Baghdad Grits Its Teeth and Runs for Cover

When the air raid sirens wail every few hours each day, the shell-shocked residents of Iraq’s embattled capital panic and dive into bomb shelters.

“The only real casualties among the civilians so far appear to be their nerves,” said one eyewitness who arrived in Jordan from Baghdad on Sunday.

And every night, as allied bombers approach and American cruise missiles begin streaking above Baghdad’s city streets, surgically searching out their strategic targets, the electricity is cut throughout the city, adding to the isolation of a people living without running water, flushing toilets, telephones or other utilities for the past four days.

“When the raid comes, the Iraqis just turn off the lights and begin blasting away with antiaircraft guns at planes they never see, planes that often aren’t even there,” the eyewitness added.

“It’s bizarre. The Iraqis are using World War II technology against 21st-Century weapons. And the people just seem to be taking it.”

That account, related by a Western photographer who reached Amman on Sunday, was among the latest independent descriptions of the impact of incessant allied air strikes on Iraq and its 17 million people.

On Sunday night, a group of foreign journalists who had remained in Baghdad after the war began complied with Iraqi government orders and departed, leaving behind only CNN reporter Peter Arnett, who accepted Iraq’s invitation to continue filing reports, subject to censorship, from the Iraqi side.

With the journalists’ departure, questions about the truth and the rumors of what is happening inside Iraq will begin to blur into what could eventually become a virtual blackout.

What is known today, however, and what will continue to be reported almost hourly from the Iraqi capital in the coming days is what the regime of President Saddam Hussein wants reported--official communiques, speeches, proclamations and Iraqi battle counts.

Here’s a sampling of the official Baghdad line from Sunday:

* A standing bounty of $20,000 will now be paid to any Iraqi who brings in a live Western pilot from the ranks of the U.S.-led allied forces fighting in the Persian Gulf. Slightly less is offered for captured Arab pilots.

* Iraq has used less than half of its arsenal of lethal weaponry so far, according to a speech by Hussein Sunday night, and Iraq’s forces have succeeded in drawing Israel into the conflict.

* Israeli aircraft joined the allied forces in attacks on Iraq after Iraq fired Scud missiles at Israel because American warplanes attacking Iraq were using bombs from Israeli arsenals.

* Only 31 Iraqi soldiers have been killed on the battlefield, while at least 40 civilians are dead and 140 others wounded in the allied air strikes.

A final item, in particular, starkly highlights the elusiveness of reality that can be expected in reports filtering out of Iraq in the coming days and weeks.

All of the foreign journalists interviewed as they arrived in Jordan from Baghdad on Sunday stressed the extraordinary precision of the allied strikes on the capital as of Sunday morning, when the last of them left there.

“I went out and around the city all three days after the bombing and had a pretty good look around the city. I couldn’t find a single house or civilian structure that had been damaged,” a second Western photographer said, adding that he had deliberately looked for such damage to photograph.

“You just can’t believe the pinpoint accuracy of these things (rockets, cruise missiles and bombs).”

But the journalists also stressed the psychological damage the air raids are inflicting on Baghdad’s civilian population.

Throughout the city, there has been no electricity, no running water and no functioning sewage system since the attacks began early Thursday.

“Everyone’s living in the dark at night,” the second photographer added. “The only light is the bright trails of tracer bullets and the white crescents of missile and bomb hits. Everyone’s running out of bottled water. It’s selling at outrageous prices now.

“Everywhere we went--inside Baghdad and out on the road to Jordan--there are long lines at the (service) stations. Each one is at least 50 cars long. It’s obvious these people are just fleeing to the safer villages and towns far away from the city and the military sites.”

Except for such evacuees, the journalists said that streets are largely deserted. Teen-age members of Hussein’s Popular Army can be seen in small groups, roaming the city with brand-new AK-47 assault rifles. The journalists saw several amputees from Iraq’s long war with Iran back in uniform, hobbling down the street using their rifles as crutches. And regular army soldiers are occasionally seen frantically trying to hitch rides from the occasional passing car.

“It’s getting weird,” said one television producer. “Everyone’s scared. And the people are getting pretty peeved with the Americans.

“But so far, you don’t get the sense they’re as mad at Saddam. They’re shocked. They can’t believe he’s actually as vulnerable as he seems now. But the structures are still there, the (secret police) is still there, so they’re either running away from the city or just sitting back and taking it.”

Most of the journalists who arrived in Jordan on Sunday were among those the Iraqis viewed as the most objective, or sympathetic to Baghdad’s position, since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait touched off the Persian Gulf crisis more than five months ago.

Asked why the Iraqis would ask those journalists to leave at so critical a time, one photographer said: “Well, it’s no longer a diplomatic or propaganda war. It’s just war. So they don’t really need the press any more.”