- But this is so interesting, I exaggerate excitedly. - It is important to report that quotations are hitting the ceiling, while the rest of the world thinks the country is going to the dogs.
- The last three months stocks and shares have risen by nearly fifty percent. Iraqi investors have nothing but contempt for the threat of war, the Stock Exchange chairman says. They are buying factories, banks, hotels.
I assume the appearance of a naïve and friendly journalist, energetic and enthusiastic.
- The majority speak English here, Takhlef volunteers suddenly. You’ll manage on your own.
- Yippee, I think, while my minder goes and sits on a chair at the end of the room. He appears to be lost in thought, and is looking up at the boards on the wall.
The Stock Exchange is the size of a gymnasium, divided in two by a solid barrier. On one side, where the boards are, the brokers work; behind the barrier are the buyers and sellers. The closed Iraqi market operates according to its own rules. Only Iraqis can trade and only with Iraqi dinars.
Experts call the country’s economy chaotic. The chaos consists of some liberalisation at the micro level and immoveable bureaucracy and planned economy at the macro level. The economy is heavily scarred by sanctions and hyper-inflation. Twenty years ago one dinar was worth three dollars; today two thousand dinars buy only one dollar. There are plenty of loopholes in Saddam’s socialism. Smuggling, corruption and money laundering is widespread.
I stop next to a well-dressed man with a moustache. He speaks fluent English.
- Rising, says Telal Brahim contentedly. - Five percent in one week. They didn’t get us after all!
Telal hasn’t bought into any old company. He has invested in one of Iraq’s chemical factories, which recently had the dubious honour of receiving an unannounced UN weapons inspection.
- Provocative, but quite fun really. I own shares in the firm so I should know whether it produces anything illegal or not. We make plastics - boxes, bags and bottles. PVC products - run of the mill plastic. A factory producing chemical weapons wouldn’t be quoted on the stock market, Telal fumes, while all the time keeping an eye on the figures on the board. The quotations are altered with a felt pen and a sponge. The brokers run to and fro between the clients and the board. The swiftest is the most successful. Electronics have yet to reach the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
- A bull market. Quite unexpected! Muhammed Ali exclaims. - Most people thought shares would fall as a result of the threat of war, but the opposite is happening.
The Iraqis quite clearly want to believe in their economy. Anyone who gambles now might stand to gain many times over later. - Unless the war is long and bloody, Muhammed predicts. He lived in London for fourteen years, where he got a PhD in economics. - London is my second home, he says while all the time boasting about Iraqi stamina. - A quarter of a million soldiers threaten our borders. Instead of fleeing the country, people are investing in the stock market. It’s impressive, isn’t it? Let the Americans come. They just want our goodies, he says in his polished British accent.
Someone who was led astray by the threat of war stands gloomily in the corner watching the hive of activity. Yasser is a retired policeman who put his savings into a cycle factory. Certain that war would devalue his shares he sold them off some months ago. - When I sold, the shares were worth eleven dinar. Now they are up to eighteen, he says dejectedly. - I come three times a week to check. When they have fallen to fifteen I’ll buy them back. Of course I’ll end up with fewer than I had. Oh well, we can only hope they’ll drop.
Beside him is an elderly lady in a white head-scarf and thick glasses. She owns one million shares in Baghdad Bank and signals continuously to the brokers. While the living standard of the man in the street has been drastically reduced during the last decade, Suham has grown richer. - I have more money now than when sanctions first began. But I don’t take it seriously, this is just my hobby, she smiles apologetically. She is a doctor and owner of a clinic specialising in gynaecology.
- Most people are worse off, she admits. - They come to me with the most terrible afflictions; many of them cannot afford the treatment. This country is seeing a lot of horror.
- Goodbye Doktora, one of the brokers calls as the Stock Exchange is about to close.
- See you, says Suham, before disappearing out through the door and back into real life - to patients who cannot pay for her services. She is one of the winners; a dinar millionaire - on the board at least.
The press centre lies on the first floor of the Ministry of Information, an eight-storey monstrosity. Minister Muhammed Said al-Sahhaf sits at the top, the man who later, much later, is nicknamed Comical Ali. Now he’s just ‘the man at the top’, ‘the minister’ and not at all comical. He’s someone we never see, but who ultimately decides our destiny - how long we can stay, what we can see, where we can travel. On the ground floor is INA, the Iraqi News Agency. All Saddam’s decrees and laws are broadcast from here - via television and the three major newspapers, which are confusingly similar, despite their different names and possibly different archive photos of the president on the front pages. News never originates here. It is written in the Presidential palace and phoned in to INA, where a number of secretaries and so-called journalists take dictation and pass it on to the newspapers.
Every morning a cheek by jowl stream of people rounds the corner and hastens in the door of the Ministry of Information. They are men in suits and women in high heels. Some with flowing locks, others with hair hidden under shawls and bodies under loose folds. Everyone appears to be heading for something important. Like worker ants they carry heavy bags and briefcases into and along the anthill’s corridors, offices, nooks and crannies. At lunch time the building teems with people on their way out. They stop and talk by the entrance before ascending once again. In the evening they stream out once more, not quite as determined, but just as fast.
The Ministry of Information is divided into storeys according to a strict hierarchical pattern. The eighth floor commands the seventh, the seventh commands the sixth, and so on, right down to the second floor and the conference rooms where al-Sahhaf and his colleagues conduct their everlasting briefings. Anybody unlucky enough to find himself in the press centre when a conference is announced is squashed into the large hall. Kadim, Mohsen and engineer Walid, whose job it is to oversee our satellite telephones, wield invisible whips and herd us like cattle into the room. If they spot you it is too late to plead other engagements. Worst of all is when the Agricultural Minister, Trade Minister, Health Minister or any one of the others who do not speak English top the bill. They go on in Arabic, for an hour and a half, followed by questions from journalists from Arab-speaking countries. There is no translation. You can bring your interpreter with you, but having done that once you won’t do it again.
The Agricultural Minister does not talk about agriculture but the strength of the Iraqi army. The Health Minister never mentions hospitals, but goes on about how wonderful Saddam Hussein is, and the Trade Minister has nothing to say about sanctions and their effect on the economy, but how the Americans will suffer should they attack Iraq. Regardless of content, the speeches all originate from the same floor - the eighth.
The ground floor - the lowest and most pitiful - is ours. Here the gruff Uday al-Taiy rules. Not as awe-inspiring as his namesake, Saddam’s son, but scary enough. While the president’s monster of a son is corpulent and limps as the result of an assassination attempt seven years ago, our Uday is light of foot, thin and sinewy. His brows are always knit, his shoulders heavy, his nails manicured and his suits immaculate. A cold wind blows in his wake. Even though he never deigns to greet me, I stand to attention and lower my eyes. I am always scared stiff that he will catch me doing something; that I have misbehaved, said something unforgivable.
Uday al-Taiy is one of those cold-blooded and effective pieces that every dictatorship needs. He is in charge of us; he advises the ministers as to who should stay and who must leave. This
is what occupies us above all. To be allowed to stay. The rule is ten days. Only a few are smart, cunning, lucky, important or rich enough to stay beyond that period. And most of them are only granted an extra ten days. The visa and how to buy, trick or bribe to get it is the big topic of conversation among journalists. How many days have you got left? Do you think they’ll extend it? Who have you paid? Wow, you got the extension! How?
These conversations are intertwined with topic number two: When do you think the war will start? At the beginning of February, at the end of February, at the beginning of March, the middle of March, after the summer? The visa has to last long enough to enable us to cover the war, and to that end we have to enter the lion’s den, Uday al-Taiy’s lair.
Anyone wanting to talk to him is obliged to come between 9 and 10 in the evening. Any earlier and he will be with the minister. The result is a queue of journalists all glaring at each other. They want to be alone with the mighty man, to submit their case in secrecy. Just wait your turn to enter and listen to Uday’s monologues. It must give him perverse pleasure to hear our applauding and fawning. All because of the bloody visa. We sit on the perch until we fall off while we wait for the moment when we can submit our request.
- We must combat America’s imperialism before they subdue the whole world, Uday says and draws heavily on a cigarette, while a Japanese from Asahi, a pale, freckled lady from the Guardian and a classy TV star from France 2 nod. The beautiful but slightly moth-eaten Parisienne bobs her sky-high heels up and down. It is her way of saying she isn’t getting the attention she deserves. The Japanese looks down, while the lady from London wraps a large necklace around her finger. An American TV producer sits in the corner, without applauding, without contradicting. My face is serious and humble and I wait politely for my allotted time. I am not high enough in the ranks to either applaud or protest. I don’t dare nod for fear of nodding at the wrong place. The lady from the Guardian interrupts continually with new points. She and Uday seem to agree about most things. The TV star’s heels bob ever more angrily; then she too throws in some fierce criticism of the USA. The time is drawing to a close - the urgent matters must be dealt with. The Guardian wants to visit Basra; the Parisienne wants to interview Tariq Aziz. The TV producer needs permission to import one more satellite telephone. The Japanese needs an office in the building. I want to extend my visa.
- You are all flunkies of the USA. None of you report the truth, Uday screams. The air is stiff with smoke. On the wall the omnipresent picture of the president glares down at us. Behind Uday’s back are stickers from newspapers and TV stations all over the world. A television in the corner plays the incessant music videos.
To repay the attention shown, Uday allows the French and the English lady to talk. The Japanese is too polite, the American too haughty. My mouth is dry from all the smoke and I sink deeper into the low sofa. I am terrified of saying something and upsetting him. Stories abound of journalists who were exposed to Uday’s wrath and put on the first plane to Amman.
Suddenly the monologue is at an end and he gets up, says goodnight and strides out. I feel the eyes under the furrowed brow boring in to me, or through me. Hell, now I’ll have to come back tomorrow.
I’m on my way back to Gertrude Bell’s exercise in patience. Out in the parking lot Josh grabs me.
- Dinner?
Josh is an engineer with Sky News. He is responsible for the satellite system which enables the channel to report at any time from anywhere. He has the most contagious laugh and the broadest Scottish accent. Half of what he says goes over my head, but the other half usually makes me laugh. We have been bumping in to each other over the last years, at a refugee camp in Macedonia, during demonstrations in Belgrade, on a mountain top in the Hindu Kush, in the desert near Kandahar, and now in Baghdad.
Josh has been to Iraq before. During the last Gulf War he saw active service with the British Army. He was a soldier for eleven years, before being hired by Sky News.
Many TV companies recruit from the forces when they need technicians or cameramen. The one-time soldiers have stamina and war experience and bring a certain assurance to the team. They have learnt battle psychology and first aid. They know the difference between incoming and outgoing fire, and are the last to complain. Some of the correspondents also have army careers behind them.
We tumble through the door to the al-Finjan restaurant. The whole of Sky News - reporters, producers, photographers, technicians and editors, in addition to many other colleagues - are shown to a trestle table.
The British contingent are regular customers and the staff cannot be helpful enough. Rather, they know exactly what we want, and serve us beer. In cups so as not to antagonise the guests at the table nearby. Prohibition was part of the Islamisation campaign during the 1990s. Goodbye whisky, hello prayers and shawls. The former godless Saddam was suddenly being photographed in mosques, praying.
Al-Finjan is run by Alaw, a Christian Armenian who has tricked his way past the restrictions. That means contacts and patrons in high places.
We talk about the approaching war, wars we have experienced, where other wars might break out and which hotels will be safest once the bombs start falling. Al-Rashid lies right in the ministry jungle, al-Mansour between the Ministry of Information and one of the main bridges, Hotel Palestine opposite the Presidential palace. My tiny al-Fanar, close to the Palestine, makes them all smirk.
- That dilapidated building will collapse at the smallest explosion.
One dish follows another, the cups are refilled. I try to imagine the opposite situation. Great Britain is expecting a major attack from Iraq. It is feared that bombs will rain down over London. Rumours abound that Iraqis are planning wholesale takeover of many of England’s larger industrial plants, oil companies and shipping. Should Iraq win the war, it is expected that its leaders will maintain power for a considerable period, until a friendly regime is in place, a regime which serves Arab interests. Right in the middle of this rumour-flood Iraqi journalists flock to London. They check in at the best hotels, rent extra rooms to house their equipment, splash money about, demand to follow their own customs and drinking habits. They have brought with them gasmasks and bulletproof vests, and buy up bottled water and tinned food which those who live there cannot afford. In the evening, they gather round the restaurant tables and await one thing: that their president will give the go-ahead for the destruction of London.
How would they have been received by the inhabitants of London? By restaurant staff? By the British Ministry of Information?
Back in 707 Said has come up with another decoration idea. A small red, yellow and black patterned rug adorns the narrow strip of floor at the bottom of the bed. How would I furnish the room of someone who had come to report on the destruction of my country?
The days pass interviewing people who won’t talk, translated by interpreters who won’t cooperate, in a country where eyes and ears are everywhere. Never in my life have I worked under such difficult conditions. Not because there is no water in the tap, or a threat of guerrilla warfare. Nor the difficulty in sending articles home. The problem is that there is nothing to send. The list I gave to Mohsen has come to nothing.
- Not possible.
- OK.
- Impossible.
- Of course.
- Not allowed.
- That’s fine.
- No permit.
- I see.
- Out of the question.
- But . . .
- Maybe
- Oh.
- Be patient.
- Mm.
Instead I traipse around with Takhlef.
- Would you like to see the result of the sanctions in the hospitals? he asks. - Hundreds of thousands of children are dying because we are forbidden to import essential medicines.
- I have read about them everywhere.
- But you haven’t seen them yourself.
- We can’t all write about the same sick children, I answer stub
bornly.
Takhlef gives me an astonished look. This is the first time I’ve grumbled. We visit a food distribution point instead. Most Iraqis are dependent on rations distributed by the government. Rice, flour, beans, lentils. In the expectation of a long war the population are being given several months’ worth of rations.
For the first time I notice the sandbags, the only visible sign of Iraqi war preparations. On street corners brown sacks are stacked into little towers. The tiny forts are more comical than frightening, as if they belong to a different time.
We stop by a small shop. Every neighbourhood has an outlet which deals with rations. Huge sacks and boxes are placed on the floor next to some scales. The owner is weighing out foodstuffs when we enter.
Almost imperceptibly people freeze, turn away. Takhlef seems to take no notice. The female owner fetches large iron weights to measure everyone’s portion, her gaze averted. My minder grabs a woman whose eyes are watching the gauge carefully.