Holy Shiite! Iraq Prepares for War

World-famous journalist Neal Pollack goes behind enemy lines

AGHDAD, Iraq—As I exit onto the tarmac at Saddam International Airport, my ears are alert for the sounds of artillery, and possibly screaming women. I can discern neither. The war hasn't started, unless it has, but that seems unlikely, because someone probably would have told me. My sources have always been excellent. With a fat per diem, and an animal of a paycheck waiting for me at home, I've come to the belly of the enemy to find out what the enemy thinks about when you're in its belly. It's important for an invading country to really know its opponents as people, not as hastily sketched stereotypes. I want to tell the truth about Iraq.

A banner greets me. It reads, in both English and Arabic, DOWN WITH U.S.A. Next to it, another says, U.S.A. SUCKS, and a third, WELCOME, DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMEN. I ignore that one, but think about the first two.

"They hate us," I whisper to myself. I know that secret eyes are watching me, but I keep whispering anyway, "They also fear us."

As I enter the airport, I'm confronted with a six-person security detail, the first of many dangers I will encounter in this unstable, troubled land. They pin me to the wall. One of them places a knee dangerously close to my vital region.

"Anything to claim, journalist?," the captain hisses.

"Oh, no," I say. "Nothing important. But I prefer to think of myself as not just a journalist, but an essayist who uses field reporting to illuminate larger truths."

The captain nicks my left ear with a rusty knife. He looks at me as though I were a precious foreign object, which, to some extent, I am.

"Are you an American?," he says.

"Reluctantly," I say.

"Do you think there will be war?"

"Yes," I say, with inevitability. "You'll be dead by Ramadan.'

From the back window of my taxicab, Baghdad seems very influenced by American pop culture from exactly two years ago. Schoolgirls walk down the street arm in arm, wearing colorful bandannas that read "Kucha" and "Ogakor." A billboard advertises the Sega Dreamcast as "the future of gaming."

On the radio, an announcer says, "We haVC received word that the great conjurer David Blaine is emerging from the ice!"

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My driver cheers.

"It's pretty nice here," I say.

"Alas," says my cabdriver, shaking his head sadly, "the American bombs will destroy everything."

I'm scheduled to meet my official tour guide in the lobby of the AlRasheed Hotel. He's a little late, or I'm a little early, so I browse the gift shop, which seems to favor the Bush family. I purchase a copy of Barbara Bush's Busytown for my niece, and a George W. "These Colors Don't Run" drinking glass for my ironic amusement. Perhaps I'll write an essay for Harper's called "Marketing the TinPot Presidency."

A creeping unease laces the air. As a journalist, I'm more attuned than most to dangerous, low-lying dread. It's definitely around. A pair of eyes is behind me.

I turn to face my state-appointed tour guide. He's a middle-aged Iraqi man. Exactly what I expected.

"How may I help you?," he says.

"Well," I say, "I'd like to spend a few hours with the Iraqi national women's swim team."

"That can be arranged."

"Then I'd like to see some dying children."

"Of course," he says. "We have many of those."

His chest puffs, his voice deepens. "You know, of course, we will fight you until the marrow leaks from our bones," he says.

I look at him with scorn, and also disdain. He drops to his knees and begins to weep.

"I beg you," he says. "Please don't attack us! We'll do anything you want!"

"Tough shit, pal," I say.

To suit the needs of a growing marI ket, dozens of children's hospitals have opened in Baghdad in the past five years. My guide asks me which one I want to visit. I tell him to take me to whichever one has a cash machine. If these kids are going to starve to death because of U.S. sanctions, I figure they should at least do it with 20 bucks in their pocket.

I enter the terminal ward, all the time feeling danger, as though microscopic spies were inside my skull. The head nurse drops her clipboard. She drifts into my arms and kisses me.

"Oh, my darling," she says. "You've come back."

I guess I must have slept with her in 1991.

"Yes," I say. "Yes."

She turns toward the ward.

"Children," she says, "this is a great American writer."

"Hooray!," the dying children say.

The nurse tells me there's one kid named Hamid. He's her favorite. She's told him all about me, and every night she reads to him from my novel about the Kennedys, The Decline of Babylon.

"I wanted to meet you before I died," Hamid says. "You're my hero because you're more intellectually honest than Gore Vidal."

I slip him 40 bucks.

The ward is quiet, save the dim coughs of unwilling victims. Hamid looks at me, his eyes dry and glassy.

"Mister," he says, "when are the Americans coming to kill us?"

I have to turn away to hide a tear.

"Soon, kid," I say. "Very soon."