Foreigners Are Suspect : Iraq: A Case of National Paranoia

It was the middle of the night, with stars flickering like altar candles in the dirty water of the Tigris River, when the explosion went off in the center of this ancient capital.

Windows shattered for blocks in the densely populated section of the city near the big chain hotels, sounding eerily musical as huge panes of glass crashed to the sidewalks below.

It was late the next day that government officials finally conceded privately that the explosion was probably caused by a guided missile fired from Iran, the latest salvo in a bitter 4 1/2-year war of attrition between the Persian Gulf neighbors.

But not one word ever appeared in Iraq’s tightly controlled news media to explain the remarkable blast, which left a crater more than 20 yards across in a park.

Pillar of Smoke

And, as a group of foreigners scurried to the scene of the explosion, which was still marked by an enormous pillar of brown smoke, a policeman blocked their path with a ludicrous story.

“Explosion?” he asked, doing his best to appear mystified. As fire engines raced past him, he added lamely, “There was only a minor traffic accident.”

Despite recent indications (such as the resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States) that Iraq is seeking to moderate its position as a radical maverick in the Middle East, it remains, at home, one of the world’s most paranoid nations. It is a robust police state where events often seem as if they were being viewed through the distortions of Lewis Carroll’s “Looking Glass.”

“The people have long since given up what we consider basic freedoms,” said one Western diplomat who has been stationed in Baghdad for two years.

Iraq is a land where typewriters are seized at the airport as contraband and photocopying machines are virtually non-existent, presumably regarded as threats to President Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party government.

Economy a Paradox

The country is also an economic paradox, with immense petroleum reserves--but with a consumer economy that makes Eastern Europe look prosperous in comparison.

“The consumer sector suffered permanently when the Baathists came to power,” said one Western diplomat. “You can’t get goods for love or money.”

The hard currency crunch means a shortage of major goods like washing machines, cars and replacement parts. In Baghdad, for mysterious reasons, nearly every car seems to have a broken windshield.

The shops have few Western goods. A bottle of whiskey, highly prized in this devoutly secular society, costs $45. Clothes are imported from Eastern Europe and Asia, with polyester shirts costing $30 or more.

Baghdad appears to be in the midst of a building boom, but in fact this reflects development money allocated before 1982, according to Western economic specialists. Whatever flavor old Baghdad used to have--wooden buildings without square angles, intricately constructed lattice-work to keep out the summer heat--has now largely been replaced by the “Moscow modern” architecture of huge cement apartment buildings indistinguishable save for a large numeral just beneath the roof.

The war undoubtedly accounts for much of Iraq’s “new pragmatism” toward the West, since countries such as France supply many of Iraq’s weapons needs on favorable credit terms. And the United States, while officially neutral in the conflict, tilts toward the Baghdad government by reportedly sharing satellite intelligence information about Iran.

In the process, the Iraqis have become the largest recipient of American commodities’ assistance in the world, totaling about $710 million this year alone. Without these commodities, mostly wheat, the Iraqis could not feed their population.

Mideast Peace Encouraged

The Iraqis have also joined with Egypt to encourage a Middle East peace agreement involving Jordan, the Palestinians and Israel, a far cry from the days when Baghdad was regarded as home base to a rogues’ gallery of international terrorists.

While such changes are probably genuine--the result of maturity appearing in the Hussein government, in the words of one diplomat--they also tend to obscure the reality of present-day Baghdad.

“Don’t be mistaken,” one Western envoy said, “a lot of very nasty things happen to people here.”

During a weeklong trip recently, visiting journalists found Iraqis so wary of talking to foreigners that they were often unwilling to give simple directions.

In fact, explained one official, foreigners are forbidden to walk on Baghdad’s streets without an official escort. “You are required to take a taxi,” she said.

An Iraqi who worked part time for a European firm in Basra was dismissed from his government job, not for moonlighting but for merely chatting with a Westerner who works for the firm abroad.

Phone Taps Reported

An expatriate who works for one of Baghdad’s large hotels says that he is near despair after only seven months on the job. All the telephones are tapped, he says with a derisive wave at his desk, and the front-office staff working at these state-owned hotels is provided by the secret police, with no questions allowed from the foreign management.

Even the imported showgirls, who dance bare-breasted for the amusement of Baghdad’s wealthy, are treated like virtual prisoners here: they must surrender their passports until they have finished their contracts.

While the war, and particularly the recent attacks in Baghdad, have undoubtedly increased the paranoia level, some official actions are difficult to fathom.

The secret police recently unplugged Iraq from incoming international telephone calls and limited outgoing calls to 10 minutes. Frequently, when the war is mentioned on the phone, a voice promptly announces that the time is up and the call is terminated.

When two journalists asked to visit the ancient ruins of Babylon outside of Baghdad recently, a government escort took them past huge Soviet-supplied missile batteries but refused to permit them to see the 4,000-year-old ruins of the Tower of Babel.

Sudden Street Blockades

Large areas of Baghdad have been placed off-limits even to Iraqis, and streets are suddenly and mysteriously blocked by troops in camouflage uniforms.

Even though Iraq’s relations with the United States have improved significantly after a 17-year rupture, Secretary of State George P. Shultz felt obliged to criticize the Hussein government in March for continuing to use poison gas on the battlefield against Iran.

Iraq, which has signed treaties against the use of gas, blithely denies using the weapon despite massive evidence to the contrary.

Although there is no end in sight to the war with Iran, Western diplomats believe that Iraqi leaders have managed to survive the worst of the crisis.

But the war is still taking a dizzying toll on the country. The best Western estimate is that about 65,000 Iraqi soldiers have been killed so far. The government recently increased the age for compulsory military service to 50.

Oil production, which was 3.4 million barrels a day before the war, is 1.2 million barrels now.

But new pipelines to Saudi Arabia and the expansion of existing pipelines in Turkey by 1986 will increase daily production by another 1 million barrels. That is enough, according to diplomats, to ensure Iraq’s economic stability.