Attacks, assassinations, robberies. Baghdad descends into chaos as US troops lose a little more control over the city each day. The attack on UN headquarters has added a new quality to terror on the Tigris, as other Western foreigners join US soldiers as potential targets.
Wherever you look, narrow, gray plumes of smoke from small fires rise into the sky over Baghdad. The city's residents are burning their trash, since garbage collection trucks haven't been operating for some time, transforming Baghdad's skyline into a horizon of flickering smoke signals.
Because the local telephone network still hasn't been repaired, the inhabitants of the Iraqi capital have taken to using the sky to tell time. The dark gray mushroom-like cloud that formed over the northeast of the city last Tuesday at precisely 4:30 p.m., following a tremendous explosion, was yet another sign that something wasn't right. "I knew immediately that it was a bomb," says Mohammed Omar, "but it was more powerful that anything I had seen before."
As an Iraqi soldier, Omar fought in both Gulf wars, against the Iranians in the 1980s and against the Americans and their allies in 1991. Omar, a 45-year-old family man who works for the UN as a driver, was able to buy his way out of the third Gulf war by paying the government 1400 dollars. In spite of his efforts to stay out of harm's way, however, he almost lost his life last Tuesday.
Omar is drinking black tea with his coworkers in the cafeteria for UN drivers when a powerful detonation blasts their teacups from the table. The massive explosion shakes the entire city. Windowpanes shake or even break as much as a few kilometers away. The city is torn out of the lethargy of a sweltering afternoon within seconds.
UN driver Omar runs for his life. The windowless cafeteria is 300 meters from the explosion site. Everywhere people are running from the Canal Hotel, which the UN has been using as its headquarters building since late May. Some are screaming, almost all are bleeding, and many cover their faces with their hands in shock. They don't know what has just happened yet. Then American Blackhawk helicopters swarm across the devastated site, scanning the grounds for possible suspects. But the helicopters have come too late.
A man loaded his truck with a 250 kilogram Soviet-made bomb, as well as with artillery grenades and other explosives, drove the vehicle directly underneath the office of UN special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and blew himself up. The Brazilian UN diplomat, whom some had already eyed as a possible successor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, died in the wreckage.
"I looked for the car with the bomb, but there was nothing left. Everything was burned," says Omar. 24 people lost their lives and 100 were wounded. The UN's flag, a white globe on a blue background, is flying at half mast in front of the UN's main headquarters building on the New York's East River.
The damage this suicide bomber has caused in Baghdad goes well beyond the loss of human life. For the United Nations, the attack is a tragedy, but it's catastrophic for the White House. Yesterday's Blitzkrieg-like invaders who, with their unstoppable march on Baghdad, wanted to prove that no despot could ever feel safe again, are now faced with a new reality: that their bold plans for post-war Iraq have gone up in smoke, at least for now.
Most of all, this devastating attack, which took place in broad daylight in Baghdad, demonstrates that in Iraq terrorists can strike wherever and whenever they wish. "The civilized world will not be intimidated," announced a visibly agitated US President George W. Bush.
The suicide bomber, apparently disguised as a construction worker, had managed to finagle his way past the Iraqi UN guards. He told them his truck was loaded with material for a security fence that was being constructed to protect the building from suicide attacks, and the guards admitted the man with a friendly wave. Investigators suspect that the attackers may have had accomplices among the Iraq guards at the UN complex.
Whether the attack was the work of supporters of deposed President Saddam Hussein or Islamic extremists, or perhaps both, remains unclear. Last Thursday, a previously unknown group calling itself the "Armed Vanguards of Mohammed's Second Army" claimed responsibility for the murderous attack. Terrorism experts are convinced that this is simply a randomly chosen name for the Iraqi terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam, and that it could quickly change again.
What is clear, however, is that the United States has managed to "transform Iraq into a hotbed of terrorism," as the New York Times wrote after the attack. President Bush' governor in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, visited the site of the catastrophe a few hours after the attack, later issuing the appeasing statement: "We have no chaos here."
No chaos? Many Iraqis are asking themselves whether the man in charge of the occupying forces' civil administration has any idea of what he is talking about and of what is happening in the country. More than four months have passed since the fall of Baghdad, and yet the Americans still have virtually nothing under control in their new protectorate.
It is certainly true that following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, "no one is getting his tongue cut out any more." In the eyes of local inhabitants, however, the progress Washington's proconsul seems to be seeing everywhere remains a dismal failure. According to an article published last week in the newspaper Iraq Today, as much as Iraqis may welcome the despot's disappearance, they have also concluded "that only a dictator is capable of ensuring that there is adequate electricity and security, peace and quiet."
Baghdad is a city under siege, where gunshots and explosions have become a matter of course. American patrols and tanks hectically rush through the city on the Tigris River, while looters and gangster continue to spread fear among its people.
Robberies are committed in broad daylight on Tahrir Square in the heart of the city, or on Saadun Boulevard, once an imposing thoroughfare. Every night criminal gangs open fire on police officers and soldiers, creating a Wild West on the Tigris, in the heart of downtown Baghdad.
Armed anarchy prevails wherever the Americans' tanks and helicopters are not constantly visible, especially in the "Sunni triangle" formed by the cities of Baghdad, Ramadi, and Tikrit. This is where the ousted regime's former strongholds and current pockets of resistance lie, and where US convoys are constantly under attack.
It's also filled with civilians. Near Ramadi on the Euphrates section of Iraq's main artery, the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, the unbridled right of plunder rules. Bandits in black BMW limousines bristling with menacing Kalashnikovs stop cars and demand exorbitant tolls. The victims must pay cash, in US dollars only. They can keep their credit cards. Der Spiegel journalist Andreas Ulrich and his colleague at the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, were among recent victims.
Effective highway patrols could quickly put an end to this wave of organized criminality. But the Americans, otherwise eager to arrive on the scene with weapons in hand, do not feel capable of performing such protective functions. They're having enough trouble with their own security.
Paul Bremer resides on the grounds of one of Saddam's presidential palaces. The cornices of this building are adorned with bronze busts of the despot posing as an Abbasid caliph. The palace' enormous grounds on the west bank of the Tigris are protected by barbed fire fences, sandbag and concrete barricades, countless tanks, and a battalion of soldiers. Whenever Bremer leaves this fortress, generally by helicopter, he's accompanied by a security force befitting a presidential visit.
© DER SPIEGEL 35/2003
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
