The lift doors in the Iraqi Ministry of Information lurched open. A young woman in a headscarf dabbed at her tears with a tissue, and her shoulder heaved with sobs. The content of her desk drawers bulged from a plastic bag at her feet, writes Lara Marlowe, in Baghdad
The other occupants of the lift stared forward with blank faces; no one tried to comfort her. The doors closed on this unusual show of fear and nervousness.
When the next lift arrived, I had to crowd in with a soldier clutching a gas mask, between a fridge and a table, stacks of files, a computer, teapot and houseplants. The ministry is likely to be a target so it is being evacuated.
A woman, one of hundreds of Westerners fleeing Iraq, said she'd seen berms - huge sandbanks beside deep trenches filled with oil tanks - outside the capital. The Iraqis prepared similar defences in 1991 but did not use them. The oil is supposed to be ignited to halt invaders.
New US weapons are a source of curiosity and speculation. An official asked sceptically whether the so-called ebomb could really destroy electronic equipment.
He said some Iraqis are naïve enough to believe that the US has a genetic weapon that can attack Tikrit, Saddam's home town.
Others talk of a weapon that puts everyone to sleep, like the lethal chemicals used against the Chechens in the Moscow theatre. They dream of waking up to find it's all over.
There is little solace in official media for Iraq's frightened people. Iraqi television played martial music and broadcast endless tunes of marching men, Babylonian treasures and the Great Leader in costume with hands clenched praying, riding his white horse, carrying a rifle.
The front page of one newspaper, Babylon, showed three nearly identical photographs of Saddam Hussein addressing his officers. A sinister half-page image on the back shows Babylon's publisher - his eldest son, Uday - standing by the president and younger son Qussay. Uday's overcoat hangs open revealing a Revevo tucked into his waistband.
"All three are going to die," an Iraqi whispered as I stared at the photo.
"I hope the Americans stop outside the city," one resident said. "There would be riots and looting but I wouldn't care because 90 per cent of the Ba'ath party would be murdered."
The same quietly-spoken man provided a superstitious explanation for Iraq's tragedy.
"It's because of King Faisal," he said. "Iraqis hung the King's relatives, cut them into ribbons. We have suffered ever since. We are a rich country; we can live with our neighbours. We can enjoy our wealth, import technology - there is no need for this."
The bureaucracy in the ministries continued, even as they carted out the furniture and computers. Waiting for an umpteenth authorisation, I started a small blue book of three open letters written by Saddam Hussein "to the American and Western peoples". The Iraqi dictator compared America to buildings and homes, collapsed in on their owners in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, destroyed by American weapons used by "the Zionists".
Few would disagree with the conclusion of his second letter. "The world is in disarray. We don't know where it is going to end up," Saddam Hussein or his ghost writer stated.
The rest was written last October and is almost prophetic. "Force is like a fire ball . . . It cannot decide how much it is going to burn. Its movement is remote, controlled and does not know which movement or at what angle it would break down. Only God knows what will happen."
