Free A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal by Åsne Seierstad, Ingrid Christophersen Page B

throughout the centuries been celebrated for their succulent fruit - apples, pears, grapes and pomegranates. Now all that remains is barren sand.
     
    But the desert also yields a different kind of harvest. From this area originates the very first descriptions of what was later to become both Iraq’s wealth and its curse: oil. People believed the brown liquid could heal and bathed in it when they were sick. The traveller Ibn Jubair wrote about the black gold in the 1100s:
     
    To the right of the road to Mosul there is a depression in the ground. It is black, as though it lies under a cloud. From there God lets issue forth wells, both big and small, that throw up tar. From time to time one of them will throw out a large piece, as though it were boiling. Basins have been constructed to gather the pieces. Round about these wells is a black pool. The surface is covered by a thin layer of black foam, which floats to the edge and coagulates. It might be mistaken for mud; it is very sticky, smooth, shiny and has a strong smell. Thus we have, with our own eyes, witnessed a miracle. They tell us that they set light to the mud to extract tar. The flames devour the liquid and thereafter the tar is cut into suitable pieces and transported away. Allah creates what He wants. Praise be His name.
     
    Scattered lights from Mosul twinkle at us. We are ravenous. But what we would really like is to have a beer, and are about to go looking for one. Heyad asks us not to, it is futile he says. And you girls on your own, it’s not safe. He refuses to leave his car, a dark green Chevrolet Caprice, with soft, beige interior. He wants to buy a new car, but we ask him to wait until after the war. He nods. That makes sense. - I might need my money for more useful things then, he says.
     
    We wander from restaurant to restaurant and end up somewhere with blue fluorescent lighting and Formica tables.
     
    The world’s press has made its way to the muslin town this evening, for the sole reason that we were given permission to come. Now we are gathered in the restaurants along Mosul’s night strip; our ladies’ team in one corner, a gentlemen’s team from Le Figaro and Liberation in the other. The neighbouring tables are all occupied by men. As in most Arab countries women are rarely seen out at night, unless there is an important occasion such as a wedding or a birthday. We are given a plastic saucer with chopped onion, another with tomato and parsley. Then we get a chicken each. The rumour about beer was exaggerated. Beverages are tea, lemonade and Pepsi.
     
    Stuffed and dead tired we arrive at the hotel by midnight. The check-in procedure almost exceeds what the Ministry of Information could come up with. Endless questionnaires must be completed and an infinite number of enquiries answered before we can ascend the massive concrete steps to our rooms.
     
    Only next morning do I look out of the window. The Tigris has followed me all the way from Baghdad. The view is like from al-Fanar, only here the river is wider and the landscape seems even flatter. The morning haze lies heavily over the river, thinning as it rises. The air is cooler than I have become used to. I shiver as I stand and hear the march participants streaming towards the main street. This parade has been arranged for volunteers to show that every single Iraqi will fight for Saddam Hussein. What more fitting a town than Mosul, a one-time remote outpost of the Assyrian empire, an 8,000-year-old urban community? The town is also the most ethnically mixed in Iraq; here Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Syrians, Turcoman, Assyrians, Jews, Muslims and Christians live cheek by jowl. Mosques and churches rub shoulders.
     
    It is the reserve forces who are flexing their muscles - the day before Colin Powell submits his ‘conclusive proof’ against Iraq. The reserve forces go under the name al-Quds - Arabic for ‘Jerusalem’ - and were formed by Saddam Hussein during the spring of 2001 to