Blood in the Sand: Imperial Fantasies, Right-Wing Ambitions, and the Erosion of American Democracy

3. Baghdad Memories

38 BLOOD IN THE SAND Baghdad Memories 3 We arrived in the middle of the night, smuggled into Iraq via the Jordanian city of Amman, and the cameras were already waiting. So were the president of Baghdad University, his entourage, some bodyguards, a few agents of the regime, and the organizers of what would become four days of activities in the land of Ali Baba. Half asleep in an empty airport lounge with postmodern arches, some of us talked among ourselves , and others talked with any reporter willing to listen. More than thirty of us constituted U.S. Academicians against War, an independent group of intellectuals from twenty-eight universities and a variety of disciplines. Officially, we were on a “fact-finding” mission, but we realized that a week in Baghdad was not very long and would not turn us into experts. Our real purpose was different: we wanted a glimpse into the society that our government was planning to blast further back into the Stone Age than it had in 1991, and we wanted to offer our solidarity with the Iraqi people, though not the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. Holding on to the distinction between the regime and the citizenry, however, meant resisting temptation. We paid our own way, but it was clear that an attempt was being made to seduce us from the moment the motorcade accompanied our bus to an elegant hotel, where we were fed wonderful meals and given more than adequate accommodations. Totalitarian 39 BAGHDAD MEMORIES leaders have always liked playing host to visitors who might give them legitimacy. I thought of Aristotle seeking to educate Alexander the Great, Lloyd George and Charles Lindbergh extolling Hitler, and Ernst Bloch and Lion Feuchtwanger pandering to Stalin during the time of the great terror. Every other corner in Baghdad had a poster of the great leader: Saddam smiling benevolently, Saddam with a derby looking respectable , Saddam reading the Koran, Saddam holding a rifle aloft, Saddam with his arm outstretched in a fascist salute. It was important not to become a dupe: I resolved to keep my wits about me and remember what had originally inspired my visit to Baghdad. Our hotel overlooked the Tigris River. Iraq also possesses the Euphrates as well as the Greater and Lesser Zab rivers. The country once served as a granary, and given the desertlike character of the surrounding area, dominion over this water supply would obviously prove of great importance in any attempt to reconfigure the region. So it occurred to me that, in fact, oil and water can mix. Dreams of controlling these resources surely complemented the desire of the United States to establish a fixed presence in the region. Iraq might also provide a precedent that would show other regimes what is in store for them if they choose to remain recalcitrant when push comes to shove. As we shuttled about, ate our lunch, and smoked the hookah, we sensed that the time was coming when the United States would show the world, once again, who is the boss. A visit to the Iraqi National Museum gave an indication of who is not. It was pitifully empty, and we saw the impact of cultural imperialism. Obelisks and artifacts from this cradle of civilization now sit in the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the edification of a few dozen connoisseurs and hundreds of bored brats on school tours. The 40 BLOOD IN THE SAND famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon is in Berlin, and the column containing the Code of Hammurabi is in the Louvre. Iraq contents itself with facsimiles as its humiliated citizens recall the glories of Mesopotamia and Ur, the city of Abraham, and the great Arab philosophers Avicenna and Averroës. Better for Saddam to have organized a full-scale legal war to bring these treasures back home—or at least be compensated for them—than to undertake the military adventures that brought his people to the brink of ruin. And the majority of the country is on the brink of ruin. Other countries might be in worse shape, but it was obvious that, here in Baghdad, things were bad enough. Many of the roads were unpaved, sewage was spilled on the ground, jobless men sat on the corners, and emaciated animals ran through the alleys. We learned that UNICEF had reported a 160 percent increase in child mortality since 1991...