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Category: Iraq

The great Iraqi sale

New Iraq sometimes feels like Woolworths Christmas sales. I met an American guy the other day who called himself the ‘only true carpet bagger in Iraq’. The American had been here over a year and lives in a dangerous part of Baghdad, he touts work trying to win the many lucrative contracts. This guy is on commission only and hasn’t made a buck in a year. If he does win one of the many lucrative contracts he stands to become a millionaire over night.

But the risks are great. I always look out for people like him when I turn on the news each day to see who has been kidnapped or beheaded in the ritual slaughter that takes place here every day. Of course only westerners make international news. I met an Iraqi girl yesterday who has been working as a translator with a US company for 6 months. She hasn’t seen her Iraqi driver for 5 days now. He was kidnapped and no news has emerged. But there is little ransom on his head. The truth is that they are simply waiting for his body to be found in the gutters soon. He will be dragged into the hospital fridge waiting for identification from his family.

Like the only time I visited the hospital with a French journalist friend after a suicide bomber had killed scores outside Samir’s music school. Then, a man in his early 30’s was dragged in from the street with a single bullet to the back of his head. He’d come to find work from outside of Baghdad – to support his family. As we went through his belongings we found pictures of his young children, a boy and girl that didn’t yet know their father was dead. He had been killed for working with the Americans. A simple crime in country where the only source of work – real work, is with the Americans.

So it is a tough choice here; to work and be killed for $1000 a month, or work in safer jobs, like the swimming pool attendant at my hotel who is married with a child and earns a meagre $20 a week. My swim costs me $5 a day, my favourite pizza $4. But here in Iraq most families are spending that in one week. They eat basic simple food, just enough to get by. They drive clapped out cars, queue for miles for fuel in the raging heat, get home to find they have no electricity for air coolers or money to feed the family. All this in a country built on oil, where a litre of petrol is cheaper to buy than a litre of water.

‘Blame Saddam, blame Saddam!’ Yes.. but it’s over a year now since ‘the liberation’ of this land, with no hope in sight, people are looking back to Saddam. ‘Remember the ‘good old days’ under Saddam, when you could go out at night without fear of being killed robbed or kidnapped… the days when you didn’t have to camp outside school all day in raging heat waiting for your children in fear that they are kidnapped. Even Samir has started looking back to the days when ‘we had fun with fear.. but at least we had fun’. Now my Iraqi friends tell me to be careful on the streets with my camera. The microphone looks like a rocket propelled grenade. ‘Be careful please Mr Sean.. the Americans will kill you without question…they think later..’ All Iraqi’s know that the Americans ‘deal’ to remain here after the handover of power is that they cannot be prosecuted for killing people. But of course the more people they kill the more the resentment rages, the longer they stay the more animosity builds. Iraqis have had years of war and oppression and see this American occupation as just one more. There will be no peace in this land until America leaves. There will be no rebuilding until they realise, as Samir says, “Only Iraqi’s can rebuild Iraq.”

So where is there hope in Iraq today? I look around the pool at the reporters drinking beers, the mercenaries sitting with the contractors responsible for rebuilding Iraq. I wonder if they know what is actually going on here. They are part of the ‘rebuilding process’. I want someone tell me where the rebuilding is going on. I want to be able tell the many Iraqi’s that ask me day after day. “What are all these people doing here? We haven’t seen anything in over a year..” My clever answer used to be ‘these things take time.. have patience..’ but now having been here and seen Iraq in the hands of the Americans, I am less clever, more real, more cynical. How much longer can people wait? In true American style Iraq is a catastrophe that is only getting worse. I met a French Businessman who has come here to win a contract. He wants to earn some ‘good money’ before he retires. He visited the Coalition Provisional Authority to see how he could tender a competitive bid, but he wasn’t allowed. The ‘sale’ was closed. The selected companies were chosen. The American’s only deal out the contracts to their friends. They decide who gets what in the Great Iraqi Sale.

But the French man has hope. He is giving himself 5 years here to make friends with the right people, he is hopeful of getting a contract and securing his pension back in France. Lets hope he makes it through the stormy days ahead, for the sooner the Americans distribute their contracts and leave this land, the sooner there will be hope for ordinary Iraqi’s to have a peaceful normal life.

The best pizza in Baghdad

Samir was tired, we’d been doing lots of swimming today but I was intent on pizza. We travelled over to 52nd street to a place where we’d eaten yesterday. Samir was impressed by the young women there. But when we arrived the electricity was out and the emergency generator was not working.

I decided to go for ‘The best pizza in Baghdad.’ but Samir wasn’t happy. It was on the other side of town, and near the massive American base, very close to where a suicide-bomber killed many recently. Despite all of this (I’d heard so many good things about the place), I wanted to go. I persuaded Samir to drive.

The pizza parlour was wonderful, authentic, but expensive for Iraqis like Samir, about $4 a pizza. It had been a favourite with the Americans. But the owner wasn’t happy, business was down since the Americans were told they could not eat outside of the heavily fortified ‘green zone’ where they live. They fear they may be poisoned.

I sat enjoying the very authentic pizza. It tasted great… until I started reading the newspaper cuttings on the wall, of the recent suicide attack outside the American camp opposite. It had done $1000 worth of damage to the pizza parlour and killed scores of people. This is ‘Pizza Hut’ Baghdad style. I sat on my stool at the window concentrating less on the wonderful pizza, and more on the variety of strangers pulling up in their cars..

The price of alcohol

We’d gone round to Samir’s brothers home. Mahar was angry and worried. He hasn’t worked since closing his alcohol shop shortly after Iraq was liberated.

In New Iraq it is almost impossible to find alcohol. The shops are targeted by religious extremists, like the Mehdi – Army. Mahar tells me that 3 days ago they killed his neighbour sitting in his alcohol shop. They came in and shot nine bullets into his body. Mahar wipes his worried brow. It is hot and sticky, the electricity is not working again. “His blood is gone with the wind now.. Mr Sean.. he left two daughters and one son.”

Mahar goes into the backroom and comes out with 3 bottles of Spanish wine. “$5 to you Mr Sean… but believe I sell these at $15 each now.. since these killings alcohol has more than doubled.” Samir looks concerned. “This bloody country is going to be like Iran.. I tell you I’m counting the days and minutes for my papers to come through and I’m leaving here.”

Mahar looks sad. Samir is his closest brother. “You know 20 years ago Baghdad was paradise.. we would have never dreamed of going to America.. we had discos, bars, cabaret.” Now Mahar is unemployed, selling alcohol to friends from his back-room. Like many Iraqi’s who work in shops, hotels or drive taxis, Mahar has a degree. His two sons both have degrees, but no-one in Mahar’s family is working.

We buy 3 bottles of wine, 10 cans of beer and one bottle of vodka. Samir looks at Mahar.. “Stop selling alcohol.. it is dangerous.. these religious crazies will kill you.” Last week five Christian alcohol shops were blown up, many people were killed. The alcohol shops were left to burn, in the morning the gangs wrote ‘Shop To Let’ on the charred walls.

A beauty salon was blown up for selling ladies underwear. “You know, the Medhi Army are in control of Iraq now… they say we have an interim government but they are powerless. They are the thieves who returned to Iraq after Saddam, and now you see them giving jobs to their relatives. They are all in the hands of the Americans.. and what have they done for us? Nothing.. I tell you Mr Sean we were a lot better off under Saddam. If you were an honest man Saddam would not touch you. He used to protect the Christians..”

Famous

Samir seems more tired lately. We drive past ‘bombed-out’ buildings in central Baghdad. “This city was so beautiful” Samir laments, “The only building they rebuilt was the Ministry of Oil. What kind of message does that send to the Iraqi people.”

Later Samir plays in the empty restaurant. He is looking older by the day. He comes to sit with me, we drink a beer, he smokes a fag, “Only two packs today,” he smiles. But he is in pain and worried. “My bones hurt Sean.” He looks up at me like a little boy talking to his mother. “Sean I think I am dying… the cancer is eating me. I need to get my blood checked but I don’t want the doctors to tell me something that will ruin the rest of my life. I am so scared.”

“Sean, I miss my wife. You know I still love her.” It has been 3 years since she walked out on him, frustrated with his philandering with foreign women. When she left he asked her to forgive him, she looked at him and left without saying anything, just wiping a tear from her eye. Samir cannot forget this, “I’m not chasing women anymore because of my wife, I keep thinking of her. But she is sick too.. Maybe we should die together in the States.”

“But you know the one thing I wanted to do in this world was to be famous. I couldn’t to it.. I know I am good at what I do, but I couldn’t be famous.” Samir reaches for his glass and drinks his beer. I look around the empty restaurant where he plays for two hours each night. “Maybe this film will make you famous Samir.” He smiles looking back at me. “Maybe..”

The Man Without A Tongue

Woke this morning by a bomb blast, 8.30. Turn on the news and wait to hear what is was. 22 minutes later I find out that a suicide-bomber tried killing a Government minister but ended up killing 4 of his guards. I go for a swim to remove myself from the war zone, then to a shop outside our heavily guarded hotel complex. The shopkeeper is a friendly 27 year old with a good command of English. I am looking for Lurpak butter but he has just sold out. The great thing about newly liberated Iraq are the imports never seen before, luxuries like Lurpak. I fancy mash and beans for lunch despite the horrendous heat. I’d seen baked beans about somewhere but couldn’t remember where. I make do with processed peas. The shop-owner wants a girl friend. I tell him of the Iraqi girls I’d seen swimming in the hotel pool, “No I want English girl” he says. He starts drawing a diagram to help explain to me that 95 % of Iraqi’s don’t have sex before marriage and the 5% that do are dirty. “Are they prostitutes?” I ask.. “Yes” he says and shakes his head disapprovingly. We are interrupted by a man who enters holding a piece of paper. The man doesn’t speak. The shop owner hands the man 500 dinar, about 20p, the man nods and leaves. The shop owner tells me that the man can’t speak, he had his tongue cut out for speaking against Saddam. I watch the man wander outside looking for his next call of charity. I pause to think about what this man may have said to receive such a punishment. He looks destroyed, destitute and helpless. Whatever he said, this form of punishment has finished this human being. Perhaps he was a brave man that once stood-up and spoke-out against the tyranny of Saddam, when everyone else was so scared to even think bad things against him. Or maybe he’d lost it one night and swore against Saddam in a rage, a neighbour overheard him and grassed him up to the intelligence. Whatever it was, I had an admiration for him and a sadness. I watched as he strolled off in his well dressed suit looking for more charity. The shop owner tells me that his father was killed on the front line in the Iran war when he was 7. As the oldest child in a family of 4 he took on the fatherly responsibilities to look after his family. We return to my dilemma about finding Lurpak butter, he tells me to try the store next door. Next door they only have Iraqi butter, I am eager to try it. It cost 30p. I go back to my room and mash my potatoes, dropping huge dollops of Iraqi butter into it and it tastes fantastic. As I eat I can’t stop thinking of the man with no tongue. Sometimes, almost by accident you come across the brutality that ruled this land for far too long and you see the reality of what Saddam has done. I feel awkward about the war but happy that this monster has gone. The shop-keeper who was so happy about the war despite the chaos today told me “Bush deserves a place in heaven, he got rid of Saddam. The Americans can have all the oil they want.”