IN-SECURITIES
[Note: I'm adapting e-mails sent to my wife for these blogging ventures. For security purposes, I have changed the names of people and some destinations. I also beg the readers' patience on any factual errors I may make, and literary lapses and shortcomings they may detect--this is being written on the fly, where impressions and instant analysis comes first, fact checking and editing second. (Corrections are encouraged, of course.)]
May 3, 2005
Dear Lisa,
Well, I figured the Brits would try to scare the shit out of me, and I was right. But more about that in a minute...
Woke up this morning to find Al-Basrah in the embrace of a dust storm, the sky a lowering mass of reddish-orange grit and sand. Nothing like the tsunami I witnessed strike Karbala last year (or those incredible photos of a dust tidal-wave bouncing on the web recently), but enough to remind me that just beyond the circle of Basra's delapidated brick buildings lies an endless stretch of desert, and more desert...
Dust storm
Ali rolled up in an SUV at nine. Driving the vehicle was not Hassan but Ali's cousin Hashim, seems Hassan bailed out on the day's agenda because of my intention to drop into the British Consulate--Hassan was afraid someone would spot him, mark him and kill him. Ali doesn't care. Ali, in fact, has a kind of reckless, or brave insha'allah attitude you often find among Iraqis. Reinforced, in his case, by his experiences revolting against Saddam in the early 90s. He was caught by Ba'athist goons, who plunged his arm into boiling water, leaving it scarred and disfigured. He hates Ba'athists and terrorists and al-Qaeda. A tough guy, Ali.
Off to the health clinic for my blood test. Walking up to the clinic, Ali says, "No speak here, understand?" Yes, yes, Amriki has to keep his mouth shut. Needle in the arm, blood drawn, we're out again in a half hour, then back to the funduk. Twenty bucks for the privilege of transportation--ten for bodyguard Ali, ten for driver Sa'ad. What can I do? They've got me over a barrel.
But at the hotel, I find myself not feeling too well and had to lay down for more sleep. Nothing serious, I just think yesterday's blast of Mesopotamian sun and heat took me by surprise. At 11:45, Ali and Sa'ad pull up again to ferry me to the British Consulate. There I meet Deborah, a young, pert, cute press liasion, who, despite her tender years already has a passport-full of travels throught the Middle East, speaks fluent (if classical) Arabic and obviously loves the region and its culture. Over lunch, we talk about the situation in Basrah. "You realize, of course," she says to me, "that I'm authorized only to say to you that conditions here are dangerous and that only people with essential reasons to travel to Iraq should be here." I took that to mean that from the Brit point of view, freelancing journalism is not particularly "essential" and that, in their eyes, I'm a nuisance--someone who could get into trouble and creates headaches for everyone concerned.
We move out to the verandah (the Consulate is located in one of Saddam's old prez palaces--I've actually been there before, when it was CPA HO) to drink coffee and talk some more, whereupon we're joined by a tall, ruddy-faced, sandy-haired man named Mark whom Deborah introduced as a "security expert." His advice to me was: go home. Terrorists, criminals and opportunists of all stripes are eager to get their hands on foreigners. If I do stay--and here he outlined a huge security plan, at the end of which, my heart was sinking. Jeez, what am I doing here?
On the other hand, as everyone will admit, Basrah seems peaceful. But its a fragile peace, I'm told again and again, liable to break apart at any moment. There no predicting the future. On the way home from my sobering talk with the Brits, ask Ali what he thinks. "No problem, Mr. Steve--you stay with driver and another Iraqi man, no problem." Hmmm, in other words, I'm safe with him--at $20 a trip. I ask the hotel manager, and he's adamant that nothing will happen in the hotel. When I tell him about my discussion with Deborah and Mark, he says, "The British don't want any journalists here in Basra because they are killing Iraqi civillians and don't want anyone to write about this." Oh.
Layla shows up about 4:30, and we set off with her driver on another tour of the city. I ask her about safety. "No one is safe in Basra," she says. Great. Then she asks me about my "agenda." She's a little disconcerted--as I am, too--about my relative disorganization--the logistical problems of getting here and getting settled were more than I'd anticipated--and when I tell her I'll have to be flexible and spontaneous about things, she shakes her head. Layla has a woman's keen sense of practicality, tidiness and order, so she pulls out her notebook, cell phone and phone number contact sheet and starts quoting from the book proposal I sent her. "You want your book to deal with issues of health, women, the wars--" ticking off people I should contact, prompting me to starting developing ideas for interviews. Snap to it, soldier..
Back in the hotel lobby, I get distracted by an issue involving my phone (phones are a huge mooshkelay--problem--here, more on that later), and when I turn back to the desk, I see Layla grilling the hotel manager about safety and security. "It is okay here," she concludes. "But Steve, no one can be sure. Anything could change in a moment. You could be here for three months and nothing happens, and then on the day before you go home..."
I throw up my hands. "Okay, okay, I get the idea."
Layla gave me one of her ironic, melancholy smiles that can break your heart. "Yes, now you know," she says "This is what we have lived through for years."
Like I say, it can break your heart.