BAGHDAD — The big story in our section of Baghdad since I
last
wrote was the attack by a suicide bomber on a popular kebob
restaurant very close to where we are located. Once again it was a
place frequented by police and army recruits. As usual, they were
packed in like sardines and made an excellent target for one of the
bombers, since there was no attempt at all to screen the people
coming into the restaurant. Twenty-three of them were killed.
In spite of all the bombers, both human and automotive, things
continue to get better in the everyday lives of Baghdadians. The
city continues to be slowly cleaned up. Electric service is
gradually improving. The regular blackouts, which seemed to be of
perpetual duration not long ago, are now a bit more manageable. The
other night at a dinner I attended with about a dozen U.S. Army
officers, I learned that the Iraqis, on their own, have totally
repaired the significant damage to the Baghdad water supply
inflicted four days earlier.
Along with these important developments in Iraq, I have had time
to continue observing some of the little things that one can’t help
noticing here.
For instance, Iraq does not have a domestically made staple
remover that works! I am not carping, but it’s from the ability to
produce such humble objects that great industrial powers are
born.
Thank God I brought one with me from the States. I was just
admiring its sleek lines and saw that the damn thing was made in
China!
Every day at noon the electric generator at our headquarters is
turned off for an hour. It saves $10 a day and wear and tear on the
machine! When the temperature at noontime is, on average, up around
125, it seems that a second look should be taken at some of the
other costs involved in our sitting in pools of sweat.
One of those costs is apparent today. We are crashing ahead on a
proposal for an $800,000 project. I have asked our secretary to
work through lunch to get it ready. In fact, I have bribed her with
a Snickers bar to which I know she is addicted. A short while ago
she left. I asked her where she was going… “To lunch,” she
replied. “The power is off and my computer doesn’t work without
it.”
I don’t know where the generator switch is. We are losing an
hour. Meanwhile, the Internet invariably goes down from 4:00 to
5:30 p.m. The proposal is due by 7:00 p.m. and I am having
apoplexy! But we are saving $10 — and possibly missing a deadline
on an $800,000 project.
I think W.S. said it best: “For want of a nail the kingdom was
lost!”
NOW FOR AN ADDENDUM to my earlier
report about $100 bills in Iraq. They are not quite as
universally accepted as I had thought. I just gave one to my
driver/aide Osama to take to the bank to change for smaller bills.
He came back with it and said it’s not acceptable at the bank
because it is a pre-2003 bill! I guess they must have added some
anti-counterfeiting feature that year. I did notice that the date
is on the front of the bill just as it is on the back of a
coin.
A few evenings ago, one of our people went to help a neighbor
transport more than $250,000 in cash to the bank! Almost all
business transactions between individuals, and between local
companies, are carried out in cash, so the existence of absolutely
astounding hoards of cash is not at all unusual. When my friend got
to the bank, the tellers counted all the bills by hand (that is,
2500 bills), and rejected every single one that was not
post-2003!
All of you should check your wallets and dump the older C-notes
if you are headed this way.
FOR ABOUT A MONTH AND A HALF I have been hearing a report about how
the Iraqi Army is dealing with insurgents. I have ABSOLUTELY NO
IDEA if it’s true, but the story persists. The people I hear it
from are Iraqis living in the general Baghdad area, not in the
Green Zone or other sheltered places. I consider most of the people
from whom I have heard it to be reliable individuals not given to
making up wild stories. That doesn’t, however, insure it is
true.
A few days ago I read a report from one of the major reporting
agencies that, indirectly at least, bolsters the possibility that
what I have been hearing has a whiff of truth to it. That story,
from a major news source, said that the new Iraqi Army has reverted
to some practices of the old Hussein days and engaged in the
torture and, in some cases, execution of those swept up by
anti-terrorist patrols.
A few months ago, there were several reports that said
terrorists had kidnapped and executed a number of police conscripts
and dumped their bodies in a landfill. A few weeks later the same
happened with some army recruits.
The persistent report I hear is that the “police conscripts” and
the “army recruits” were actually terrorists who had been arrested,
dressed in the appropriate uniform and taken to the landfill. Once
there, they were summarily shot.
I asked the guys in our office what they think of this if it’s
true. To a man they are absolutely ecstatic! The “first good thing
the government has done” is their unanimous opinion. Personally,
and after having walked by the spot where 23 innocent Iraqis were
killed on Sunday by a suicide bomber, I find it very hard to
disagree with them.
FEAR IS A UNIVERSAL commodity in Iraq. Recently I witnessed two
episodes that illustrate how pervasive and paralyzing that fear can
be in Baghdad.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced some
solicitations for very large electrical contracts. One involves a
well-known company. Our general manager knows the president of its
Iraqi subsidiary and called to advise him we want to involve his
company in a contract that could be as large as $50 million.
It turns out the fellow is on a business trip in Europe so our
man spoke to his wife who is here in Baghdad. He tried to get her
to tell us his cell phone number so he could call him on the road.
She refused to do so. She said we might be terrorists who have
booby-trapped his phone so that when he answers it will explode! We
have urged her to have him call us and thus avoid the need to
answer his phone. No luck. Now she won’t even answer her phone. So
we are not going to contact his company.
The second episode once again involves Osama. I had to ask him
to get a message to someone at the airport when he goes there a bit
later. I found him in the kitchen talking with someone on his cell
phone. I walked up to him with my index finger raised and saying to
him: “I need a second!” I thought he was going to have a heart
attack. He slammed his phone shut, a look of terror crossed his
face, and he fled from the kitchen.
When I finally caught up with him he said: “I was speaking with
a good friend — he doesn’t know where I work. He heard your voice
and now he can have me killed!” With a little exasperation I asked
him if he thought the friend would recognize my voice. It turns out
that was not the problem. The problem is that Osama is in
an environment where someone is speaking English. That is a
giveaway that Osama works for a U.S. company!
The end of the story is that Osama was speaking with a very good
friend. That friend might be kidnapped and tortured for any
information he has about anybody or anything. Osama is terrified
the friend will blurt out: “My friend Osama works for an American
company!”
This is life in Iraq.
