Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

by Tamara Chalabi

  I was in America, pursuing a PhD in History at Harvard University, on 9/11. Like everyone else, I was shaken by what I saw on live TV. I was also taken aback by the transformation in the language of the US government and media concerning the Middle East, which triggered confusion and fear of the American authorities among my fellow students and friends who had links with the region. America’s reaction to 9/11 gathered an unstoppable momentum, culminating in the ‘war on terror’. To me it seemed that Iraq’s story became an ideological battleground between liberals and conservatives struggling to define the new America, and by extension the new global landscape. The decades-long struggle against Saddam’s regime by Iraqis took on a different aspect when seen through the lens of President George W. Bush’s simplistic language. While many Iraqis rejoiced at the overt recognition of Saddam’s Iraq as part of the ‘axis of evil’, it also seemed as if the debate ignored them, and was speaking to another audience: it was an embodiment of American angst.

  A large conference was held in London in December 2002 for the Iraqi opposition to discuss Iraq’s future with American and British officials, in an attempt to organize and unify the anti-Saddam forces. Despite many disagreements, a successful communiqué was issued, planning a larger conference on Iraqi soil in February 2003, at which the establishment of a provisional government would be discussed in greater detail.

  I was visiting my family in London after submitting my PhD thesis in early January 2003 when my father announced that he was shortly to be a member of a delegation that was going to Iran to have discussions with members of the Iraqi opposition and government officials. I immediately decided to accompany him.

  After ten days in Tehran, it became clear that my father and the rest of the delegation were not planning to return to London, but to go to northern Iraq and prepare for the conference set for late February with the Kurdish forces on the ground, ironing out the details of the conference’s aims, which included the nature of a future democratic government in Baghdad and discussions on federalism.

  We flew to Urumia, in north-western Iran. This was followed by a long car journey through deep snow and high mountains populated only by smugglers on horseback to the Iraqi border at Hajji Umran, which we crossed on foot. This time I entered the country without difficulty. In fact there was a welcoming committee. Various opposition groups were gathering in Iraqi Kurdistan to discuss the creation of a provisional Iraqi government. Our first port of call was Salahuddin, the INC’s former headquarters, near Arbil, where the KDP was in control. After Saddam’s incursion to this area in 1996, and his subsequent withdrawal, the Kurds settled their territorial disputes by dividing the Kurdish area into two spheres: the one in the west run by Mustafa Barzani, the head of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party); and the one in the east by Jalal Talabani, head of the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). There was a rotating presidency, and a parliament in Arbil.

  What I most remember from those days is the uncertainty and frustration, but also the fragile hope that the dictator’s end might be nearing. Following the huge anti-war protests in many Western cities in mid-February, I listened to bewildered Kurds who wondered why the international community loved Saddam so much. Walking around the bazaar in Arbil, I could see a calm resignation as men stacked up sandbags and sold gas masks, anticipating another chemical attack from Saddam. All expectation was that the war would start from the north.

  At the planned conference in Salahuddin, Iraqi opposition and US representatives debated the creation of a transitional government. But the anticipated American blessing never came, as the various US agencies each supported their own chosen Iraqi faction on the ground. I experienced the build-up to war as surreal, and am not clear at what point the idea of an Iraqi-led internal uprising gave way to an all-out American attack on Saddam. After all the years the opposition had been trying to remove Saddam, it took some time to come to terms with the fact that what had been hoped for for so long was actually happening.

  Over the next few weeks we moved from Salahuddin to Lake Dokkan, a beautiful spot near Suleymania surrounded by mountains and clouds, under PUK control. Many young Iraqi volunteers had gathered there, enough to make a battalion, and they were training and marching every day in preparation for engaging with Saddam’s forces. I accompanied my father on several trips to Iran and Turkey during this time, as he took part in talks with the governments in both countries in anticipation of the imminent war. As we travelled on roads that traced the footsteps of the rulers of the ancient empires, Assyrian, Persian and Ottoman, it struck me once again how intermingled Iraq was with these other, older narratives and identities.

  On 20 March 2003 I was at Ankara airport with my father and an Iraqi delegation waiting for a flight to Mardin, near where my distant ancestors started their Mesopotamian venture many centuries ago, when it was announced on a television in the airport lounge that coalition forces had entered southern Iraq. I was gripped with anticipation and uncertainty; I didn’t know what to think, other than that Saddam’s days in power were surely numbered.

  Everyone was waiting to see what would happen. Having devoted years of their lives to arguing for action against Saddam, many leaders of the Iraqi opposition now seemed confused about their roles. The Americans seemed deaf to all their concerns, and were clearly working to a prearranged plan, whether it corresponded to the reality on the ground or not. The military machine had been switched on, and was now moving forward with unstoppable momentum. Opposition forces such as the Kurdish Peshmerga and the INC had expected to engage with Saddam’s forces, but this was not a priority for the Americans.

  Arriving back in Dokkan, I sensed a very different atmosphere from that I had left behind only a few days earlier. Frustration was increasing among the opposition groups, and even when a US military liaison officer, Colonel Seale, arrived to coordinate action with the INC, it was unclear what there was to coordinate, despite his level-headedness and his willingness to engage in joint activity. The sense of powerlessness that ran through opposition circles did not, however, discourage my father from seeking a more visible and active role for Iraqis.

  Resistance from Saddam’s militias in the south was greater than expected, and my father felt there was a need for Iraqis to be involved in the fight there, rather than simply to wait until the US forces arrived in Baghdad. I am certain that many in the US military considered this request at best a nuisance, and at worst a potential danger. But the opposition’s position could not be preserved unless it actively took part in fighting Saddam’s forces, rather than merely looking on from afar. The pressure exerted on Washington by my father and his group finally bore fruit, and a volunteer battalion named the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) was authorized to fly south from Dokkan.

  Over three days several batches of men were transported in US C10 planes from Harir airport near Arbil to Nassiriya. When the first group arrived in the south they called to complain that they had been left in an abandoned hangar in the middle of the desert without any facilities, food or water. My father was to fly south on the second day, and I insisted on going too, despite much resistance from him. I would be the only female to accompany the FIF apart from Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times, who was ‘embedded’ with us.

  In the car driving to Harir, my father received a call from Lieutenant General Abizaid of Central Command (CENTCOM) asking him to delay his trip, to which there was considerable opposition in Washington. My father insisted that he could not put his men in the line of fire and not join them. The exchange showed that even at this late hour disagreement and indecision still pervaded the highest levels of the coalition, adding yet greater uncertainty to our journey. Abizaid’s call did not make my father change his mind, and he held my hand as we boarded the dark plane to fly into the unknown.

  Like the previous FIF arrivals, when we arrived in Nassiriya we were left in the middle of nowhere, in an abandoned hangar miles outside the city and surrounded by parched desert on all sides. We had little in terms of provi
sions, infrastructure or transport. After a few hours the ever-practical Abu Muhammad decided to go into Nassiriya to get some food and water. He found a yashmak that he wrapped around his head in an attempt to look more local, and asked me to pray that he was not captured by the Fidayin Saddam, who were still active in the area. After two hours during which we anxiously waited for his return, he returned with several kilos of overripe tomatoes, the only things he could find, such was the dearth in the city.

  With little choice but to adapt to the situation in which we found ourselves, we started unpacking our equipment, which included a satellite dish for communication and a carpet on which to eat and sleep. Protesting telephone calls were made to Washington, and efforts were made to contact the local Marine forces in order to establish some mode of operation. A few raids were undertaken on nearby villages, which secured ammunition and captured several Fidayin, but the reluctance of the Americans to rely on local support was strong. I remember that when a group of them came to talk to us they were stunned to discover that I was an Iraqi, as all they had seen previously was a smattering of heavily covered local women. I was much concerned by their ignorance of the region and their cultural misconceptions.

  Within two days of our arrival we received a visit from a group of Nassiriya notables, tribal leaders who came to pay their respects and enquire about the general situation of the war, about which they had little information. Although they had a lot of information about Saddam supporters who were still fighting, there was no mechanism for them to communicate it to the US military, who were suspicious of everyone: the locals were afraid to approach them for fear of being arrested or misidentified as Saddam supporters. Through the help of Colonel Seale, some of their information was relayed, but often little was done about it.

  As the days passed, many of Nassiriya’s tribal notables invited us for lunches in their homes. They were anxious to discuss the future, and were looking for leadership. I was heartened by the clarity with which these men saw the steps by which Iraq could make the transition out of a dictatorship. Two recurrent themes were their inability to communicate with the Americans, and their disconnection from the progress of the war. The fact that I was the only woman present at these lunches led several of our hosts to assume that I must be an American adviser who was well versed in Arabic; they could not imagine that I might be Iraqi.

  In Nassiriya, I was struck by the evidence of years of wasted resources. So much had been funnelled into statues and images of Saddam, which were still to be seen everywhere, while the people lacked the most basic services. Standing in the desert not far from the town was the ancient Sumerian site of Ur, which according to the Book of Genesis was the birthplace of Abraham. Next to it, Saddam had built a military airbase.

  Living conditions barely improved for us. The sand blew everywhere, including into our noses and mouths. I was adapting to the lack of showers and a toilet, using a makeshift metal shack tucked behind the big hangar. This was comparative luxury: the men had to make do with the open air. More people started gathering at the camp, including officials from Baghdad who were looking for help to secure government assets such as the central bank from looting, and could not find a way to communicate this to the Americans.

  When Baghdad fell on 9 April, everyone wanted to go there, but we had to wait for cars to reach us from Kuwait by road. When they finally arrived, it was made clear to us by the US military that they would not assist us in our journey: we were going at our own risk. We taped signs to the roofs of the cars and carried white flags to identify us as non-hostile, and headed out at dawn on 15 April, in the early stages of a sandstorm. Our convoy of twenty-five cars drove north to Baghdad through primitive villages, with no water or electricity. As I sat silently watching the landscape pass by, my father received a telephone call from someone in CENTCOM asking what his intentions were in travelling to Baghdad. I remember his bemused response: ‘What do you mean? I am going home.’ I doubt the officer was satisfied with it.

  North of Samawa, the cars had to slow down because of the large number of people walking in a long line down the highway. All of them, men, women and children, were wearing black. Some were carrying flags, others water. I had never seen anything like this. There was total silence, except for the sound of footsteps and the murmuring of the lush palm groves by the side of the road, beyond which the Tigris was hidden. We were near Hilla, two hours south of Baghdad and only a few kilometres from Babylon. The thought of being so near to this mythical place set my imagination loose. I imagined the city Alexander the Great would have built, a meeting of civilizations, and projected onto it the possibilities suggested by that story for Iraq’s future. Then I see the derelict mud houses and parched land in the distance, and realize that change may not be possible at the pace I imagine.

  I am told the people on the road are walking to Karbala, the resting place of the martyred Imam Hussein, a pivotal figure in Shi’a Islam. They are commemorating the fortieth day of his death, and this march is called the Fortieth, Arba’in. By walking there, from all over the country, they atone for their sins and become closer to heaven. The reason there are so many of them is that this is the first time in years they have been able to do this, since the Arba’in was forbidden under Saddam.

  It was dark when we arrived in Baghdad many hours later. Our destination was the Hunt Club, a British-colonial-style private club in the middle-class Mansour district, with a large garden. Until recently it had been a playground for Saddam’s son ’Uday and his cronies – a den of sleaze, from the look of its dark, filthy red velvet rooms. A large stash of passports was found in a storeroom, of women of various nationalities. If their passports had been discarded like this, what had happened to the women themselves? Hovering over the club grounds was the sinister shell of a vast concrete mosque, surrounded by inactive cranes, that Saddam had been building. It was to be the mother of all mosques, while a few streets away drinking water was a luxury.

  In Baghdad I did not feel the comfort of returning home, but the unease of arriving in a foreign, deeply wounded and dilapidated city. I missed Beirut. In the weeks that followed, as dreams were realized and dashed in equal measure by Saddam’s removal and the declaration of US occupation, I heard that a mass grave had been discovered near Hilla. I decided to go and investigate. Before I had even reached the site, the combination of the heat and the stench of the dead formed a toxic potion that made me throw up. Three old mechanical diggers were planted in the middle of a reeking, muddy field. A man walked by with a plastic bag containing a bone, half a human skull and a shred of red cloth. He handed it to a grief-stricken man and woman. This, they were told, was the son they had lost in 1991.

  The truth was that nobody knew, or would ever know, if it was indeed their son, since almost no effort or technology would be applied to identifying the bodies. When I raised this matter with the new US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, a mid-Western junior lawyer handed me a piece of paper and said that a form had to be filed before the contents of a mass grave could be dealt with. Meanwhile, local volunteers were filling plastic bags with pieces of different human beings that were then taken to Najaf for burial. Soon there would be no evidence to investigate. The lawyer could not understand my anger. The victims of the mass graves have still not been given their due. Their numbers remain unknown, not all the graves have been uncovered, and little has been done to attempt to identify them.

  The years since Saddam’s removal have been a time of emotional turmoil for me. I was relieved when he was caught, but troubled by the circumstances of his capture – how could such a monster be found hiding in a hole? The myth and the reality clashed.

  This sensation was confirmed when I spent a day at the criminal court on 15 December 2005, on the first occasion that Saddam was to meet his victims from Dujail. Sitting in the gallery with a group of people including a woman who had lost her father to Saddam, I couldn’t help feeling deeply depressed. In addition to having serious reservations a
bout the conduct of the trial, I couldn’t banish from my mind the banality of what I saw in front of me: Saddam and his cronies, pathetic old men playing a game of survival to the very end, mired in paternalistic macho language and jests, yet still able to taunt their audience, their victims. I felt, what a waste, what an infinite waste of life.

  The main reactions I had when I saw the images of Saddam’s messy, unresolved execution were anger and shame. I felt it to be a betrayal of all those people who had struggled for so many years against him. It reduced his crimes and Iraqis’ suffering. I could not believe that it was conducted with such a lack of professionalism and solemnity, and before some of his major crimes had been exposed, most particularly those relating to the Kurds. The argument that his execution afforded his victims an opportunity for revenge didn’t touch me; I had hoped for more dignity in the proceedings. A particular Shi’a group monopolized the event, which I felt robbed the Iraqi people of their collective redemption. In his cruelty, Saddam was pathological. In its clumsiness, his execution was pathetic, leaving the collective trauma of Iraq unresolved.

  My disappointments are many, but chief among them are the wasted possibilities of what could have been. With hindsight, the cycle of violence that gripped Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam’s fall may appear to have been inevitable. But it did not have to be. Perhaps my hopes for a rapid transition towards a representative government after Saddam’s fall were unrealistic, but they should not be abandoned. Those age-old fears – sectarian and ethnic, an innate distrust of the state in addition to unfulfilled expectations after years of suffering – remain unresolved, causing division and discord.