Baghdad digs in for grim battle ahead

www.iol.co.za March 14 2003 at 06:04AM

Baghdad - For months, this city's residents have tried to maintain the appearance of normality while the threat of war grew closer.

But the city seems to have finally dropped its business-as-usual pretence, succumbing to the reality that a United States attack could come soon.

Embassies are closing. The United Nations is pulling out expatriate staff. Residents are hoarding food, water and fuel, buying generators, drilling neighbourhood wells and cleaning out basements to use as bomb shelters.

Throughout the city, workers are building sandbagged positions and digging trenches.

'We must defend our nation because right is on our side'Members of the ruling Ba'ath Party are organising neighbourhood resistance cells. The dinar, Iraq's currency, is slumping and food prices - especially for canned food and bottled water - are soaring.

As recently as a few weeks ago, many Baghdad residents had at least publicly adopted a fairly laid-back attitude toward the threat of war, reflecting the experience of having lived through two wars and periodic US strikes over two decades.

Now store owners have begun moving their merchandise to warehouses. Others are not replenishing their stocks. Some residents are honing their evacuation plans, making arrangements with relatives in what they see as the relatively safe countryside.

Families can be seen moving out from central Baghdad's apartment blocks, loading trucks with suitcases and boxes.

On Wednesday, 35 high school students filled burlap sacks with soil and piled them into a defence position opposite the Al-Rashidiyah Bridge over the Tigris River.

'My wife Mariam prayed all night and I could not sleep until daylight, when I felt safe'"This is a sensitive area and it must be defended," said Ahmed Yassin, 16. "We must defend our nation because right is on our side."

Baghdadis whisper rumours that authorities are preventing people from leaving the city, but motorists reported on Wednesday that traffic in and out of the city was normal, with routine identity checks at roadblocks.

Only the wealthy can afford to leave the country for Jordan or Syria. Most of the city's five million people must face the grim prospect of war. Their fears are accentuated by nightmarish memories of a similar situation 12 years ago.

Muwafaq Fadil, a 54-year-old taxi driver, said his son Simon, then four, was so afraid during the six-week bombing campaign in the 1991 Gulf War that he hid under the sofa every night. His daughter Mariam, 6, fell unconscious when the bombing grew intense.

"My wife Mariam prayed all night and I could not sleep until daylight, when I felt safe," Fadil said. "I wish we could go abroad, but I don't have money."

Fadil said that for the past few weeks, his son has been unable to concentrate and suffers from stomach aches. Fadil blames this on the prospect of war.

The war jitters are also being felt in Baghdad's limited nightlife. Fewer patrons show up at restaurants.

Many of Baghdad's estimated 60 embassies - including those of Portugal, Spain, Thailand and Japan - have pulled out their staff. A rapidly shrinking number of others remain, including most countries vocally opposing a war: France, Germany, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and most Arab countries.

Grace Princesa Escalante, the Philippines' top diplomat in Iraq, remains as well. She has enjoyed a reputation for giving the best parties in Baghdad since she arrived two years ago. They have become a symbol of normality in a city where such symbols are increasingly in short supply.

But she may have given her last party this week - and even that didn't prevent war talk from dominating the conversation. It wasn't until she switched on the karaoke machine that the pace picked up.

Guests sang a rendition of the Eagles' 1970s hit Hotel California, replacing the chorus with "Hotel Al Rasheed", the name of Baghdad's most famous hotel. The evening's finale was another apropos 1970's classic: Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. - Sapa-AP

• This article was originally published on page 6 of The Cape Times on 14 March 2003