My two colleagues on the sofa were of no help. In my situation they would not have hesitated. I needed to talk to a rational being, not someone sitting beside me drinking gin and tonic.
I couldn’t phone my parents, if I spoke to them I could never go. I couldn’t phone my sister, brother, friends. They had already asked me not to go.
It was around midnight. Bob replenished the glasses and zapped the remote control. All the channels showed the same: the run-up to war.
Suddenly I thought of someone I could phone. I dialled the number and heard shouting and the clatter of glasses through the receiver.
- I’m at the London Book Fair.
- Do you have two minutes?
I outlined the pros and cons as succinctly as possible.
- I just don’t know if I dare risk it, I said finally.
There was a long pause.
- The question is: Do you dare risk not going?
The sun is beating down. It hurts my eyes and burns its way into my head. I rummage around for my sunglasses, roll down the window and watch the desert hurtling towards me, pale brown sand everywhere. I sit half asleep behind the dark glasses. Muhammed too has strayed into his own meditation, and tears along the straight road at 100 miles per hour.
- Iraq, he suddenly says, and points towards a building on the horizon. I force myself to wake up, straighten the seat back. Ready.
On the border we meet the first journalists. On their way out.
- Nothing in the world could make me stay in Baghdad now, a colleague says, clearly relieved to have reached the Jordanian border. - The attack might start at any moment. Three thousand cruise missiles day and night. Saddam could retaliate with chemical weapons - he might take us hostage, bring us down with him.
Impatiently, he waits for the exit papers, as if he cannot leave Iraqi soil soon enough. I have handed over my entry visa to be stamped. I feel stupid, like a complete idiot who does not understand what danger is; so dense that I cannot see death when it comes. My papers are stamped first.
The customs officers search the jeep then give it the OK. Muhammed jumps in, describes an elegant turn on the gravel, stops in front of me, leans over the seat and opens the door with a click. I jump in and wave to my colleagues at the border station. Have a nice trip to Amman!
From the bench by the sunny wall they wave back lazily, shake their heads and continue their conversation.
I glance up at the familiar portrait that welcomes us to Iraq. There are not many to greet this Monday morning. Muhammed and I are driving almost alone against the tide. Not only journalists are leaving the country. Cars laden with carpets, bags, pots, clothes and people flee Baghdad.
In the middle of the desert there is a petrol station and a crossroad. This is where the motorway from Baghdad splits in two. One road continues to Jordan, the other to Syria. There is a huge queue for petrol. Three Persian carpets are tightly rolled up on the roof of the car in front. On top of them several cardboard boxes have been tied down. Inside the car five people sit squeezed together between suitcases, crates and boxes. A suit hangs from the window and a bag of lemons lies squashed under the seat. I ask Muhammed to translate.
- We’re going to Syria to stay with some relatives until this is all over. My wife is about to give birth so Baghdad is no place for us, Jasir says.
The mother, an older woman, draws heavily on a cigarette, all the while fingering the packet. - Whatever happens, Allah decides our destiny, but sometimes we have to give him a hand, she sighs.
The queue moves slowly, the cars several rows deep. Some have come to hoard, others to fill up and get away.
- The petrol price is the only thing that hasn’t changed in the last days, says Muhammed. It still stands at under ten pence a litre but it is harder to get hold of.
- I have four hundred litres in my garden, in a large tank. I dare not hoard more - what if it explodes?
Muhammed is chuffed that his driver service has increased in value. - Now it costs seven hundred dollars per person to get to Amman from Baghdad, he says. - Tomorrow it will go up again, and during the war the price will rocket up.
He laughs and gives a convincing impersonation of someone shooting into the air. - Fighting, he says. - Big fighting.
I turn away. A couple of buses carrying Jordanian youths with Iraqi scholarships are on their way out. Like other countries, the Jordanian authorities have asked their citizens to leave Iraq.
In yet another crammed car is a family that has come the same way as us - from the Jordanian border. The family was denied entry. - We are without visa, but I have papers showing that I have business in Akaba, in Jordan, look, here they are, the father tells us. - They wouldn’t accept them and turned us back. Now we’re going to try Syria.
The majority who flee Baghdad go there. It is the only one of Iraq’s neighbours which will allow entry without a visa. The borders to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran are closed. In the border areas, the no-man’s-land between Iraq and Jordan, refugee camps are being planned. The Iraqis might come here but no further. When Muhammed and I passed by in the early morning hours, the desert was still naked. All we saw were a couple of men measuring the ground.
- The majority have decided to stay. But many will panic when the bombs start falling, and then it might be too late, a lady on her way to Damascus says. - Yesterday I said goodbye to my relatives. We just sat and cried. No one has a clue what will happen. Do you know, on the way out of Baghdad I saw two collisions. People can’t even concentrate on driving. That’s how it is to live under the threat of bombs, she sighs, still a hundred or so cars away from the pumps.
The afternoon is drowsy and hot when we finally arrive in Baghdad. The familiar cacophony of horns, bells and car engines wakes me up. At the Ministry of Information total chaos reigns. A long queue of journalists try to settle their accounts. If their bills haven’t been signed they get no exit stamp. Mister Jamal, a thin, toothless man, who always walks around with a suitcase full of money, is stressed. He counts and lisps and bickers and counts. The queue moves at a snail’s pace. No one knows Jamal’s background, but we are certain he guards a secret. He has no fingernails. He counts notes with soft fingertips. Has he been tortured? Has he spoken against the regime? Or been punished for pilfering the funds?
This is not the day for speculation. Correspondents from leading British and American newspapers are about to leave the country.
- You should go too, they tell me.
- But I’ve just arrived.
We queue for the same bureaucrats. They to leave, I to stay. People rush past each other, wait side by side, dodge the queue, push and plead. Once again my details are recorded, once again the telephone is registered, again the seal is broken, again I promise to use it only at the Ministry. This time, however, no one asks for a list of places I want to see or people I want to meet. And no one bothers to give me a minder.
The ministry seethes with panic, from the rulers on the eighth floor to us lowly subjects on the first. From the floors above us furniture is pulled, pushed and carried down the stairs and out onto the backs of lorries. Archives, computers, shelves and boxes, everything goes - God only knows where. The Ministry of Information is high on the American list of targets.
- Åsne, you must leave, Peter,
The Times
’ photographer, mumbles in my ear. - Please, leave!
Panic is starting to overtake me. I am given the opportunity to leave with some colleagues the next morning. But I have to write an article first, just one. I couldn’t have come all this way in vain. It takes hours to complete the registration. In reality that means I can’t leave the next day, the departure procedure would take just as long. I am fooling myself. Then I see him - and he me. Kadim. Who wouldn’t give me a visa.
- How did you get back in? he asks, grabbing my arm and looking at me darkly.
I don’t answer. - Everyone’s leaving, I say instead.
- You bought a visa, he snorts.
- Well, what was I to do?
- I tried to phone your hotel room in Amman all day yesterday and all day today, to tell you that the visa was ready. How much did you pay?
I shrug my shoulders. - A lot.
- You were stupid, mine would have been free. Why didn’t you trust me? I said I’d send you a visa.
- But it dragged on for so long, I excuse myself, as if I’ve been naughty. - Anyhow, I will probably leave tomorrow. I don’t want to be the only one left here.
- Hardly anyone is leaving. It’ll be all right, Kadim says. His voice softens. - Are you frightened? Do the bombs scare you? Think of all the Iraqi children who aren’t afraid. We Iraqis are never afraid. Look, here’s my phone number. If you’re frightened, come and live with me. I have a wife and five children who can look after you, he says, and hands me a slip of paper.
Bomb-filled nights at home with Kadim. I feel a story coming on. -
The Bureaucrat of Baghdad
. I feel a bit safer. Or would he hand me over to bandits when the time comes?
From round a corner, Janine comes walking towards me.
- So you came, she says. - Welcome.
Janine is awaiting the decision of
The Times
’ editor-in-chief. Just this morning the MOD in London had summoned representatives from leading British newspapers and TV stations and urged them to withdraw all personnel from Baghdad. They had to expect chemical weapons, hostage-taking, or worse, being chained to military installations as human shields. Besides, the bombing campaign -
Shock and Awe
- would be harder, faster and more awesome than anything ever before.
The majority of those leaving today have been ordered out by their employers. It is hardly encouraging to see the large TV companies pack up crates and cables and go. Like being abandoned.
First I need a place to stay. My beloved al-Fanar is out of the question. There is a choice of three hotels: al-Rashid, al-Mansour and Palestine. Most journalists have until recently lived in the enormous al-Rashid, but now this has an air of danger about it. At the entrance a sign proclaims ‘
More than a hotel
’ and rumour has it that it really is more than a hotel. Under the enormous structure there are, allegedly, secret tunnels, passages and surveillance systems. The hotel is an obvious target.
The second best hotel, the concrete colossus al-Mansour, is situated between the Ministry of Information and the Sinak Bridge. The very fact that the Ministry and the bridge are targets prompts the remaining journalists to leave al-Mansour and crowd into Palestine, a high-rise opposite the Presidential palace, and the least unsafe, according to rumours. Everything is based on rumour these days. They begin as small whisperings, a light tinkle in the corridors, then turn into a gentle breeze which flaps around receptive heads, until the flood of words blows up to a hurricane, raging in people’s ears. - Have you heard? Is it true? Will we die?
Hotel Palestine looks impressive and proud from a distance, surrounded by palm trees and gardens. A large swimming pool is placed under the shade of the trees, but the water is muddy, a sort of greenish brown slime. The bottom is covered by earth and sand and the pool walls are marbled with green algae. A rotten stench hits the nostrils of any passer-by. In the garden weeds flourish among the flagstones, the lawns are brown and the beds flowerless. Under a faded canopy there is a large outdoor grill, but a lot of time must have passed since lambs and oxen were barbecued here.
- No room, a receptionist informs me.
- So where should I stay?
- No room.
I know he is lying. There are hardly any guests left. He wants money. I am about to produce a couple of hundred dollars when Jean Paul from
Le Nouvel Observateur
comes to check in. He makes a big fuss when he hears about the extra money and - hey presto - there are no rooms at all.
Over the stone floor Janine approaches like a whirlwind, photographer, driver, porter and interpreter in tow.
- They have ordered me to leave, she bursts out, clearly exasperated. - We cannot tell you all we know, they whispered down the receiver. The war will be awful, the editor told me. I have never heard him so serious, so determined.