 | | | | Andrew Gilligan's diary | | | |
 Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Gilligan is in Baghdad.
Monday, 17 March
Iraqis are absorbing the news that President Bush has given the diplomacy just 24 hours more. The state media don't cover it, but everyone here listens to foreign radio. The international agencies and the few remaining Western embassies are pulling out (though the weapons inspectors are still at work, and the Russians announce they will remain, complete with a bomb shelter for any of their citizens who needs one.)
Still no hostility whatsoever to any of the sizeable foreign press pack here in Baghdad. There never is. Imagine how unpleasant we would be if the positions were reversed. I've come to feel that Iraqi courtesy is both innate, and a passive way of expressing distance from the regime. Long may it last.
Sunday, 16 March
A real turn in the atmosphere today. Not something you can really capture in nice, neat TV pictures or radio sound - just something you can feel and describe. Suddenly, the first signs of alarm poking through the surface of normality. Huge queues at petrol stations as people seek the means to escape. Previously taciturn Iraqi contacts start getting a little more frank about their thoughts for the future. "What's going to happen?" I ask one senior official. "Andrew," he says, "my neighbours know I'm a good man."
The ministries are moving out. At the Information Ministry, a great parade of people carrying computers, copiers, faxes and other valuables to waiting trucks. This building will be one of the targets. We discuss when we should leave it. A new military decree divides Iraq into four military zones. Saddam's son, Qusay, is in charge of Baghdad. Ali Hussein al-Majid gets the southern sector round Basra, first stop for the allied troops. Al-Majid, of course, is the man who decided to unleash chemical weapons on the Kurdish city of Halabje 15 years ago today.
Saturday, 15 March
A huge demonstration, billed as a decisive snub to Blair and Bush. Thousands and thousands of people on the streets. But there's no real passion here - like so many, they're going through the motions. If enough of the armed forces are the same - and we simply have no way of knowing - the war could be short. Drive out today to the outskirts of the city. According to the London papers, this is the place where Saddam is building a "ring of steel" for a fight to the death over Baghdad. Maybe I just wasn't allowed to go far enough. Maybe it's too well hidden - or a well-oiled machine will move into place in the final hours. But apart from small clumps of sandbags along the road and the odd dyke, there is no real sign of defensive preparations at all.
I'm not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. Could Saddam really give up everything - privilege, power, probably even life itself - without a fight? Maybe it means that he's going to go straight to larger weapons than a ring of steel.
Friday, 14 March
In a sense, the man from the ministry is right. As the story boils away everywhere else - Kuwait, Westminster, the United Nations - Baghdad remains the still centre of a turning world. The rush-hour traffic is as heavy as ever. The shops are still open - and not noticeably stripped of stock. Some people are leaving, but not many. The red double-decker buses (yes, they have them here too) cruise up and down the broad boulevards that are such a feature of dictators' capitals everywhere.
"Why isn't anybody panicking?" I ask an Iraqi friend. "They think they've seen it all before," he says. "They survived it then, they'll survive it now." Actually, they're probably wrong about the first part. Despite the dramatic - and misleading - TV pictures, the bombing of Baghdad in 1991 could scarcely have been lighter. In 43 days of war, just 330 weapons were delivered on targets here. We may not get away so easily this time. Spend most of the day stocking up with food, safety supplies and arranging our move to a safer, less target-surrounded hotel.
Thursday, 13 March
What is Baghdad actually like? It's a bit like Swindon, actually, only sunnier and dustier, complete with overpasses, underpasses, flyovers, dual-carriageways and other features of the 1970s town-planner's art. With its oil revenues, Iraq was an extremely modern country - but progress stopped dead in about 1980, the start of Saddam's first war, and has never really resumed. In the meantime, this may be the only place in the world where egg-cup chairs remain in daily service. When the war is over, Hoxton trendies should beat a path.
At the Ministry of Information, compulsory base for all foreign journalists in Iraq, the minders await. They're not, as is sometimes supposed, secret police heavies. Like nearly all Iraqis, they're civilised and pleasant. They are supposed to escort you wherever you go. And if they don't, most people won't talk to you anyway. The Today programme hits a problem. There are so many journalists in town that there's a bit of a shortage. We may have to wait until next week. "Don't worry, Mr Andrew, nothing is happening," says the Ministry man.
Wednesday, 12 March
Rather unexpectedly, you can still fly direct to Baghdad by normal passenger aircraft, complete with in-flight entertainment, safety demonstrations, small brown meals in plastic trays and all the other joys of commercial aviation. Four times a week from Amman, if you're interested. Compared to the old drive across the desert, it's something of a breeze. It was a twelve-hour trip, plus one to eight hours kicking your heels at an Iraqi border point called Trebil (Trouble to all BBC victims of this interminable crossing.) Ageing Iraqi Government doctors, bearing blood-encrusted needles, would attempt to perform Iraq's compulsory AIDS test on all foreign travellers (just say no - with a small amount of money in your hand.) Your car, with all your luggage in it, would be alarmingly driven away for examination without you - you were never quite sure you'd get it back.
Saddam International Airport, by comparison, is swift, only moderately expensive to pass through, and nobody is so rude as to mention AIDS. Driven into town by Kamel, the BBC's number two driver, in an extremely superior new BMW with walnut-wood trim. Am I in the wrong job here?
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