After 36 hours of travelling, with no time to put my thoughts down, I find myself home. Back to my steam – powered laptop, put to shame by the high-speed connection I had on the APTN system in Baghdad. The power never failed on us…. The water was always hot….
6.30 am for check out, farewell to our lovely, polite and gentlemanly (and hopefully happy) Iraqi client.
Eventually Sallah appears, and we are off to his land again, to change vehicles – different driver this time, someone he has used more frequently than our Man with a Van from Amman. We load the vehicle. Drink tea. A more sociable timescale being used. One of Sallah’s workers picks me the most fragrant rose I have ever smelt. I help myself to some orange blossom. This is real sensual overload. Truffles found in the desert are loaded in the vehicle. Apparently Iraq is famous for its truffles.
Last night’s escapade onto the roundabout is revealing its implications. Mosquito bites. There was stagnant water around the site of the statue.
Sallah shows us around the land, now owned by him, his brother and his cousins, keeping it in the family. Thousands of Palm trees, their holy tree. Fruit trees, vegetables. He pointed out where he was planning to build his swimming pool!
And then….
Well, I’m a great believer in starting how you mean to finish so… do you know what I did next? I think you’ve probably guessed the kind of thing by now. I fired off Sallah’s Browning 9mm handgun. Slipped the empty cartridge shell into my pocket and we were off, back to the border and back to Amman.
At least that was the plan…
We set off on the International Highway, but as we approached Fallujah, the US presence on the road was steadily increasing, to the same degree that our travelling speed was decreasing. The basic rule is that if you are taking the International Highway, you travel as quickly as you can.
Through blacked out windows I took photographs of the troops. If they see you taking pictures they will destroy your camera, regardless of whether you’re civilian or Press.
Sallah tells us that Fallujah is the only place in Iraq where (even during Saddam’s regime) there was never a ruling Governor. It’s a real rebel town. Based on the traditional tribal system (which still exists). They are very proud and dignified people who WILL NOT accept within their multi – tribal society, working out their own co – existence, that there should be a person promoted to such a position that does not respect this equality and the diversity. The first Governor lasted a day before he was shot dead, the second, two. Rebel town.
On the way into Baghdad, he told us that both Fallujah and Ramadi were the most dangerous places for Westerners, as the US forces had come down hard on them, showing no respect for their traditions, beliefs, culture, dignity, intelligence… or the fact that they were actually, really, human beings.
So we find ourselves stopped by the US forces on the highway. Sallah (who speaks very good English) calls to a GI to find out if the road is being closed. The charmer he speaks to doesn’t take his hand off his automatic rifle and tells him to stay in lane. This is traffic control, GI style.
A conversation in Arabic between the Fixer and the driver. Next thing we know, we are off – roading, trying to find a different route. We can hear automatic gunfire.
And it sounds quite close.
The road we first aim for is full of returning cars. Nasir, our driver, talks in Arabic to those coming the other way. This road is closed also.
There is an absolute lack of communication between the GIs and the Iraqis. When they first arrived in the country they would use their standard hand signals to get Iraqi drivers to stop on the highway. Hand signals that the locals didn’t understand. Hand signals that got you shot if you didn’t halt for them.
Third attempt, the underpass under the highway. As we approach, all cars grind to a stop. More American soldiers running through the tunnel towards us. Silhouetted on the highway above us are tanks and US soldiers with sniper rifles and automatic machine guns. Barrels aimed towards us.
Sallah informs us that the soldiers are Marines. I can spot a decent tool for work at 30 paces. Sallah obviously has that skill where it comes to the detail of warfare and killing machines.
We are hemmed in between the car behind and the car in front of us. Eventually the car behind reverses out and we too can set off at speed, over the desert sands away from the troops, through burnt out wrecks of trucks and oil containers (relieved of the driving chassis) into Fallujah. The vehicle in front at the underpass was a pickup. Apparently the vehicle of choice for the resistance.
Through the back streets of Fallujah. Never have I been so grateful to be in place that I should never visit. Safety in the fact that both Nasir and Sallah are from tribes in this area.
It amazes me how calm you can be in a situation of such absolute danger.
The sound of gunfire fades as we gain distance on the situation. Through Fallujah, then past what was the tourist area of Habbaniya. In my guidebook to Iraq, I read than water skiing and horse riding used to be available here. On the other side of the road is the old Iraqi air force base. All of the planes have been dismantled by the US soldiers, like flies with their wings pulled off. Sallah cannot understand the need for this degree of humiliation from the forces that claimed only to be freeing his people from Saddam.
We pass a man who is being stopped and searched. By a US tank. His black Mercedes dwarfed by the barrel of gun pointing at the man whose face didn’t fit at that point in time. Being patted down on the bonnet of a huge tank. And they wonder why the US forces aren’t welcome here. Having had a glimpse of the pride and dignity of these people it seems so unnecessarily humiliating.
Sallah tells me that he sees the US troops ‘fuelling the fire’ in Iraq’s present situation. I worry that the resentment shown towards them and their behaviour will cause a spiralling down toward more anger and resentment and therefore rebellion and lawlessness.
We pass through into Ramadi. Nasir drives to his house to drop his brother off. We sit in the vehicle, knowing that his taking us here could cause him trouble, associating with Westerners. The problem being English (or in my case a New Zealander) in this kind of place is that I speak no Arabic and cannot explain that I am not American. He brings out drinking yoghurt homemade by his mother. His inquisitive nephew turns up to practice his English. Fantastic yoghurt, tastes like the kind of stuff that my Mum used to make when I was a kid. I climb past the others out of the van and find the Manchester City badged bear that I bought to Iraq in case this kind of occasion ever occurred and give it to the nephew.
We are then invited in for tea and homemade biscuits, generosity and hospitality too strong in these people to allow them to ignore even perhaps unwanted guests. Or maybe it was just me being ‘brave’ enough to give a kid a toy that made the invitation appear…?
Sallah tells us later that he told the driver to wait in line on the highway. Nasir knows this area better, so he knew to get us out and away from the troops as quickly as possible. He may well have saved our lives. We certainly believe so.
He also told us then that he was advised last night there was a situation of high alert, which is why he didn’t take us out of the compound. Basically, he was told not to, for our safety.
We say our thanks to Nasir’s family and their hospitality. Back on the road, the back routes to re – join the highway. Just before, we stop for some food. Wonderful salad and yoghurt with lettuce and char grilled tomatos scooped up in fresh bread.
Back on the highway, the miles and hours pass on our way to the border with Jordan.
And the wait. It takes four hours for us to cross from Iraq back into Jordan, even with queue jumping and Sallah knowing the security chiefs on both sides of the border. Nasir is interrogated, even though they can see from his passport he is a driver from Baghdad to Amman. I look at his passport, which is so full of stamps that there is no place for his latest Jordan visa. This is his livelihood, however. The vehicle we travel in cost him $18000US and in two years, if he works constantly, he will have paid for it.
We are checked. The vehicle is checked, our bags are checked, and then in the lack of logic that exists, finally after four hours we are able to get a glass of tea or Turkish coffee. Having set out at 7am we find ourselves listening to the dusk call to prayer as we finally wait for Nasir’s passport to be, once again, stamped.
Eventually back through the Jordan night. In our absence, the clocks have changed, Baghdad time now being Amman time. Check points every 100 kms or so. Our passports again being checked by the lights of police pickups.
The humiliation is too much for our Fixer. Anger spilling over that his people, the people from the country he loves so much are being treated so badly by their neighbours.
After the smooth roads of Iraq, the Jordan road is pot – holed and in disrepair. Detours and traffic jams. We are shown where the old border used to be. After the Iran Iraq war, Saddam gave 90km of Iraq to Jordan for their assistance during the conflict. Just like that. So much misplaced power and egotism. Nobody I met in Baghdad was sad to see HIM go.
We stop at a roadside café, its wall decorated with business cards from Companies heading into Baghdad. Stan and I give them one of the cards we had made up on a motorway service station on the M6. We watch it being stuck up amongst the (majority) broadcast, infrastructure and services related cards there.
As the service returns on the mobile phones, our boss’s wife phones to say that there are reports of fatal shootings in the area that Nasir managed to drive us away from.
Along the roadside are trailers laden with the scrap metal from the war. Leaving Iraq bound for Aqaba in Jordan, then on by ship to either Japan or India to be melted down. Dozens of them. So much twisted and destroyed metal.
I talk to Sallah and he asks me what I thought of Baghdad. It is a beautiful city, so I told him as much. He questioned me:
- Beautiful or sad?
Baghdad is beautiful and sad. Terribly, terribly sad. Her people are sad. Her condition is sad.
Sallah likened her to a beautiful woman who needed the love of a good strong man. Rather than this, she has been raped.
I get the feeling that he would love, Atlas – like, to take the weight of his country’s problems on his shoulders and solve them all, regain the pre – Saddam Iraq of his childhood. I see the frustration in his face. He is a powerless good strong man in this situation.
We stop for some beer from a roadside shop. We are relieved to have got through the situation in Fallujah but there is sadness in the vehicle. We talk about many things. The contaminated blood that France sent to Iraq, Jordan (the gateway to Iraq) increasing their VAT on the 1st of April – the revenue they will receive…
And then we are in Jordan. Systems. Protocols. Law and order. It feels good. We drop the truffles at a Sheik’s house, our boss invited in for tea. He returns with the instructions to tell Tony Blair and George W to pull out of Iraq.
I express my concerns that there may be a whole generation of ‘Saddam’s children’ who know nothing better than the corruption and domination and deprivation that has existed. Apparently the Sheik had the same concern.
We change cars again, into Sallah’s private car, as Nasir’s Iraqi taxi is banned from the airport. He is paid his fee for the trip. We all tip him. He tries to persuade that it is too much money. The fighting is still going on in Fallujah and we are alive. Sometimes you never have enough money on you to pay for services received. We thank him for the hospitality of his family and he is on his way.
Then on to the airport via Sallah’s hotel. He swigs whiskey and water as he drives, now beginning to relax after the day’s excitement. We stop at the falafel shop we visited as we first arrived in Amman. He is no longer the fixer and we are no longer the Westerners. Four friends relaxing over some food after a hard day on the road.
Finally to the airport. And this is the end of my blog. Inshallah, I shall return. If I do, I shall resume this. All I have left now is to send through my photographs, answer your comments…
I want to go back, to continue to do my bit to help the Iraqi people turn their country into the kind of society it should be. I want to associate again with people so full of pride and dignity and hospitality…
I put the orange blossom I picked from Sallah’s garden, along with some he gave me, into a ‘Palestine Hotel’ envelope. It still smells beautiful. I now have my Baghdad barometer. I will have to return when the scent fades.
Names have been changed to protect the good and the great.
