Hot Off the Press--Weekly Menu From Dhahran Hotel

With more than 700 journalists calling it headquarters for war coverage, it was inevitable that the Dhahran International Hotel would go media.

The third issue of the hotel’s weekly newsletter was published Saturday, offering a mix of serious advice, feeble humor and this week’s menu for the coffee shop.

The serious message was aimed at those who have grown complacent since Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Dhahran have stopped. During the first days of the war, few people even stepped into a nearby room without their gas masks. Now, however, few bother to take masks anywhere with them.

“For sure, it is not time to hang up the ‘Gasie,’ ” cautioned the newsletter, ghostwritten by Phillip Congdon, a British defense consultant hired by the hotel.

The newsletter, which is slipped under the doors of the hotel’s 200 rooms, warned that the Iraqis are likely to grow desperate and resort to chemical weapons as the date for a ground offensive approaches, or once it starts.

“Everyone from (Defense Secretary Dick) Cheney down is tipping you the wink that the worst is still to come and the chances of chemical/biological bombardment, let alone conventional attack, are greater than ever,” it said.

A sober point was made, too, about Iraq’s Silkworm and Abbas supersonic missiles--the latter a version of the Scud. The impact and explosion occur before the sound of the missile’s arrival.

In the event of a chemical attack, the newsletter advised that the hotel’s basement air raid shelter will be sealed and secured in minutes. “There will be no exceptions, man or woman, to late entry where the shelter’s chemical defense integrity could be threatened. That is the way it has to be,” the newsletter said.

Attempts at humor were served up with the list of evening buffet specials in the coffee shop. After a description of the dessert table came this: “For those with heart pacemaker, replacement Duracell (or at least, hardly used) batteries available in our shop.”

And for those away from loved ones on Valentine’s Day, the buffet will offer “seafood and strawberries”--with the caveat, “Cold shower afterward can be arranged.”