An air of slightly unreal calm has descended on Baghdad. But everyone knows war is coming. Tim Judah walked the streets yesterday.
Baghdad is the eye of the storm - literally. Huge military forces are massing on Iraq's borders, and the diplomacy swirls from London to New York, to Moscow to Paris and back again. But here, as befits the eye of the storm, all is quiet. For the past two days most shops and businesses have even been firmly closed as Thursday was a holiday and yesterday the Muslim day of rest.
Whatever else is happening in the world, here, there are no visible signs of any serious preparations for war. There are no buses packed with soldiers or weeping mothers seeing off their sons - only small trenches and sandbagged positions close to official buildings and in strategic locations around the city.
As for the rest of the country, that remains a mystery, as, for the moment and (given the situation) foreign journalists are not allowed to leave Baghdad.
Still, the long road from the Jordanian border to Baghdad reveals little of interest. There are few private cars on the road, no evident military traffic but endless oil tankers streaming out of the country. Coming in are car carriers, packed with second-hand vehicles from Korea or brand new luxury models for Iraq's lucky few.
In Baghdad Saddam Hussein is omnipresent. There is a statue of him painted in gold, firing his rifle in the air. Here is a massive picture of him on the telephone. There is the president in full Arab dress, and here he is in military uniform. There he is praying, here he is kissing a young admirer. And here he looks like an Egyptian mummy, because the statue, in front of a brand new building, has yet to be unveiled.
Picnicking with her children by the golden-domed shrine mosque in the Khadimiya district of the city, Zeinab Shakir, a 36-year-old mother of seven, said, talking through my Iraqi government-approved translator: "We adore him, for his courage, heroic deeds and powerful character."
Asked if her children were frightened by the prospect of war, she replied: "No, because they depend on the will of President Saddam Hussein."
Crowds swirled around the mosque for Friday prayers as its imam, Abu Yousif al-Ansari, told them in a fiery sermon: "Allah will support the Muslims. God unite the Muslims and make us one hand and one heart in the face of US threats so we can defeat the Americans."
Inspired, Heithah Jabar, a 28-year-old car mechanic, said: "My goal is to be martyred for the country. For that you will be rewarded in paradise."
Every foreign journalist who comes here soon makes a pilgrimage to the al-Amariyah bomb shelter, which was hit by two American bombs on February 13th, 1991. It was packed with women and children, 408 of whom were killed.
Intesar al-Samarie, the guide, requires visitors to look carefully at dark marks, like shadows, on the wall. "Here you can see a face, the mother's eyes, and here the child's body." The marks come into focus. Hiroshima-like they are the stains left as people were literally blasted into the walls.
In the lower floor of the shelter are marks left by the water, which rose to a height of a metre and half, as emergency crews tried to douse the flames. But, the brown marks, says Mrs al-Samarie, are in fact the remains, the ashes to be precise, of those who perished here. "This is the scum," she says in explanation.
The visitors' book is full of anger and sympathy. "Lest we forget," are the words of an Australian. For one Francois Lentz, however, the shelter represents "the unlimited cruelty of the satanic Judeo-American empire".
Around town and suspicious of journalists, various western peace activists can be seen shopping - some are identifiable by their red baseball caps or slogan-bearing T-shirts, while others hold football matches for peace. Some, however, have decided to leave, uncomfortable it appears, with the proximity of certain hospitals, water treatment plants and other institutions, for which they were prepared to give their lives, to certain military installations.
If bombs are coming then few ordinary Iraqis appear to have made significant preparations. The odd windows have been taped to minimise the damage from flying glass, but very few. Sixty per cent of Iraqis rely on a monthly basket of food and other rations provided by the government and financed by the UN's Food for Oil programme, by which the government is compelled to provide this help with money from Iraqi oil. Now the government has given rations in advance, anything between one and five months' worth, depending on whom you talk to.
Those with the means, however, have made more substantial stocks. Fuel, bottled water and candles are all in strong demand.
How long any bombing might last is anyone's guess. "Two days maybe," says one man, "but my friends say two or three weeks."
Yesterday, Baghdad's famous second-hand book market was bustling. But traders complain that business has been bad for two or three months. With little money to spare but an appetite for books, middle class Iraqis come here to peruse and buy, or sell their books for cash.
"A house without a library is like a desert," yells a book merchant. Stock is eclectic. It ranges from Arabic engineering manuals through to a 1959 English-language text on laws relating to education in Yugoslavia. The market has become well known to foreign journalists here, especially given a certain reserve some Iraqis appear to feel when talking to foreigners. "We have been so pleased to see you people here in the last couple of months," says one man, "because it shows you care about us, and not the politicians."
A shoeshine boy is looking for work. He is called Sayeef. There are eight in his family but he has had to stop going to school to help support them since his father was crippled in a car accident. Malnutrition has become common in Iraq since 1991.
Sayeef looks healthy enough though for a 10-year-old - but then says he is 15. Asked if his brothers and sisters are frightened of the war that may be coming, he replies: "Yes, they are very scared, but I try to calm them down. I try to convince them that nothing bad will happen."
Tugging arms for charity, Nibras, aged six, says: "If the war starts, I'll stay at home."