- BAGHDAD (IPS) - So Baghdad
has been bombed again, but it seemed Friday that this is only a minor problem.
People have got used to the bombardment one hears - if ever bombardment
is something you can get used to.
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- After the bombing of Al-Sha'ab nobody believes in precision
bombs any more. äIt is a matter of luck,ä says a shopkeeper,
who is still getting a daily supply of fresh tomatoes to sell. Most bombs
are expected to be precision-delivered, the rest are a small chance. And
that kind of small chance at least Baghdad has learnt to take in its stride.
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- It is not these chances that worry people, it is the
growing certainties that have spread new fear. As the British and U.S.
troops close in around Baghdad, the fear is that they will close that circle,
and stay there.
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- äThey are going to starve us,ä says a shopper
at the souk. äThe American soldier will never come and fight on the
streets of Baghdad,ä he says. äThey will just wait for all our
food to finish, wait for our water to finish, they will wait for us to
be finished.ä
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- Baghdad is preparing for siege. It is preparing for siege
in a summer when temperatures can rise to 50 degrees Celsius, without electricity,
without enough water, and with only the most basic food. Baghdad is learning
to fear a future that will make the years of crippling sanctions seem like
a picnic.
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- Residents are beginning to fear whether humanitarian
aid will ever get through. The aid that feeds the people would also feed
Iraqi military resistance to the forces laying siege.
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- There are fears also over the fate of the millions who
live in the suburbs of Baghdad. No one knows their situation, and certainly
not the journalists living in Palestine hotel or the Rashid hotel. äLet's
face it, we are reporting from our hotels, and really from the basement
of our hotels,ä says a cameraman for a British channel.
-
- The intense bombing of Saddam Hussein's Palace of Peace
and other government buildings on Friday of last week gave journalists
a rare ringside view of the war. Since then all that Baghdad has seen is
mostly smoke in the distance.
-
- Most journalists do not want to step out when there is
fear of bombing. And few can wander far anyhow; the minders take care of
that. Journalists reporting Baghdad are reporting really the Iraqi official
briefings, and a stretch of downtown Baghdad around the Tigris. When Baghdad
begins to suffer, not even the journalists in Baghdad will be there to
tell the story.
-
- At the vegetable market they say the roads to Baghdad
are open from the north. No one knows for how long. Reports are coming
in now of U.S. troops landing in the north with tanks, clearly for an assault
from the north. It matters little what Iraqi television says, or even that
there is no cable to link you with Al Jazeeera. The radio tells people
more than television can. And somehow everyone always seems to know what
Al Jazeera puts out.
-
- äThey will try to divide the city against itself,ä
says an Iraqi at the souk speaking perfect English; he does not say who
he is and what he does for a living. "They will try to set the people
against the government, they will try to separate Sunni from Shia. This
city is going to become a hell, I tell you, and we can all see that."
-
- Nobody believes the military will surrender to the Americans.
Nobody believes that men from the Ba'ath party in their tens of thousands
will exchange their Kalashnikovs for submission to the Americans.
-
- The Palestine Hotel is a comfortable place for now. It
would probably be among the last places in Baghdad to feel the worst of
what Baghdad will suffer. But even here the hotel guests - journalists
mostly - have been warned that once things get really bad, they will be
on their own.
-
- After a brave week or so Baghdad is beginning to shut
down. Most shops now remain closed. Few parents care to send their children
to school, office buildings open, but workers spend their time talking
about what is to come.
-
- There is still no panic, but there is a desperation now
to the attempts people are making to store food and water. Over the last
few days they have become more precious than dinars.
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- This will be the hottest summer Baghdad has ever known.
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- http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17130
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