Chapter Six

Hotel Babel

The 4-star Hotel Babylon where I first stayed in Baghdad was located in the Al Zawiya Quarter. A favoured venue for some of Uday Hussein’s orgies it was a massive 16 storey structure. Its stepped shape reflected its Mesopotamian theme as it soared to the sky like an ancient Ziggurat. Its reception area was cavernous, lined with glass on two sides and leading on to vast conference rooms, shops and restaurants on the other two. The ground floor hosted two restaurants, one international and one Thai and a number of shops. The clothes shop was well-patronised as the clothes were very reasonable and of good quality. There was a Christian Dior factory in Baghdad and their shirts sold there for $5 each. As far as clothes are concerned I am a Theory X man and wear them until they become unwearable, so I bought a load of Dior shirts and reckoned they would see out my lifetime. Upstairs an indifferent antique shop was there as a sop to those who expected to find one. It promoted a stock of stirring pamphlets written by the President, Saddam Hussein. A burger bar completed the public areas in addition, of course, to large comfortable lounge facilities.

A typical day in Baghdad would begin at 6 o’clock to the sonorous sound of the muezzin chanting the morning prayers. This would be followed by the local cocks greeting the sun as the dawn chorus would begin. The neighbourhood mongrels would then join in and their discordant conversations would echo and re-echo across the suburbs for a good two hours. This feature of Baghdad, the intermingling of the urban and the rural, was also manifested in the small rural type hovels sited in the laneways off the main urban roads. The hens would scrabble among the rotting vegetables and rubbish scattered everywhere and the donkeys wander in the laneways of this amazing metropolis. The Weapons of Mass Destruction, which caused such anxiety in Washington, London and Tel Aviv, seemed very far away indeed.

When I would descend to the restaurant about 7 o’clock my first job was to wake the waiters who used to sleep on the restaurant floor fully clothed. The more senior ones would enjoy the luxury of lying on the large oriental cushions from the area set aside for the nargila or water pipe smokers. This was located in a corner of the restaurant and was draped with Persian rugs and lined with large cushions to simulate a Bedouin tent. No concerns here for a dense cloud of tobacco smoke wafting around the evening diners. It was a reminder that you were in macho country here.

Unwashed, the waiters would immediately clean up after the night before and set about preparing the coffee and the freshly squeezed orange juice. Some of their fellows would wander into the kitchen to wake up the staff there. With this type of staff accommodation I wondered how it got its 4-star appellation or who conferred it. The menu was simple, fresh orange juice with eggs, either boiled, fried or in an omelette. It went on its slow funereal course, while the waiters who moved around like some sedated undertakers studiously ignored their diners. This problem was eventually solved by the application of a few dinars as a tip. Thereafter I only had to look up and was immediately assailed from a number of directions by competing, reactivated waiters. Like most of the Middle East the menus were written in phonetic English and one of my regrets was that I did not make a collection of them during my time in the area. The few that stick in my memory sported such delicacies as:

Stuffed cheep, Kouzi (Rice + lamp), Tashreeb (Lamp or Chicken), Chello Kebab Park (Pork?), Potato Chop (Chips?).

In spite of the tip, breakfast usually took about 45 minutes and frequently was not complete when the driver called with the Land Cruiser to take me to work. So, in spite of brutal dictators the pace of ordinary life was relaxed and definitely an antidote to ulcers and hypertension. It reminded me of the relaxed world of my childhood, a world fast disappearing. However, the staff’s lack of hygiene periodically took its toll and the drivers used to laugh at me as I entered their vehicle clutching a bottle of 7-Up; that and Imodium would have to be my bill-of-fare for the following few days. They were familiar with the symptoms from my predecessor, Tom Brosnan.

For dinner I had the choice of two Hotel Babylon restaurants. One was the Iraqi one where I used to take breakfast and the other was a Thai one. There was little between them in the matter of speedy service. However, the Thai one won hands down in the matter of diversion as it featured Rosy (not her real name). I had heard from the UN staff that Tom my predecessor had labelled her ‘The Honey-pot’. As an antique brunette, Rosy was best viewed in very dim light. The restaurants had a number of dimly lit cubicles and these were her main areas of operation. She would single out her victim early on in the night and would make him the focus of attention until negotiations concluded to her satisfaction. She was well-known to the UN MAG people (UN Mine Action Group) as they stayed a night in the hotel before making their way up north.

As the restaurant was huge, but usually had less than half a dozen diners there any night, I soon got the treatment. She assured me that she adored the Irish and that she made great friends with some Irish doctors who worked in the nearby Park Hospital in the early 90s. I just hope none of their wives are reading this. Over a few visits the ante was raised and she ‘shyly’ made a pitch for some expensive perfumes, naming them. I promised her that I would bring a few litres of each kind the following night; at this she invited me to her apartment. She was a great romanticist: “Mr Dan, you come to my apartment. It is looking over the square with the Ali Baba statue. We can lie there and watch the sun come up over Baghdad.”

I assured her that there was nothing I would like better as I visualised mental images of the Mukhabarat in the next room, watching me and Rosy, watching the dawn rising over Baghdad. I told her that I had an important meeting that night but would be delighted to take her up on her offer the following night. “Oh Mr Dan you are so handsome,” she cooed as I sidled out the door. Walking down the corridor towards the foyer I was accosted by the owner of the Hotel clothes shop opposite the Thai restaurant: “Mr Dan, Rosy is not a nice girl,” he warned me. He had seen the fond farewell of Rosy and was not taking any chances with his free-spending customer (me). The following morning the UN Land Cruiser called to take me to Erbil in Kurdistan and I kept well away from the Hotel Babylon thereafter.

The Hotel was across the Tigris from what is now called the Green Zone that contained most of Saddam’s palaces and was a few hundred metres from the University of Baghdad. The residences in this area were largely occupied by high grade civil servants and University staff. Just across the road to the north a large enclosure of date trees with their large fronds quietly went about their business of producing their crop of dates. For some reason the Iraqis are assiduous in their cultivation of different date varieties. So far they have produced 587 types, some say over 600. Due to an embargo on Iraqi exports during the occupation dates have been used as bio-fuel by the ingenious Iraqis who seemed to have difficulty in accessing their own fuel oil.

I could see many mosques in the neighbourhood as their minarets soared heavenward cradling their glinting domes. I would become used to the comforting call to prayer from these minarets each morning during my stay. Indeed, it was a feature in all the Islamic countries I visited and it differed from the West where the politically correct bureaucrats in Brussels are intent in keeping all signs of their majority religions within the confines of their respective churches. Here in the Middle East one would feel protected by the unabashed public acknowledgement of Allah in this mercenary world and integrating Him into daily life.

This acknowledgement was also reflected in the letterhead of all my government correspondence although I found it hard to reconcile the activities of Saddam’s regime with any reference to God. My confusion with the ethos of the regime was taken a step further when the daughter of one of Saddam’s cabinet minister’s began work in UNDP. This young lady came to work wearing strict Islamic costume. She was a very happy, jocose girl with an engaging sense of humour. It helped change my perception of the traditionalist Islamic women that I regarded as passive and unsmiling up to then. However, it took some time to come to terms with communicating with a pair of very large brown eyes sparkling from behind the hijab and face veil.

Iraqi Government (Saddam’s) Letterhead.

Translation of above.

Away in the middle distance to the northeast the flare-off from the large refinery at Al Dora sent its quota of sulphur into the atmosphere. It is one of Iraq’s leading oil refineries with capacity for 90,000 barrels of oil a day. Saddam took his eye off the ball during the Iraq/Iran war and allowed it to deteriorate alarmingly. Its products reeked of sulphur and contaminated the environment but were greedily bought by energy-starved Iraqis. Together with all the chemical industries and Al Dora Power Station clustered nearby, it would be a prime target in the event of any hostilities breaking out. In the event, the area was subsequently severely bombed.

Al Dora Thermal Power Station. This station was in a very bad state. In Saddam’s time it had to be operating full out with no down-time for maintenance. Sanctions meant that spare parts were not available when it did trip out. Any engineer who complained was threatened with jail. Over time I satisfied myself that the Hotel Babylon was a safe distance from it.

Photo source: Thomas Hartwell, USAID.

When I went out on to the 12th storey foyer of the hotel I got a different view and below me the large hotel swimming pool mirrored the azure sky. Just outside it the road snaked along the bank of the Tigris. I could see a large park just across the river, now known to the world as the Green Zone. Incidentally the term Green has nothing to do with its parkland. It stems from the fact that Coalition troops unload their arms by discharging them into sand filled receptacles when they return to the zone after their patrols. Their unloaded guns are then regarded as green. Outside the green zone guns are always loaded and hence the term ‘Red Zone’.

The area looked like the old Baghdad I imagined with many glittering golden and shimmering green and blue domes. The whole vista had a fairy tale look about it. I thought that at last I was looking at the Baghdad of Al Rashid and Mansour and the palaces they had passed down from antiquity. I could imagine this area as a backdrop to Scheherazade as she wove her wonderful tales. It was not long before I learnt that it was all an illusion. Most of what I was looking at was built in recent times largely in the reign of Saddam. What was worse, most of these fine buildings had been destroyed in the first Gulf war of 1991 and were only recently rebuilt. Sanctions were taking their toll at the time and with children dying by the thousand it was a dreadful decision to spend so much money on rebuilding these massive white elephants. They were only the reflection of the man’s megalomania as money was diverted to bolster his illusions.

My Baghdad Neighbours.

Image from the 2006 Special Reference Graphic Map of Baghdad by NIMA.

On the extreme left and to the east I could see the Al Salam Palace (5 on above map), one time HQ of the Republican Guards. Behind the Al Salam Palace I could see the tall slender column of the Saddam Tower (6), now called Baghdad Tower. The 20-metre tower was opened in 1994 and had a revolving restaurant on top. Slightly left was Saddam’s New Presidential Palace (Al Sujud Palace) and at a distance behind it was the building of Directorate 14 of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and between the two the Baghdad Clock Tower on its 52-metre tall tower was visible.

The Al Sujud Palace (No.1 on the map) is one of Saddam’s smallest and used to house employees and visitors. It is nevertheless bigger than Buckingham Palace in London. The Georgian (one of the former Soviet Republics) contingent of the invasion force set up in the Al Sujud in 2003. Sujud means a prayer position for Muslims called Prostration.

Straight across the river I could see a massive distinctive beige building in a large park. This I discovered was the International Headquarters of the Ba’ath Party (No.2 on the map), the political party led by the President, Saddam Hussein. Behind the Ba’ath Party building was a large ceremonial park with Parade Grounds and behind that and stretching away into the distance was Zawra Park. The term Ba’ath means resurrection and has the same evocation that the Phoenix, rising from the ashes, has to the Irish. During Clinton’s bombing campaign of December 1998 the Ba’ath Building was hit by a number of smart bombs that penetrated the roof and destroyed the interior of the building. This happened when, with a group of fleeing UN international workers, I was making a mad 100mph dash down through Iraq from Kurdistan to Baghdad and on to Amman. The building was restored at a cost of $1 billion, only to be destroyed again in the 2003 invasion. The restoration also involved new construction linking the two main buildings of the 1998 building. This extension, now the High Tribunal Building of the Ministry of Justice was being built at the time of the 2003 bombing and this became the venue of Saddam’s trial for genocide. After the invasion it was renamed Forward Operating (FOB) Union.

Unfinished reconstructed Ba’ath Party Building in Baghdad, now the High Tribunal Building that became the venue of Saddam’s trial for genocide. In 2003 the building was still on-going. The reconstruction joined the two parts of the former Ba’ath Party Building complex and was to be capped off with a large dome. Al Sujud Palace is middle right.

Picture source: Robert Smith.

The ‘Shock and Awe’ bombing had pitched the whole area of the Green Zone back to the Middle Ages. In fact, it looked like Fred Flintstone’s Bedrock City. Saddam had actually a real one built for his grandchildren just across from the ‘Victory over America and Iran Palace’ then under construction. They were avid fans of Fred and Barney so the sensitive Saddam had the Flintstone Village constructed, hoping that it would take their minds off the fact that he murdered their fathers. These were Saddam and Hussein Kamel, the husbands of his daughters Rana and Raghad. The Bedrock City was a short distance from the Perfumed Palace.

The Perfumed Palace got its name from the all pervading smell of perfume. It was variously said that it was built for Saddam’s wife, for his eldest daughter or for the Man himself. However, the popular notion among the servicemen who later worked there was that it was Uday’s brothel. Saddam and his elite had many such brothels. They were all surrounded by water as they believed that sins committed in such areas did not count. It is said that that these brothels were on tiny islands in the palace lakes. Apparently the procedure was that a favoured regime supporter would row out near a brothel island and point to one of the ladies disporting themselves on the lawn. The lady who would take his eye would then swim out to him and the party would begin.

Saddam, however, was pragmatic and decided to match any potential sin with a balancing act on the good side. He set about building the biggest mosque in the world as a sort of religious fire escape to heaven despite his sins. This was called at the time ‘The Saddam Mosque’ (No.3 on the map) just west of the Central Railway Station.

The Al Rahman Mosque (Saddam Mosque) under construction. I could see the cranes working on this building from almost every part of Baghdad.

Photo source: SSgt Stacy L. Pearsall, USAF.