Naked in Baghdad

by Anne Garrels

  And I certainly did not expect to be covering war after war. When I began all this I was covering the Cold War, where I didn’t see the heat of battle. True, the KGB roughed me up on a couple of occasions, but reporting out of Moscow in the early ’70s and ’80s was more a battle of wits. I tried to show how the Soviet regime was corrupted and rotten; the Soviets officials tried to stop me. Eventually they expelled me for my efforts, and I thought I would never be allowed back again. Poor Vint. When we married I was what he fondly called a “TV tart” who made lots of money from the safety of Washington. When I asked him if he would go back with me to the Soviet Union if the Russians ever let me in, he readily promised. There was little likelihood he would ever have to fulfill the pledge.

  But the unthinkable happened. I joined NPR, and the Soviet Union fell apart and I was allowed back, and since then wars seem to have become my metier as conflicts have erupted in places no one had heard of before: Georgia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Inadvertently, I became “good” at covering these kinds of situations. And since 9/11 I’ve spent months in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the West Bank. Now it’s Iraq.

  My secret weapon is Vint. He’s gone along with this, and the long absences, and given me the security of home and family. When Amer and I grab a few minutes to talk in the parking lot, away from his Japanese and my minder, he keeps asking me how my husband puts up with my work. I tell him we met as grown-ups. Amer has never been outside Iraq, or outside its confines of tradition and family, which are at once alluring and stifling. He is intrigued by my relationship to Vint, which is like nothing he’s ever seen. He confesses he is wrestling with an unhappy marriage, but for the sake of his children, he says, divorce is out of the question.

  DECEMBER 11, 2002

  UN inspection visits are now up to thirteen per day. It’s impossible to know in advance where and how far afield the inspectors will go. Reporters who attached themselves to one convoy ended up driving for what seemed like an interminable six hours until they reached an installation close to the Syrian border. The most interesting are the teams looking for chemical and biological weapons. Amer has figured out who’s who by watching the license plates and advises me which teams to follow. “I’m a professional,” he states simply.

  On my first trip, Sa’ad was quite efficient at arranging interviews with a lot of the people I wanted to see, but this time he is merely recycling the same stories. His greed knows no bounds, and our relations are deteriorating. And we have a new problem. He turned up in my hotel room (he has no problem with the guards outside), ostensibly to discuss the next day’s program, and then began complimenting me on how smart and energetic I am. Then he really hit home when he told me how attractive I am “for an older woman.” I rejected the come-on and ushered him out of the room. He is not pleased that I rejected his advances and is behaving like a punished puppy. However, he has not gone so far as to try to extort sex in return for his continued services. That has been tried by other minders. Another female reporter had problems with a minder down in Basra. He barged into her room, demanding she go to bed with him or he would have her thrown out of the country. She wisely turned to her driver for help. He told the minder he would turn him in if he persisted. The minder backed off, begging for forgiveness, desperate not to lose this well-paid job. I don’t want this situation to escalate to the point where I have to involve other officials and draw unwanted attention to myself. As frustrated as I am with Sa’ad, he’s still better than the other minders.

  I try to go out on my own with the driver as much as I can under the pretext that I want to buy carpets, see art (of which there is a great deal), or buy supplies. I stroll the sidewalks in Baghdad’s thriving Murad Arusafa district, where showrooms are filled with luxury cars: Land Cruisers for $40,000, top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz for a mere $72,000. The wealth enjoyed by a few can be guessed at behind the walls of the villas and mansions of Saddam’s favorites. Armani suits and designer dresses hang in the windows of shops in the Mansour neighborhood. Where the money comes from for such luxuries can only be assumed, but nothing in this society is done without Saddam’s approval.

  At the other end of the spectrum is Saddam City, the poor neighborhood on Baghdad’s outskirts, home to two million Shiite Muslims. Though I’ve repeatedly asked permission to visit this area I have been refused. We drive through without stopping, but I can see mounds of garbage and children playing in its midst. At traffic lights, war widows, the elderly, and little children come up to the car begging. Had they grown up a generation earlier, these children would have been part of Iraq’s wave of development, a campaign by the Baath Party to improve education, health care, and infrastructure. Saddam’s military ambitions and the subsequent sanctions have ended all that. Whom to blame for this? Saddam or the United States? Many Iraqis just aren’t sure.

  DECEMBER 13, 2002

  In a land filled with questions about what fresh hell the future will bring, there is at least one hideaway in the Iraqi capital offering a surprising escape. At the Ghost Music Store the sounds of the enemy are stacked ten feet high: compact discs of everyone from Elton John to Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys to West Life. Sa’ad Yusef, owner of the shop, says he likes music because it connects him to the rest of the world.

  Though he’s never set foot in the English-speaking world, forty-year-old Yusef has the language down pretty well just from listening to the music. He’s proud of his inventory, which includes pop, disco, rap, techno, and alternative rock. Demand is high from Baghdad’s urban youth but he says it’s not easy to keep the shelves stocked. It’s hard to get new material because of the UN sanctions, but he manages to smuggle it in from Jordan and Syria. The CDs are remarkably cheap—about $1.75 each. (Pity they are not my taste.) Asked how he can sell them for so little, Yusef pulls back a curtain behind the counter to reveal a five-bank digital duplicator. He counterfeits.

  He photographs the CD covers and reprints them perfectly. Though he understands that the record companies would object, he says Iraqis need these CDs now to survive. The continuing economic sanctions against Iraq have affected its cultural life in many ways. No one can remember the last time a foreign pop star performed here. The Iraqi film industry has all but disappeared, unable to develop what it shoots. By default, live theater is flourishing. Even Saddam Hussein has written a novel, later turned into a play, called Zabibah and the King. It’s a thinly veiled story of Iraq’s trials and tribulations, and it closed recently after a month-long run. Iraqis prefer comedies, lining up to see a hugely popular play called The Restless which mocks their miserable situation. More and more, though, Iraqis seek comfort in the mosques.

  Praying in the shadow of the renewed UN weapons inspections, Iraqi worshippers mouth one phrase they feel has the power to blow away the looming cloud of war: “Inshallah” (it is God’s will). Judging by mosque attendance and the number of women wearing head scarves, there has been a dramatic upsurge in religious observance. Saddam has capitalized on the religious wave. A picture of Saddam praying has recently been added to the hagiographic iconography that wallpapers the country. Though once emphatically secular, Saddam launched the so-called Faith Campaign in the ’90s to boost his legitimacy at home and in the rest of the Arab world. Saddam University for Islamic Studies in Baghdad is a product of this campaign, and Professor Muhammed al-Sayed is its president.

  Seated in his comfortable office, with my minder Sa’ad in attendance, he says the Faith Campaign has helped Iraqis withstand difficult circumstances. He believes it has also given the once strictly secular Iraqi government greater authority in combating crime and corruption, the natural results of so many years of war. And, perhaps most important, he believes that Saddam has neutralized frictions between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite sects by assuming the leadership of all Muslims here. That’s the most he will say about the Sunni-Shiite divide. What he doesn’t say is that mosques under tight state control have become another vehicle to proc
laim Saddam’s policies.

  Just in case Islam fails them, some Muslims turn to the Virgin Mary for succor. At the Armenian Orthodox Church of Mary in the old section of Baghdad, Muslim women come to pray to the Virgin. An honored figure in the Koran, she is particularly revered here for her miracles, and Iraqis need one right now.

  Twenty-nine-year-old Afrar, a Muslim, says she has great faith in Mary. She doesn’t think there is a difference between Muslims and Christians. Seated on her haunches, her hands held palm-up in Muslim tradition, she prays in front of a statue of the Virgin. She finds comfort in this church, calling it a house of God. She has turned to Mary, begging for the baby that has so far not appeared, and pleading for protection from an uncertain future.

  If all else fails, there is always alcohol to dull the pain. Iraq publishes no statistics on the subject, but according to Mr. Sabri, owner of the al-Mancal Liquor Store, drinking has followed the rising trend of anxiety in a country staggering from crisis to crisis. He offers a range of mind-numbing potions, from top-of-the-line imported whiskeys and Cognacs to locally distilled gin and whiskey. The gin, made from dates, costs a dollar. Locally produced “deluxe” whiskey is a dollar and a half. Locally produced firewater known as arak is a mere 73 cents. He says he hasn’t taken any particular precautions yet, despite the threat of war, hoping against hope that there won’t be one, but he plans to remove the most expensive items for safekeeping in the event things heat up further. A member of Iraq’s small Christian community, Sabri, unlike Muslims, is licensed to sell alcohol. Anyone, regardless of religious persuasion, can buy it. But the way it’s consumed has changed in recent years, reflecting the shift in Saddam Hussein’s policies. Since he proclaimed the Faith Campaign, drinking in public is now banned. The bars and discos that once proliferated are shut. Iraqis say these rules have cut into their fun. Drinking at home is now the norm, but it’s just not the same.

  When I get back to the Al-Rashid from a day of string-collecting, there is a wedding in full swing in one of the ballrooms. “A wedding without drink. What’s that?” asks an Iraqi guest surveying the seemingly alcohol-free festivities. Faez, who has fed and watered me so well in the restaurant, is in charge of the wedding arrangements. I’m not dressed for a wedding but before I can say no he ushers me up to the elegant bride and groom, who are seated on a dais. Once again actions speak louder than words. Here in a country where my government is threatening war, I am welcomed as an honored guest.

  DECEMBER 14, 2002

  I’ve managed to squeeze a few extra days out of Qadm, but he says I should not expect more. It’s getting on to three weeks since I’ve been home and I’m frankly not all that sorry that I have to leave. I’ve done about as much as I can for now and I might as well conserve my energy, since this is likely to get a lot worse. I go through the usual exit preparations but this time all the flights are booked up and I can’t get a plane ticket out. Lorenzo and I decide to hire a car and drive to Jordan. When we get to the border, there’s the usual two-hour wait as officials check the car, equipment, and documents. Suddenly, though, it appears we have to have an AIDS test because we’ve been in the country more than ten days. Why you have to have a test as you leave Iraq seems to defy reason, but officials are demanding $200 for the test, and are actually threatening to give us one. The thought of someone sticking me with a potentially dirty needle is not appealing. As I try to figure out how to get out of this I read the handwritten poster on the wall detailing the elaborate exit instructions for foreigners. The key paragraph is midway through. Women over the age of fifty and men over the age of sixty are not required to have the AIDS test. The clear implication is that women over fifty don’t have sex. Whatever; I produce my passport to show them how old I am, and the crestfallen officials, seeing their income diminish, grudgingly let me pass. Poor Lorenzo, however, still a sexually active forty-five, has to pay up. At least he persuades them to forgo the actual test.

  BRENDA BULLETIN: DECEMBER 17, 2003

  And cheers to you all …

  Brenda, our Eagle of the East, alit last night in the gentle snows of Norfolk some thirty hours after leaving Baghdad. Her plumage is a bit bedraggled, her pintail feathers awry, but homing instinct and humor are intact. In spite of all, she is still one good-looking bird.

  For the past three weeks her home away from home has been the Al-Rashid Hotel, made famous by CNN’s play-by-play during the first Iraqi War. It is bugged and overstaffed with clumsy security personnel and Brenda’s belongings were combed daily. But then, as an almost solicitous afterthought, her door was carefully double-bolted so that no one else, including herself, could reopen it without a special key. She found it amusing if disconcerting to be greeted warmly by her first name by any number of the Iraqi staff whom she had never met.

  “Sucking air” is a venerable if somewhat inelegant term to describe the journalistic talent of filling minutes of air time without the support of discernable facts. Brenda sucked a great deal of air in the last two weeks but, as those of you who heard her know, no one does it better. The feeling of the city had changed in the few weeks she had been away from one of defiant nationalism to one of apathetic depression. The people she saw were now tired and resigned. Through gesture and body language, the people of Baghdad conveyed to her the hope that whatever is coming will be short and accurate.

  There were two light moments when she left the gloom of impending war. She drove out of the country toward Amman in the company of an experienced Italian journalist whom she had met and befriended in Afghanistan. This gentleman knew how to travel and had a rather more elaborate kit than Brenda’s utilitarian bag. Settling in for the long drive, he dug out two quite exquisitely scented baby pillows and something resembling a silk sleeping bag. And then upon reaching the border, she had yet another reminder that she is something of an odd duck in an odd world. There at the crossing was a large sign in fractured English: “Deer Pasingars, All people must have AIDS test except men over 60 and women over 50.”

  Well, this old geezer is happy to have his crone home.

  V

  BRENDA BULLETIN: JANUARY 20, 2003

  Well, here we go again.

  Brenda cruised into Kuwait City today after a disagreeable twelve-hour flight on Kuwaiti Air. The airline, like virtually the entire country, has turned over the actual running of it to other nationalities. The polyglot crew seemed determined to make the experience as unpleasant as possible. She will be there until Friday, when she flies to Amman and then back to Baghdad.

  Life in Kuwait centers around the gigantic shopping malls that litter the landscape. The 800,000 Kuwaitis apparently need something to do while the million and a half guest workers do what needs to be done. Brenda has been tempted by certain high-end Parisian outlets not common to our part of the world, but she claims she was able to resist, perhaps because she knows that whatever she buys will have to be lugged into and out of Iraq. One gets the sense that Brenda wants to travel light. She also had some trouble finding many Kuwaitis who were focusing with any seriousness on what may be about to happen immediately to their north.

  In her kit when she left, along with all the usual high-tech paraphernalia, were tucked a dozen virgin pristine pillowcases and a full palette of embroidery silk. Only space restrictions saved the sheets from being carted along as well. Those of you who have on occasion observed this aforementioned pattern of her behavior will take solace that, at least for now, she has confined herself to the linens. God help her if she makes a move toward my bureau.

  Hope you all had a good holiday season,

  V

  JANUARY 27, 2003

  After a wintry Christmas at home and a warm week of reporting in Kuwait, it’s back to Iraq via Jordan. The flight out of Amman is held up until journalists delayed in Paris finally arrive to fill it up. We don’t arrive in Baghdad until 3 a.m. We are all in a bad mood and the officials waiting for us are in no better temper. Ahmed, the fixer, now well in excess of 250 pounds, has developed high
blood pressure. Carrying Dan Rather’s briefcase last week all but finished him off, though he is extremely proud that they got an interview with Saddam. I refrain from saying that I think the interview was obsequious tripe. As another colleague put it, Rather, with his softball questions, might just as well have been interviewing the prime minister of Belgium, not a tyrant who has imprisoned and killed thousands upon thousands of his own people.

  At the Al-Rashid the manager whisks me into his office so that I can pay him, and no one else, for a room with a view, the euphemism for a room where the satellite phone will work. There are Christmas cards pinned up on the wall behind him indicating that he is one of Iraq’s Christian minority. He asks me for the latest news and says he is terrified that if there is a war, the Shiites will gain the upper hand and purge the remaining Christians, who have reached an uneasy peace with Saddam’s Sunni minority.

  JANUARY 28, 2003

  At the Information Ministry, Qadm is cool. He hints at alleged indiscretions by Kate Seelye, an NPR reporter who has just been in Iraq, and suggests that NPR is in bad odor. Kate did nothing but report the true of feelings of Kurds up north, but her minder ratted on her for asking “inappropriate” questions. Whatever her perceived sins, Qadm’s threats are a good way to try to exact obedience from me. As I get my satellite phone unsealed, Mazzin, who’s the ministry’s equipment guardian, warns me to be careful about using it at the hotel. He says a couple of reporters have recently been expelled for taking their phones out of the ministry building.