Dark laughter on the front line

KIM SENGUPTA reports on how Iraqis are facing the prospect of their country being attacked.

There cannot be many places in the world today more surreal than Baghdad. The clock ticks towards the hour the bombing will begin, yet a forced semblance of normal life continues. Tuesday was Muharram, the celebration of the Muslim New Year, and families gathered in parks and on the banks of the Tigris in hazy sunshine. There were picnics and exchanges of gifts, and the awareness that this may be the last time many will be able to celebrate together.

Sitting on the grass at the Medina Alalha Gardens watching her two children Amira and Hamid run around, Rahima Ahmed continually twisted a blue handkerchief in her hand.

"Every time they leave home now, I hold them and kiss them. I am afraid that one day they will go, it will start and they will not come back, or something may happen to me or my husband and my children will be left alone. Inshallah, we shall survive, but we don't know what will happen ... " Her voice trails away.

The lingering hope of even a month ago that war can be avoided has evaporated. There is now an endemic fatalism, a fear that something calamitous, even by the bloody standards of this violent country, is about to befall Baghdad.

Rahima's husband, Karim, has thought about sending her and the children to stay with relations near Mosul while he continues with his two jobs as a mechanic and a store assistant. "But my wife does not want to leave."

He shakes his head. "She thinks if we split up, we may never find each other again. But I am very worried. We have been through many wars, but this one will be very, very bad."

There are few overt signs of militarisation or preparation, more soldiers on the streets than on the two occasions I was here recently, but not many.

Policemen giggle as they try on silver, anti-flash clothing over their shabby uniforms. These are civil defence drills, for the benefit of the international media, which soon degenerate into confusion. Only on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital does one see trains carrying armour and artillery snaking their way towards Basra, in the Shia southeast, and Kurdistan in the north.

There is little sign, too, of panic buying, with seemingly no shortage of essential items. But the slow return to normality since the Gulf War has disappeared and businesses, large and small, are winding up every day. The GDP, which sank by 75 per cent between 1991 and 1998, is in freefall again.

The economy had enjoyed an upturn, thanks to a deal by Iraq on trade with the United Nations, as well as profits from the illicit exports of oil through Kurdistan and Syria. The Baghdad trade fair drew record numbers of international companies keen to get a slice of the petroleum-fuelled action. All that has now gone into reverse.

Ibrahim Hassani's small furniture and hardware business had done well in the past three years. Now he is in the final stages of laying off his 11 workers and closing up shop. "People are not going to spend money on tables and chairs when they are likely to be destroyed in the next few days or weeks," he says. "There is no point in me sitting here day after day with hardly anyone coming in. My sales have fallen by 75 per cent. I shall sell off what I can and try to store the rest."

Against this backdrop there continues the strange shadow-play of UN inspections, briefings at the UN mission's headquarters at the Canal Hotel, and press conferences by the Iraqi Government. The jargon remains the same, yet there is little pretence that any of this will matter. The United States will attack when it is ready, give or take the hiccups such as the unexpected decision by Turkey to reject the hosting of American troops.

Lieutenant-General Amar al-Saadi, the chief weapons adviser to Saddam Hussein, is present for the latest Iraqi government press conference. An urbane and articulate man, educated in Britain, he lays out the familiar complaints about the iniquities of Washington and London. But the tone is one of resignation, he looks tired as he wipes his forehead.

It is a very brave or foolish Iraqi who would talk openly about their view of Saddam Hussein or regime change in this most deeply paralysed of societies. But now, in cafes such as the Shah Bandar off Rashid St, and the art galleries which have mushroomed through the city, there are whispered questions asked of foreign journalists. Will the Americans occupy and run the country? Will there be democracy? What will happen with the Kurds?

The aid workers, most of the diplomats - and most of the recently arrived human shields - are not hanging around to find out. The journalists talk constantly, obsessively, to each other about what is to come, and if they will survive. Rumours thrive and multiply in the claustrophobic cocoons of the Al Rashid or the Al Mansour hotels and the press centre of the Ministry of Information, which is possibly the only place in town with building work going on, to cater for the growing army of hacks.

Depending on who one talks to, the Pentagon has either told the American networks that the Al-Rashid is definitely on the hit list, or it has not. There will certainly be E-bombs, electronic devices which will wipe out satellite communications, or there will not because it is too experimental. The Ministry of Information will insist everyone stays at the press centre. Or, no, they have decided against this.

To have a break from this, a media group decamps to a production of No Need to Tell Me. I've Seen It for Myself at the Nasr Playhouse. It is the hottest show in town, and given that the town is Baghdad it is a surprisingly bold satire.

The storyline is of hapless ordinary citizens having to pay endless bribes to a kleptocracy, while courtesans use high official connections to enjoy the good life.

In the hot and stuffy theatre with its peeling walls and plumes of acrid cigarette smoke, the audience howl with laughter at the slapstick. Then comes the ending: Baghdad is wiped away in a nuclear attack. And it does not seem all that funny any more.

- INDEPENDENT