IN THE war-weary world of Iraq there are two extreme faces: fortunate rich and brutal poor.
The poor are everywhere. Dying in public hospitals that cannot provide life-saving medicines; begging on Baghdad’s dusty streets for a few dinar to buy bread; receiving government rations that are meant to give them enough sustenance for several months.
The rich are more discreet. They dine in fashionable establishments with menus that rival any European restaurant. They dress in Christian Dior and Armani. They holiday in the northern mountains, go shooting at their weekend farms and have private hospitals where one can receive treatments as diverse as hip replacements or IVF.
Iraq’s imports of medicines and other goods require United Nations approval and the sanctions imposed after the Gulf War in 1991 have left the once-affluent and proud country bereft and shabby.
The 8,000 per cent devaluation of the Iraqi dinar over 20 years has destroyed the educated middle class. It means that many professional Iraqis — doctors, lawyers, teachers — work as cleaners or bellboys for a few dollars a month to support their families.
You see remnants of this genteel set everywhere. On Fridays they tearfully sell their beloved books and collections of American magazines such as Newsweek and Time for a few pence at the al-Saray market. They auction family paintings and carpets. They shyly try to practise the English or French they learnt abroad.
Doctors complain that they are a decade out of the medical loop; artists study 20-year- old copies of The Studio.
But for the rich, a few of whom have become richer since sanctions, life is very different. You can buy a Mercedes, or a four-wheel drive if you have the right contacts. You can buy French cosmetics or Swedish vodka. You can treat cancer by paying nearly £2,000 for chemotherapy.
On Arasat Street, the Bond Street of Baghdad, one can lunch at Nabil, a flashy new restaurant that serves pasta and steaks, and shop afterwards for Italian leather and suede.
But in the al-Waziriya neighbourhood, the contrast between rich and poor is enormous. The streets are scarred with huge potholes. Battered, colonial-era houses with broken windows overlook overgrown gardens. But a closer look sees enormous plots of land bought in recent years by the nouveaux riches. Their newly built villas are the size of mosques.
Inside Mustafa Khalid’s warehouse-sized house is a walled garden with a 15-metre trompe l’oeil of an Alpine valley. It has an industrial-sized kitchen with enough fridges and freezers to serve a small army and the family keeps many rooms locked because they do not know what to do with so much space.
Mustafa, 25, the son of a textile industrialist, knows that he is fortunate. His life consists of looking after the family factories, playing computer games with friends and visiting other wealthy relatives. Although the family business has suffered under sanctions, he says his personal life — including healthcare — has not.
“Sanctions have never affected me,” he says bluntly, standing under an enormous and garish mural of a full-breasted Sheherezade. “But I share the pressure of friends who are under embargo.”
The same is true of his neighbour, Fatima, whose husband trades in wood. Her tasteless house is even bigger than Mustafa’s. Its five bathrooms are filled with imported Italian marble and a living room the size of a barn is unused because she rarely has guests. A library has a new computer but no books. “We haven’t bought them yet,” Fatima says. She and her five children have never felt the pinch of the UN sanctions either: when they need something, including medicine, they get it from Jordan. It is an option not available to the poor.
“If you are rich, you can do anything,” admits Ani, a Christian whose husband owns a fashionable restaurant which is the favourite of the chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed Elbaradei when they are in Baghdad. “If you want to enjoy yourself, everything is here. We don’t feel the embargo.”
Ani has long red hair, a fistful of gold rings and wears a well-cut European tweed suit. Her life consists of the social club where the fashionable gather on Thursday evenings, the swimming pool and restaurants. Even so, she gets bored with her pampered Dallas-style life.
But there is one thing that even money cannot protect them from: war. Last year, Ani’s husband travelled to Germany and brought back a Mercedes. This year he is negotiating with the Germans to get his wife and 12-year-old son visas so they can get out of the country to safety before the Americans attack. The poor will have to make do with Baghdad’s underground shelters, or with their basements.
Even though only a few Iraqis watched Colin Powell’s fiery words to the Security Council on Wednesday, the rumours are spreading: war is coming. And people who previously had left their fate in the hands of God are beginning to prepare. Seemingly overnight, the mood in Baghdad has grown tense and fearful.
Brick walls are going up to protect windows. Candles, water, generators and batteries are being hoarded. The Government has already supplied civilians with months of rations.
But even the best preparations cannot mask fear. It is one of the few things that money cannot control. “We are scared,” admits Fatima, in her stone house, which looks like a fortress but is no protection from cruise missiles.
However, Fatima is not running away. She will stay with her children and pray. “No one here wants this war,” she says.
