Yesterday I felt scared for the first time since I got here, standing on my balcony, looking out at the city: suddenly I could picture the sky dark with smoke, air thick with debris, burning eyes and throat. There was a police pick-up on the corner of Al Sadoon Street by the Ali Baba fountain, with soldiers on the back and guns mounted, pointing down the street. It was the first real sign of war. The fluffy teddy bear dangling from the rear view mirror was not as incongruous in Baghdad as it would have been anywhere else.
The British embassy in Baghdad has been abandoned for twelve years now and three of us decided it was time it was reopened by an interim staff to improve relations with Iraq and to prepare for regime change in London. There would be an asylum section where British citizens fleeing the horrors of Tony Blair could take refuge pending the change of leadership in Whitehall and also an Irish Interest Section.
We went to take a look at the premises and were met by a stonewall guard who flatly denied any knowledge of there ever having been a British embassy and he had a liberal supply of barbed wire to support his position, so instead we ambled down the road. Small children played on mounds of sand and ran about the street and women chatted between ramshackle fairytale houses, with overhanging wooden upstairs parts and blue patterned outsides.
The British embassy in Baghdad has been abandoned for twelve years now and three of us decided it was time it was reopened by an interim staff to improve relations with Iraq and to prepare for regime change in London. There would be an asylum section where British citizens fleeing the horrors of Tony Blair could take refuge pending the change of leadership in Whitehall and also an Irish Interest Section.
We went to take a look at the premises and were met by a stonewall guard who flatly denied any knowledge of there ever having been a British embassy and he had a liberal supply of barbed wire to support his position, so instead we ambled down the road. Small children played on mounds of sand and ran about the street and women chatted between ramshackle fairytale houses, with overhanging wooden upstairs parts and blue patterned outsides.