here for computer training so they can help supplement their families’ dwindling income. One woman, who is loath to give her name, says she is learning Excel because “Life is too hard, too hard.” I ask what her husband does, and she answers, “Oh, what he can.” Later Sa’ad confesses he knows this woman very well. Her husband is one of the prisoners Saddam recently released. He had been held for eight years, accused of spying for Germany. “Doing what you can” suddenly takes on a different meaning.
BRENDA BULLETIN: OCTOBER 31, 2002
Dear All,
Twenty or so years ago a writer/journalist’s friend spent a number of weeks with me here in Norfolk. During the day, we laconically collaborated on a book, The Seven Deadly Sins Today. I tried to put pictures to his eloquent if idiosyncratic update of “The Big Seven.” Henry claimed intimacy with several—Pride, Anger, and Lust. Gluttony for him was more or less confined to alcohol. Envy and Avarice he tasted only fleetingly. Sloth was anathema. My box score on the subject remains classified. At night, when work was done for the day, the bottle of Scotch would come out and the talk would begin.
What Brenda is going through in Iraq at the moment brought back one particular conversation Henry and I had very late one night all those years ago. Most journalists, he maintained—and he could be harsh on his own profession—are little more than collectors of beads. They go through life searching for the gaudiest, the sexiest, the most colorful beads they can find without much thought as to how they relate to one another. They sweep them up, pop them in their sack, and move on. Good journalists, on the other hand, he insisted, have a string of a story onto which they thread the beads they choose. And the choice of any new bead must expand upon or inform the beads already on the string. So the choice may not be the most eye-catching bauble but one that connects and fits and fills out. Getting the string thing right is hard enough; finding that elusive illuminating bead can be even more difficult.
Brenda has two strings working; the effects of the embargo on the Iraqi population and the mad despotism of Saddam. To get to the first, she has to go through the second. The beads she finds are so encrusted with thirty years of suspicion and oppression that she never quite knows what she has found. It is maddening work.
V
NOVEMBER 1, 2002
Amer is late arriving at the hotel. His car was sideswiped by a government official’s car. Though it was the official’s fault, he can do nothing. He is furious at his impotence. “I know my rights,” he spits out sarcastically. Sa’ad appears, cutting short his invectives. He’s wearing a garish but very expensi
ve plaid wool-and-silk sports jacket with a perfectly matched sportshirt. I can’t help but think I am paying for all this.
Today’s program starts with a return visit to a woman who had struck my fancy during an earlier interview. Forty-one-year-old Huda al-Neamy is a professor of political science, one of many educated middle-class Iraqis struggling to maintain dignity and a semblance of past prosperity on a salary of $15 dollars a month.
I had first seen Huda in her office but was anxious to fill out the portrait by visiting her at home, which in today’s Iraq is not always easy. Luckily, she agreed. The tiles in the living-room floor have buckled, but there’s no money for repairs. Her husband, a former army officer, has left the military, where he could no longer make a decent living, to open up a small convenience store. As she lights up one cigarette after another, Huda says she’s weary of a situation from which she sees no exit. She yearns for a normal life that has eluded her for twenty years. But while she cautiously suggests that Iraq may have made mistakes by launching wars against its neighbors she says the U.S. treatment of the Iraqis is unjustified.
While Israel is allowed to flout UN resolutions, she says, Iraq is not. And the Bush administration’s failure to threaten tough actions against North Korea for its nuclear-weapons program reinforces her belief that the real American objectives in Iraq are oil, support for Israel, and domination of the region. The thought of a war in which Iraq could be dismembered or dissolve into ethnic and religious conflicts makes her shudder. She warns that “it would be a terrible mistake.”
In honor of Palestinians and their unfulfilled aspirations, she named her third and last child Quds, which means “Jerusalem” in Arabic. Now eleven, Quds says she identifies with Palestinian children who, she says, are suffering unjustly just as she is.
