|
February 28,
2002
Baghdad, Spring 1992
By James T. Phillips
Baghdad was not being bombed when I visited the
war-ravaged city during the early spring of 1992, but thousands
of Iraqi children were still dying every month due to disease
and starvation. Food and medicine were scarce, dead babies could
be found in abundance and the governments of the United States
and Iraq argued over the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
Silencing the lambs was not very difficult for the Butcher of
Baghdad and the Warmongers of Washington.
I despised both the butcher and the warmongers
and, to satisfy my own need for knowledge, I traveled to Iraq
to observe the aftermath of the invasion of Kuwait and the
resulting world war against Saddam Hussein.
"Why are you on bus?"
The Iraqi border guard was more surprised
than suspicious about my presence on the passenger bus. Few
Americans traveled the land route from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad,
Iraq. He ordered me off the bus and into his office for a brief
interrogation. The bus driver acted as our interpreter; he
spoke very good English. The Iraqi asked for my passport and
flipped through the pages until he found the visa permitting
me to visit his country.
The questions were routine and I was
allowed to re-board the bus. The other passengers smiled and
nodded at me when I returned; I'm not certain if they were concerned
about my safety or if they were just happy to get back on the
road. It was a thirteen-hour drive on a crowded bus through
a desert landscape. Unanticipated delays were not welcome.
The bus arrived in Baghdad at one o'clock
in the morning. My first glimpse of the city was through a dirty
window of a slow moving bus. We drove through an open-air marketplace
that was illuminated by dim electric lights. The market was
open and people milled about, leaning over the displays of
vegetables, meats, spices, bottled water and various other goods;
everything seemed to be covered in a thin layer of dust. The
people were dressed traditionally, women in chadors and men
wearing kafiyahs. The few children I could see were dressed
in ragged, dirty clothing. The smells of the street wafted into
the bus; I liked the aroma.
I took a taxi from the bus station to
a large modern hotel. The officials at the Iraqi Embassy in
Washington told me that I had to stay at an approved hotel.
I approached the counter and asked for a room. I asked how much
the hotel charged if I stayed for a month.
"It is one hundred and fifty dollars
per night," said the well-dressed clerk. "American
dollars."
"You're joking'" I said. He
had to be joking.
"No, sir. The price is the same
for each night you stay."
It wasn't a joke and I wasn't laughing.
I turned away from the counter, picked up my bags and walked
out the front door of the hotel. I was supposed to stay at this
hotel, but I didn't have enough cash to stay more than a few
days, a week at the most. I also didn't think I should pay so
much for a room in an empty hotel. I decided to try my alternative
plan. I had learned about a small hotel in the center of the
city that allowed foreigners to rent rooms without asking a
lot of questions. The owner of the hotel was related to the
travel agency owner who sold me my airplane ticket to Amman.
I opened my notebook and found the address.
"Taxi, mister?"
I gave the taxi driver the slip of paper
on which I had written the address of the hotel. It was on Sa'doon
Street, on the west side of the Tigris River. It only took a
few minutes to drive from the luxurious surroundings of the
multi-story modern hotel to the squat four-story building that
probably had visitors arriving astride camels when it was first
opened. I exchanged some dollars for dinars with the taxi driver
and paid for the ride. I walked to the front door of the hotel
and rang the bell; the door was locked and there were no lights
on in any of the rooms. I rang the bell a second time.
A light switched on and I could see inside
the small lobby. A bleary-eyed young man opened the door. He
didn't speak English but understood immediately that I wanted
a room for the night. There are times when people can communicate
without having to use a lot of words; I understood that there
would be an English-speaking clerk on duty in the morning. I
could wait and pay my bill at that time; the room would cost
me two dollars per night. The soap in the fancy modern hotel
probably cost more than two bucks. The clerk led me up a wide
flight of stairs; my room was on the third floor.
The hotel was old, but very clean. There
were no chicken bones under the bed and I had a small balcony
where I could sit and look out over the city of Baghdad.
I was tired from the long drive through
the desert and excited to be in the Iraqi capital. I had managed
to avoid the official "guides" that were assigned
to monitor the movements of foreign journalists, and I was not
staying in a hotel where the Iraqi authorities could keep me
under surveillance. I was a free man, and I was about to wander
through the streets of an imprisoned and besieged society. I
unpacked my bags, then undressed. I retrieved my small stash
of pre-rolled marijuana joints and hid all but one of them
in the bottom of the window curtain. I walked out onto the balcony
and fired up the joint. I inhaled.
The city of Baghdad was beautiful at
night.
* *
*
When I obtained my visa, I thought it
would be a good idea to contact other journalists who had previously
traveled to Iraq. I spoke on the telephone with a few reporters
and what came through loud and clear was how oppressive it was
to work under the gaze of the official guides. I was warned
to be very careful and not to attempt to "ditch" the
guides; the government assigned them and they took their jobs
very seriously.
I awoke early in the morning. I called
the front desk and the English-speaking clerk welcomed me to
Iraq. He confirmed the room rate and said I could pay in dinars,
the Iraqi currency. I asked for a pot of black coffee, no sugar,
to be brought to my room. The bathroom was clean and modern;
the shower water was hot. It took me about an hour to get ready
for my first day in Baghdad. I didn't have an itinerary and
I couldn't speak Arabic. I did not look like an Iraqi. I loaded
my old Nikon camera with a roll of film and walked down the
stairs and out the front door of the hotel. I didn't have a
map of the city, but I did have an excellent sense of direction.
I turned left and began walking through the streets of Baghdad.
"You are Russkie," said the
middle-aged man. "Not American."
"No," I replied. "I really
am an American."
I was sitting at a table in a small cafe
sipping a cup of tea. I'd been walking for hours, observing
the people of Baghdad as they went about their daily routines.
The year before I visited Iraq, during the months of January
and February of 1991, the allied coalition created by George
Bush was raining destruction on the helpless citizenry. There
were no bombs dropping while I walked around, though, and life
in Baghdad seemed to be normal. Or, as normal as could be expected
for a people denied the basic necessities of life. Food and
medicine were scarce, and the modern infrastructure of Iraq
had taken a beating. Clean water was a luxury.
"No, you are Russkie."
"Here, look at this," I said.
I held up my Maine driver's license.
The man took laminated card and pretended to read the words.
He shook his head slowly, back and forth, then smiled at me.
He still didn't believe me. He couldn't fathom an American loose
on the streets of Baghdad. Tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed
Russians were living and working in Iraq, and the man had no
doubt at all about my nationality.
"You Russkie."
There were only a few other customers
in the cafe, and one of them was a young soldier. They were
all watching as the middle-aged man and I discussed my country
of origin. They were not hostile and, regardless of whether
I was Russian or American, I was made to feel welcome. When
I finished my tea, I pulled out a wad of dinars from my pocket.
I tried to pay for the drink.
"No, please," said the man.
"I pay."
There was no use arguing with him. The
hospitality and generosity of the Iraqi people was a pleasant
surprise to a citizen of the United States. My country had bounced
rubble throughout Iraq and destroyed the lives of thousands
of innocents, but the people I met during my visit were always
friendly and polite, almost deferential. I would not be allowed
to pay for any of the many cups of tea I drank during my travels
through Iraq.
After leaving the cafe, I continued walking
around Baghdad. I took photographs of people and buildings.
The people didn't shy away from having their picture taken and
the police and soldiers never tried to stop me from photographing
the damage to the few remaining buildings that had not yet been
repaired. I walked for miles and miles.
* *
*
"Where have you been?" said
Ali. "Why didn't you report to the Ministry?"
Ali was surprised and angry. He was the
Ministry of Information official responsible for the care and
feeding of foreign journalists. Ali was also responsible for
their surveillance; he assigned the guides. He had just learned
that I had been in Iraq for three days without checking in
with the Ministry of Information, and that I had already been
out and about in Baghdad talking to people and taking photographs.
"You could get into trouble, Mr.
James," said Ali.
Only with government officials, I thought.
I had been in Baghdad for four days; three of them were spent
interviewing a variety of Iraqis without any trouble. Everyone
who agreed to talk to me would express grief and sorrow about
what the war had created, but would always clarify that they
were angry with the United States government, not the American
people. The bombing was terrible, yes, but many of the people
I spoke with were more concerned with the sanctions and security
measures brought on by years of war and suppression. For more
than forty years, the people of Iraq had been at war with either
Mr. Bush's allied coalition, the Iranians, or their own leadership;
each group had succeeded in killing thousands of innocent Iraqi
civilians.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ali," I said.
"I didn't know I had to report to you."
A true statement, but incomplete. No
one among the Iraq officials I had dealt with to get into the
city of Baghdad had ever given me explicit instructions on where
to go and what to do. I realized, of course, that they would
want to "guide" me through their country and, when
I didn't show up at the hotel or Ministry, someone would be
wondering about my whereabouts. That someone was Ali. He immediately
assigned a guide to assist me in doing what I had already done:
tour Baghdad. For the next few days, I was taken to various
cultural sites and museums in Baghdad. I interviewed a woman
who directed a major art institution from a spacious sculpture-filled
office where, years later, she would be killed when Bush's future
successor and current presidential election opponent, Bill Clinton,
bombed Baghdad. I was being educated about the ancient culture
of Iraq, but I wanted to learn about the lives of the living.
"Mr. Ali," I said. "I
want to go to Ur."
"It is far away," he said.
"And dangerous."
But, Ur was a major cultural site, the
same type of locations where I had been dragged to for three
days. It was located in southern Iraq, an area where the Iraqi
officials didn't want a lot of snooping by foreign journalists.
I wanted to see what kind of damage was done outside of Baghdad.
The only way to get to Ur was by automobile. Ali told me he
would ask his superiors.
"Where are you staying, Mr. James?"
said Ali. "I will call you when I know if you can go."
I told him the name of the hotel. Ali
was again surprised and angry. I wasn't booked into one of the
approved hotels. He asked me why.
"It's too expensive," I said.
"I won't pay that much for a room."
Ali was experienced in dealing with journalists
living on expense accounts. I was probably the first reporter
he'd met without the resources to afford the high prices of
the high-class hotels. Oddly enough, he calmed down and smiled
at me. The penetrating eyes softened. It was as if he saw the
human being behind the press card.
"I will call you later," he
said. "Maybe I can help with the hotel."
I didn't understand what he meant by
helping. I returned to my little room in the downtown hotel,
sat out on the balcony and got high. I looked out over the city.
My view encompassed neighborhoods of low-rise buildings; the
modern skyline of Baghdad was out of sight. Needle-sharp minarets
rose up above the roofs of the buildings. Patches of broad-leaf
palm trees grew in courtyards and gardens.
The city of Baghdad was beautiful during
the day.
* *
*
"Mr. James," said Ali. "I
have good news. You may go to Ur."
"That's great," I said. "Thanks.
When do I go?"
"Tomorrow. Your guide will meet
you at the Palestine Hotel."
"Where?"
Ali told me that his superiors understood
my financial situation, and they were offering to put me up
at the modern high-rise Palestine Hotel. It was located next
to the Tigris River. All my expenses would be paid for one week,
except for alcohol. If I accepted, I could move in the next
day. I thanked Ali for the offer, telling him I'd think about
it and give my answer in the morning. If I showed up at the
Palestine with my bags, I said, I would stay there; if not,
I would just remain in the small hotel. I was uncertain about
whether it was ethical to accept a free room and all the food
I could stuff into my face. Nothing that the Iraqi officials
could have offered would have made me change what I believed,
or affect what I'd write or report. However, I wanted to think
about the offer for a few hours; and, since I was meeting a
veteran journalist later that night for drinks, I figured I
would ask his advice. Thomas [the veteran journalist] worked
as a cameraman for VISNEWS.
"Why not?" said Thomas. "CNN
gets freebies all the time."
The VISNEWS cameraman and I were sipping
Johnnie Walker Black Label at the bar in the Al Rashid Hotel.
Thomas was an Englishman and had covered stories all over the
world. His assignment in Iraq would soon end, and he was anxious
to get home to his wife and children. I talked about my grandson.
Thomas doubted that I was a grandfather; he said I looked much
too young. But, by my fourth whiskey, I was feeling my age.
I was 44 years old.
"James," said Thomas. "Want
to try a different drink?"
"Sure," I said. "Why not?"
I was already feeling real good. Thomas
thought it would be fun if I ordered the drinks in Arabic. He
slurred a few words in Arabic.
"That's all you have to say, James."
"What am I asking her?"
"You'll find out," said Thomas.
He was smiling.
I motioned to the bartender. She was
a tall dark-haired woman who moved gracefully behind the bar.
I mumbled the words as instructed, wondering what kind of drink
I was about to be served. The woman froze. She looked at me
with hard black eyes; she was not smiling. She started yelling
at me and waving at one of the security guards lounging in the
lobby.
"Let's go, James," said Thomas.
He hopped off his barstool and headed
for the door. The woman was still voicing her displeasure as
I followed Thomas out of the bar. We crossed the lobby and left
the Al Rashid Hotel. Thomas was laughing hard as he signaled
to a taxi driver. We got in to the vehicle and drove away from
the hotel and the angry woman.
"Thomas, what did I say to that
lady?"
"Oh, James," he replied. "You
don't want to know."
Thomas did not speak Arabic, but he had
been in the Iraq long enough to have picked up some street language.
He thought it would be funny if I asked the Iraqi woman for
something other than a drink. I'm still unsure about just what
I said, but it was sexual in nature and a really stupid and
dangerous thing to say to an Arab woman in the middle of Baghdad,
Iraq. We went to my hotel and continued drinking. It was four
in the morning when Thomas finally stumbled out the door and
returned to his own lodgings. I had to be ready to travel to
southern Iraq in less than three hours, and I also had to decide
whether I'd move to the Palestine Hotel.
"CNN gets freebies all the time"
was about the only advice I got out of Thomas concerning the
ethical issues of accepting anything of value from potential
subjects of my reporting.
* *
*
Ur was the site of an ancient civilization
and the current location of a variety of large craters created
by the allied bombing in 1991. It was a tourist destination
without tourists in the spring of 1992. My guide and I climbed
the crumbling steps to the top of a temple and looked out over
the flat sandy landscape. It was very hot; the horizon was
shimmering in the heat.
I didn't really care about Ur. Anthropologists
and historians might have enjoyed scratching around the old
monuments and graves, but I was in Iraq to learn about what
had happened during Mr. Bush's War. The long drive from Baghdad
to Ur allowed me to observe the damage caused by the bombing.
There was a lot more damage to buildings, roads and bridges
outside the city of Baghdad. As we drove south, my guide described
what the buildings had been used for prior to the war; not many
of the destroyed structures were connected to the Iraqi military.
Food factories, schools, hospitals and other non-military buildings
were completely flattened; there really were piles of bounced
rubble spread out over the land of Iraq.
Damaged people were also spread throughout
Iraq; they were dead and buried, or hidden from view. Human
rubble.
"Tariq," I said. "Let's
go to the marketplace."
"It is not safe for you, Mr. James,"
said my guide, Tariq.
He was worried about the local population.
They were Shiite Muslims, and they despised the Shia Muslims
who dominated the government of Saddam Hussein. In the days
following Mr. Bush's War, the allied coalition stopped killing
Iraqi soldiers, allowing the Iraqi government to turn its weapons
on the Shiite rebels who had been encouraged to rise up against
the rule of Saddam. I was told that the people living in southern
Iraq were not very fond of westerners, especially journalists.
"Don't worry, Tariq," I said.
"Bring the driver. He can help you."
Tariq's job was to keep me from learning
anything of importance, and to keep me from being attacked by
angry Iraqi civilians. He was a skinny little man capable of
deflecting my questions with a smile, but he would have been
useless in an altercation. Our driver, though, was a big hulking
young man with a menacing presence.
I doubted if I would need their help.
My three days of freedom in Iraq had taught me that the Iraqi
people were not bloodthirsty mobs looking to kill any and all
Americans. They were just normal people trying to survive in
Saddam Hussein's police state while being sanctioned by George
Bush's global police. Life was very hard for the Iraqi people.
When they were able to meet an American journalist unaccompanied
by a government guide, the Iraqis vented their frustrations,
not their vengeance. Iraqi civilians never threatened me.
The marketplace was crowded with people.
It was located in the middle of a small town near Ur. I was
the center of attention wherever I walked, but no one dared
approach me. I had two government officials walking with me.
I realized that I would have to lose my companions.
"Are you hungry, Tariq?"
I offered to buy lunch for the two men.
They readily accepted, and we stopped in front of a stall that
sold tiny chunks of charred dead animals speared on thin wooden
sticks. As soon as Tariq and the driver placed their order,
I turned and walked away.
"I'm a vegetarian, Tariq,"
I yelled over my shoulder. "I'm going to buy some bread."
I slipped into the crowd passing in front
of the store and ducked low. I was a tall man trying to hide
among very short people. I heard Tariq call after me, but I
was out of his sight within seconds. I turned down a narrow
alley and walked as fast as I could. I made a few more twists
and turns before I stopped walking. The people immediately began
crowding me, talking excitedly in the melodious Arabic language.
"Where are you from, mister?"
A young man wearing jeans and a tee shirt
asked the question. Most of the people wore traditional dress,
but this young man was garbed like any American teenager. "America,"
I said.
Everyone understood, everyone smiled
and everyone began talking even louder and more frantically.
The young man tried to translate what was being said to me,
but it was impossible for him to keep up with all the comments.
I could only understand fragments of each brief exchange.
"Saddam is evil."
"Bush is evil."
"Americans are good people."
"Why does America kill us?"
There was no time to do a taped interview
with any of the people who wanted to tell their stories. I wouldn't
be able to write about the individual difficulties faced by
the people surrounding me. I was only able to shoot a few photographs
before I noticed Tariq and the driver. The people also saw the
Iraqi officials and quickly moved away from me. The young man
ran inside a nearby building.
"Mr. James," said Tariq. "You
should not talk with the people. It is dangerous."
"Sorry, Tariq," I said. Bullshit,
I thought.
"No problem, Mr. James," he
said. "We are tired. It is time to go back to Baghdad."
It had been a long day. I was also tired.
We walked to where the official Iraqi vehicle was parked. It
was a white Chevrolet sedan with government license plates.
"Would you like to drive, Mr. James?"
Tariq was smiling. The driver handed
me the keys to the Chevy.
"Why not," I said. No shit,
I thought.
The drive from Ur to Baghdad took about
three hours. The highway was modern and, except for the large
bomb craters that pockmarked its surface, it was an easy drive.
I floored the gas pedal and the car roared down the road at
eighty miles per hour. Tariq and the driver chided me for going
too slow. We only stopped at the checkpoints manned by Iraqi
soldiers. The looks on the faces of the young uniformed men
as I pulled up to the barricades would cause Tariq and the
driver to break out laughing; I sat in the drivers seat as the
soldiers peered into the vehicle, hoping that the armed young
men would understand the joke.
I had decided to stay at the Palestine
Hotel. I drove up to the front of the building. My bags were
in the trunk of the car.
"Thanks, Tariq," I said. "I'll
see you tomorrow morning."
I entered the lobby of the hotel. It
was sleek and shiny and new. I was only saving a few dollars
a day by leaving the old hotel, but the free food was a bonus.
I registered at the front desk; the staff was expecting me.
I took the elevator to my room on the twelfth floor, tossed
my bags on the bed and grabbed for the telephone. I dialed room
service and ordered a large meal.
My first published photograph depicted
three small boys dressed in rags. They were running toward me
as I stood in the marketplace near Ur. They were begging for
food.
Saddam was feeding me, not poor Iraqi
children.
* *
*
I stayed at the Palestine Hotel for one
week before moving back to the small hotel. The view from my
window at the Palestine was wonderful, but I had run out of
marijuana and my fear of heights kept me well back from the
edge of the windowsill. The guides at the Ministry of Information
controlled my days; at night I tried to get out and meet the
people. Unfortunately, my guide would want to go along if I
planned anything other than a walk around the area near the
Palestine Hotel. So, I did a lot of walking in the neighborhood.
I doubted that the Iraqi government authorities would think
I was important enough to follow me on my nightly walks.
On my last evening at the Palestine Hotel
I decided to walk along the bank of the Tigris River. I could've
used the help of my guide when the armed soldier pointed his
automatic weapon at me and shouted something sinister in Arabic.
I stopped walking and thrust my hands into the air. The beam
of a powerful flashlight blinded me.
"I'm an American," I said.
"A journalist."
The soldier lowered the light, but not
his weapon, and motioned for me to put my arms down. He didn't
speak English, but I knew he was asking for my "papers."
I handed him my passport. The soldier noticed that I was also
carrying a small notebook; he took it out of my pocket. I didn't
worry about him having my United States passport; there weren't
any bombs dropping at the time. But I was concerned about my
notebook winding up in the hands of the wrong person. The wrong
person would be an Iraqi official who could read English. I
never censored my thoughts and observations when writing in
my notebooks, and the comments about Saddam Hussein and his
regime might cause me big trouble.
I kept repeating the name of the Iraqi
official at the Ministry of Information. I thought that might
ease the tension and convince the soldier that I wasn't an American
spy. We were standing on a thin ribbon of asphalt that ran
along the riverbank. It was dark. On one side of the pathway
was the river; on the other side, brightly-lit fish restaurants
selling the catch of the day. I could hear the people talk as
they ate their meals. The Iraqi soldier spoke into his radio,
then looked at his catch of the night. He said words in Arabic
that I didn't understand, but I knew instinctively that I should
just stand and wait. A few minutes later I saw the lights of
a vehicle headed our way. It was driving on the pathway separating
the river from the restaurants. A military jeep filled with
other armed soldiers stopped in front of my captor and me; the
vehicle's headlights illuminated the area where we were standing.
"Why are you here?" asked a
tall man in an officer's uniform. "Where are you from?"
"I'm an American journalist,"
I said. "I'm staying at the Palestine Hotel."
I pointed in the direction of the hotel.
The Iraqi officer listened to my explanation, recognized the
name of the Ministry official I'd mentioned and quickly decided
that I wasn't a threat to his nation's security.
"No problem, Mr. James," he
said. "You understand that we have to be careful."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Can
I keep walking?"
"Yes, but stay on the pathway."
The soldier who had stopped me gave back
my passport, but not my notebook. I reached out and snatched
it from his hand. He was about to object, but the officer waved
the soldier away.
"Please," said the officer.
"You go now."
Certainly, I thought, no problem. I walked
slowly away from the group of Iraqi soldiers. When they could
no longer see me, I turned off the pathway and ran up a slight
rise to one of the fish restaurants. I sat down and ordered
a cup of tea. I lit a cigarette, then pulled out my notebook
and began writing nasty comments about being stopped by an armed
Iraqi soldier near the Tigris River.
* *
*
The estimated death toll during the first
year of sanctions against Iraq was 58,000. It was a number that
stunned me, and I included the information in an article published
after my trip to Iraq. I wrote about a "war without end,"
and compared the number of dead Iraqis to a similar number of
dead Americans. The Americans were the military men who were
part of a ten-year shooting war against Vietnam; the Iraqis
were mostly civilians, women and children, who had been starved
to death or died from a lack of medical supplies in only one
year. I did the math and figured out that more than a million
innocent victims could die if the sanctions against Iraq lasted
as long as America's war against Vietnam.
Impossible. No American government leader
would want to be responsible for killing innocent people in
numbers that could be considered genocidal.
A million civilians allowed to die for
political reasons? No way, I thought. And then I remembered
Vietnam, and the millions of dead people whose names would never
be etched on a long black wall.
James T. Phillips is the editor of WarReports.com. This
is a selection from his forthcoming book, Remembering Maine.
This excerpt was originally published in YellowTimes. Phillips
encourages your comments: james@unet.com.mk
|