A soldier from an American unit tells me later how he drove past Iraqi soldiers writhing in their death throes. Behind the tanks’ armour-plating they had passed by the dying, the dead. He had seen soldiers on the slopes above the river, lifeless, half in, half out of the water. He had met men waving white rags and T-shirts, indicating their surrender. Still they were shot. Earlier in the campaign the Americans had experienced Iraqi soldiers waving white flags, en route to surrender, then suddenly opening fire.
While the battles continue on the west bank of the Tigris, people are sipping hot tea at the pavement cafés on the east bank. Every table is taken at Mazin, an oft-frequented corner establishment. Some men make room for Aliya and me. As usual Amir will not leave the car. This very morning a friend has told him that there are thieves and robbers everywhere and that a driver has been shot and killed because he would not give up his car.
Here on the east bank Iraqi police still patrol the streets. Behind the increasingly flat sandbags men with guns are positioned. They are slender and young. Around them on the ground lies the sand that has trickled out of the bags.
Two men in green Baath Party uniforms sit at the neighbouring table. Their glasses have just been filled with hot golden tea. Their growth of beard is days old, in addition to the usual moustache. One of the men is heavily built, the other slight.
- Can we talk to them? I whisper to Aliya.
- No, are you mad, she hisses, and looks the other way.
- Why not?
- Because. One does not speak to men in uniform. Especially not Baath Party members.
- But all Iraqis are collective members of the Party. Including you. You’ve said that yourself, I object.
- Don’t talk like that or I’ll leave.
- OK, I say.
Addressing the men, I smile apologetically and say al Salamu aleikum. Now she has to translate.
As they answer my greeting they are served large pieces of grilled lamb.
- Would you like a taste? the broad-shouldered one asks.
Aliya is about to decline, but I poke her and say loudly: Shukran - thank you. They extend their arms and we are suddenly sharing lunch with the Baathists. The well-built one, whose moustache is also the blackest, heaps warm pieces of meat on a pitta bread, adds chopped onions and serves. Then they strike up a conversation between themselves, and ignore us, eating their food. I let them talk and wonder when I might interrupt. I feel like an intruder; I am an intruder.
When the meal is nearing its end I ask them what they think of the war.
- This is a state of emergency. I patrol the town night and day, haven’t slept for three days, haven’t seen my family, the sturdy one says, whose name is Abu Saif. The thin one nodds affirmatively. - Look, I eat lunch in a lousy café, spend the night on a mattress in a school, drink water when I can. I must defend my city, maintain law and order, the Baathist continues. Not angry, not aggressive, just resigned.
- The Americans have already taken parts of Baghdad. Do you think they’ll take the whole town?
- We believe in our leader and therefore we are invincible. We will fight with heart and soul, says Abu Saif with the same combination of acquiescence and resolve that characterises people who have learnt set phrases by heart. He stares ahead while devouring the last bit of pitta bread. I dare not interrupt him and sit in silence.
- Can I ask you something? he says suddenly. I nod.
- If we turned the picture around, how would you react if Iraqi forces attacked your country? If we tried to kill your president to install our leaders and our system? How would you react if we cut off your electricity, water, and killed your neighbours?
Abu Saif looks sternly at me while Aliya translates his questions. When he has finished asking, he snorts, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, gets up, bows and leaves.
The entire café has witnessed the episode. Now they turn away and continue their conversations. Aliya says we need to go.
We get as far as the shop next door, a bakery. There are two long queues, one for men, the other for women. It is not seemly that men and women stand in the same queue, Aliya explains.
The faces of the majority of people are drawn.
Only one face laughs, one open and curious gaze alone follows me. She appears to be the only one who has had a good night’s sleep, the only one who is enjoying the stormy spring day to the full, the only one unaffected by the bombs.
- I hope this will all be over before she is old enough to understand, the mother of seven-month-old Zina sighs, while Zina herself continues to smile.
- I think she might have lost her husband, Aliya whispers. - Or her son, maybe. She’s calling for someone called Hamid. It might also be her brother.
A woman is sitting on the ground, wrapped in a long, black shawl. She is calling the same name again and again. She holds a child in her arms. The child clambers unaffected over her, too young to understand what has happened. The little girl is dressed in a dirty-white ragged dress. The mother pays no heed to her but continues to moan. In the courtyard outside al-Kindi hospital, doctors, nurses, patients and relatives pass her by. The victims today are victims of crossfire rather than bombing.
We leave the woman in peace, and never find out who Hamid is or what has happened to him. The woman’s face has frozen into a terrible expression, as if it has looked into hell.
A car door opens. Three boys lie side by side on the cold, rough metal floor. Two men carry them out. They wear thin shorts and shirts, spattered with blood. All three are dead. The mother and grandmother stand by, howling. - My sons, my sons, the mother cries.
This is the second time I have witnessed the death of three brothers. The boys are not even taken into the hospital, but straight to the little house where the death certificates are dispensed. All comes to a standstill when the boys are carried away; all is quiet except for Alexandra and Jerome taking photographs. Suddenly a group of men attack them. They set to and beat Jerome and frail Alexandra who are eventually saved by some doctors.
- Keep away, the doctors say to the two photographers. - These people are in shock. They have lost their family. Show some respect.
The photographers withdraw to the entrance where we stand, waiting to get in. The attackers remain, glowering at us. White, western, the enemy.
The photographers leave. Throughout the day a steady stream of dead and wounded arrive, in ambulances, taxis, cars and on foot. A man drives up with his dying wife in the back seat. Her skirt is saturated with blood. Not a sound escapes her mouth as they carry her in. Her eyes are already in the hereafter.
We are denied access to the hospital. While we wait we watch several men being carried in. It appears they have been wounded in battle. Are the military hospitals already overcrowded?
We sneak in and thus see what we should not have seen: wounded soldiers.
The floor is splashed with blood. I see bodies with bullet holes in stomachs, legs, neck, arms. Some have started to hallucinate. Others howl. Painkilling medicine has run out.
- How many soldiers have you admitted today? I ask a doctor.
- There are no soldiers here, the doctor says.
- But they are wearing uniforms?
- I see no uniforms, he says, and pushes me out. - You must go now, do you hear?
In the courtyard friends of the wounded stand, resting on their Kalashnikovs. Not all are in uniform; some are volunteers. They look worried; some are smoking, nobody pays attention to us.
- This is our worst day so far, says one of the doctors. - Missiles, rockets, bullets and cannons. Never have we taken in so many wounded in one day. And the Americans call this introducing democracy!
The young doctor, who is fluent in English, is interrupted by a shout: Water is back, the water is back!
The doctor hurries over to the tap to wash his hands. Baghdad’s largest hospital has been without water since morning. They might lose it again at any moment. There has been no electricity either, and when the
generator went so did the light and all the equipment that is dependent on power.
The patients lie in beds without sheets, in their bloody clothes. The place swarms with flies, on the patients, in the beds, on the dead. The air is stale in death’s ante-room; the temperature in Baghdad is thirty-five degrees.
At 1am I take my place in front of the camera to deliver the night’s last report. I am on the hotel roof, in Reuters’ spot. Next to me is Ulrich from ZDF, Giovanna from RAI, Michel from French TF1, Abu Dhabi TV is a little further away, the BBC in the corner. Each talks to his or her camera. The questions materialise in our ears. I am reporting to Dutch TV, and in spite of not knowing the owner of the voice, I feel a connection with these Dutch people; it is as if they pull me towards home. They see me, and their voices are caring. That is a help.
When I am done I walk into Paul’s tent. He is Reuters’ supervisor, and the coordinator of pictures from Iraq to TV stations all over the world. In addition he is responsible for the live cameras. Like Josh, Yves and Timothy, he is ex-army. He served with the Green Jackets in Northern Ireland for many years and is one of those I keep bumping into in the world’s hot spots.
In the tent, pictures whirr on the monitors and I watch fascinated. Soldiers, battles, tanks rushing across sand dunes, the American flag on top of the Presidential palace. The war in close-up. Events I have not seen myself, only heard about.
Paul stretches out on his stool, fit, quick, supple, restless, in his mid-thirties. He appears tired. Owing to security risks Reuters has cut down heavily on manpower. For Paul that means a duty of sixteen hours, divided between the office on the fifteenth floor and the tent on the roof.
- What sort of a life is this? he says. Paul rarely shows his gloomy side.
A brutal wind fights with the tent canvas, making it difficult to hear what Paul is saying. When it drops he continues.
- My life has become the world’s wars. I’m away for months at a time. But I just can’t stay at home; I suppose this is my life.
I understand exactly what he is saying.
- Enough is enough. When this is over I’m going to stay at home. Find a girl, work at the Reuters office in London. Or I’ll destroy myself. If they had sent someone to relieve me I would have left on the spot. Now I have to stay to the end.
Paul yawns. It becomes increasingly difficult to sit upright in the chair. The pictures flicker over the screen. My eyelids will not stay open; the canvas flaps.
- All I wish for now is a good night’s sleep, Paul says.
I nod.
- I’ll pop into your office tomorrow to take a proper look at the recordings, I say.
It’s strange to be so close to the fighting, yet so far away. - All we know is what is happening at the hotel and at the Presidential palace across the river, I say.
- Well, that’s something at least, Paul laughs and gives me a hug. - It’ll be over in a couple of days, I promise you. Then we can go home and start living.
I leave Paul in the gale on the roof. He has an hour to go, waiting for some pictures.
A strange sound wakes me in the middle of the night. It lulls me in and out of sleep. Darkness embraces me, as does the curious, light sound. It is gentle, like a memory from carefree days. The trickle of water. Drip, drip, drip.
It’s raining.
When day breaks I am woken anew. I peep out of the window to see whether the view might have changed during the night. In the morning twilight all I see is rain; raindrops pregnant with desert sand fall heavy to the ground, leaving yellow-brown blotches wherever they land. I try to sleep. I am exhausted but my body is full of adrenalin and won’t let me have more than a few hours sleep. I peer out of the window again. The rain has cleared; the sun is forcing its way through the clouds, pushing them to the side. It could have been a beautiful morning.
The battles start with a bang just after 5am. Booms are heard from every direction, the building vibrates and window panes shatter many hundreds of metres away. Fire from heavy artillery shakes Baghdad out of its slumber. The bombers circle menacingly before dropping their cargo. The bombs seem to hover in the air for a moment before descending, and then, boom, hit the target. Buildings explode, some are levelled to the ground. Once again grey smoke rises heavenward.
Only some curious young boys dare show themselves. Their eyes are turned towards the sky, the planes, the fire-balls. They watch seriously. No sensation seeking, no excited faces. I myself am too frightened to venture out. I sit in my room, exhausted, sick with the lack of sleep. Soon I must report to the wide-awake Swedes.
Like the previous day, the most serious fighting is centred around the Presidential palace. The republican guard is trying to recapture it. They fight with mortar and machine-guns. The American answer is immediate, strong and precise. Following a night given over to the sound of raindrops the air attack starts at full strength, tanks and artillery batteries attacking from the ground. Baghdad residents suddenly catch an unknown sound in the air, the intense chatter of small cannonballs, followed by an ear-piercing braking sound. A10 aircraft are flying low, peppering Iraqi positions. The planes dispense 4,000 130mm bullets a minute and are called ‘tank killers’. This is the first time this type of plane has been used in a centre of town.
Now war is not only raging by the Presidential palace. Parallel to the fierce attack on the administration quarters, fighting has also broken out southeast of the town. Several marine units have crossed the Tigris during the night and are approaching the commercial district, the markets and the residential quarters.
The streets around the hotel are deserted. Aliya phones from 716, a few rooms away, and asks about the plan for the day. I hesitate. I have no plan. I do not dare go out.
- I’m writing, I say.
- OK, I’m in my room if you need me, Aliya answers. Tough Aliya, staying with me, not knowing how her family is faring. She cannot phone them, the telephones are out of action. She cannot go and see them as that would mean crossing the front.
In spite of Saddam Hussein’s countless requests to take up arms and fight, Baghdad’s inhabitants do exactly the opposite. They lock their doors, bolt the windows and wait for the war to end.
Outside a man with a cigarette trolley stops by a puddle. He leans the trolley against the pavement and lights up.
I consider going up to Paul in 1502 to take a look at the pictures Reuters have snapped during the course of the morning. With their lenses they can see far more than I can from my balcony. As I am on my way out the door the phone rings. It is Tim.
- The water is back!
Excellent. Now I can fill the bath. I also fill about thirty hoarded bottles. My room is a pigsty, there is nowhere to dispose of rubbish. Some just throw rubbish bags into the corridors, as though they will disappear by themselves.
After the water ritual is over I have no energy left to ascend to the fifteenth floor. Anyway, if I wait they might have some more pictures.
To pretend that I am actually doing something I open my mail. The first one has the title ‘War chariot’ and is from Per Egil Hegge, Aftenposten’s senior correspondent.
Brothers and sisters,
This is rather overdue - but on the other hand it is never too late. We must eliminate the word tank meaning war chariot. In Norwegian a tank is a milk tank, or a petrol tank. Åsne in particular uses the word tank; for all her good qualities her military vocabulary is weak and this must be changed in her manuscripts.
Per Egil
The next email is also from Aftenposten and signed Per A. Christiansen. He rattles off all the different spellings of Iraq’s Minister of Information: Mohammad Said Al-Sahaf, Muhammed Said al-Sahaf, Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Muhammed Saeed Sahaf, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf, Mohammed Saeed al.Shahaf, Muhammad Saeed as-Sahaf, Mohammed Saeed a-Sahaf. He suggests we should agree on one version.
I reply that I prefer Muhammed Said al-Sahhaf. As I press the send button there is an almighty crash,
the windows rattle and the building shakes violently. That was close. I instinctively glance at my watch. One minute to twelve. Still feeling the swaying hotel in my body I cross over to the window. Have they hit the Air Force HQ nearby - or was it even closer? I see nothing from the balcony and continue to concentrate on Aftenposten’s linguistic usage. Arabic names can be transcribed in endless ways; one must only stick to one. And from now on I will use the word war chariot and not tank.
The telephone rings. It’s Tim again. Has the electricity returned, I wonder.
- The hotel is hit. The hotel is hit. Get out! It might collapse!