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Iraqi Blogger in Baghdad
Raed is an Iraqi blogger who's not too thrilled with the idea of a war exploding in his country. On the other hand, I also get the impression he's less than thrilled with the glorious leader. I can't see how his postings could possibly be Iraqi disinformation -- yet the Iraqis must be internet retards if they haven't blocked blogspot. Anyhow, the commentary of a guy who lives in Baghdad is interesting as hell, just remember to bring your salt shaker.Powell speech is around 6pm in Baghdad, the whole family is getting together for tea and dates-pastry to watch the (Powell Rocks the UN) show. Not on Iraqi TV of course, we have decided to put up the satellite dish to watch it, yes we will put it away afterwards until the next event. I donât exactly like the thought of two months in prison just to have 24 hour BBC (no free CNN on ArabSat which is the only sat we get with our tiny dish). "...tea and dates-pastry..." Hey, I thought the Iraqis were STARVING under the onerous weight those awful sanctions. A quick run thru what is going on in Baghdad before uncles and aunts flood the house. The juiciest bit of news actually happened about a week ago but I was told about it today. A couple of days ago it was rumored that all top officials had their phone numbers changed, well who cares itâs not like I call Saddam every night to chat, but today a friend explained why. Around six days ago the phone lines of the Iraqi air defense units were "attacked". When you picked up the phone in some of the command units you didnât get a dial tone but a male voice speaking in broken Arabic. What it said is close to what the infamous email said, donât use chemical or biological weapons, donât offer resistance, and donât obey commands to attack civilian areas and so on. This went on for a couple of hours. Now everyone has new numbers. I have no idea how that is at all possible. I do know that for some rural areas we use microwave signals for phone connections but they canât be so stupid as to use it for military purposes. Heh. If this is true, our boys scored a good 'un. The comment "...don't obey commands to attack civilian areas..." scares the hell out of me. Saddam wants lots of civilian casualties for CNN. So if we don't provide them, he just might. Also, the "...broken Arabic..." comment bugs me. I know we're short on Arabic speakers in the service, but for Pete's sake, we've had months to sort that out. Way to go uncle Sam. This is going to make one hell of a James Bond movie. Speaking for our tech boys, Raed. Thank you. The trenches and sandbag mountains I wrote about last week are now all over Baghdad. They are not being put there by the army; they are part of the Partyâs preparations for an insurgence. Each day a different area of Baghdad goes thru the motions. Party members spread in the streets of that area, build the trenches, sit in them polishing their Kalashnikovs and drink tea. The annoyance-factor of these training days depend on the zeal of the party members in that area. Until now the worst was the [14th of Ramadan] street, they stopped cars searched them and asked for ID and military cards, good thing I wasnât going thru that street, I still have not stamped my military papers to show that I have done my reserves training. "...the Party's preparations for an insurgence..." Special Republican Guard or Baathist militia? Saddam is still meeting officers daily, and we have the pleasure of watching these meetings three times every day. Each batch he meets leaves the place with a 1.5 million Iraqi Dinars check and a brand new car. The latest cars to be put in the warehouses I pass by are Toyota Corollas, all white. The warehouse has around 150 of them (we counted the trucks standing outside). It is said that there are a couple of thousand more new cars waiting just outside Baghdad, parked so close to each other when one of them caught fire they couldnât get to it fast enough, 38 cars burned. Saddam did something like this during the war with Iran. Lot's of money spread around in order to give people an interest in keeping him around. Oh, by the way, who's shipping Iraq the Corollas? I thought there were supposed to be these sanction things. Special note to the Air Force and Navy: White Toyota Corolla = Buddy of Saddam Posted by: Patrick Phillips 2003-02-05 |
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