Chapter 9 6.Baghdad on the verge of a showdown

Anything can happen here, Something is bound to happen here. — Churchill November 27, 1990.UN Security Council Resolution 678: If Iraq does not withdraw from Kuwait before January 15, 1991, the Security Council authorizes to take "all necessary measures". One week before the deadline stipulated in the UN resolution, the embassies of the United Kingdom, the United States and France in Baghdad have stepped up their vigilance.Concertina-style barbed wire was newly added to the wall of the US embassy, ​​the gate was closed tightly, and slogans outside the wall were allowed to shake the sky.

On January 7, Li Dawei, the English reporter of the branch, and I and a group of reporters squeezed together at the gate of the US embassy, ​​requesting interviews with US diplomats.But we were not allowed to enter the gate of the embassy until 11:00 noon. The concierge was not allowed to enter with the camera on my back, and I was ordered to hand over the equipment to a marine.All reporters lined up and filed through the security gate.In the aisle, a bearded man wearing sunglasses and a sea soul shirt manipulated six monitors.We were ordered to wait in the visa hall on the first floor.Three rows of benches were newly built here, and two staff members of the embassy looked down on the dozen or so reporters who were seated vigilantly.On the left side of the hall is the visa payment office, in the middle of which is written in English, "Visa for business, study abroad, and tourism are not handled here."It was followed by a line of beautifully printed "Welcome to America."Below it is a giant map of the United States.On the right there is a big arrow that says "When your name is called, go across the hall to meet Ruth".

At 11:15, we were ordered to follow a man in a crisp suit through a studio on the ground floor where two women were shredding documents with two document shredders.Two Iraqi garbage workers pack shredded paper into garbage bags.I roughly counted, and I have piled up nine of them, and two more are being loaded. On the door of the ambassador's office on the second floor is a half-meter-large American national emblem. The female secretary is sitting on a leather swivel chair at the door and typing nervously, her blonde hair fluttering in the light coming in from outside the door, like the dawn light.I smiled at her, turned up her breast, and wrote "Miss Miller."Behind Miss Miller, there was a large cartoon of Saddam Hussein, in which Saddam was thrown from his chair to the ground, revealing the innocence, easy-going and domineering of Americans.

The U.S. ambassador to Baghdad has returned home. Chargé d'affaires Wilson was interviewing reporters in the ambassador's office. He was sitting on a large sofa with a large glass of mineral water in his hand.Behind the charge d'affaires was a huge Arabian antique cabinet, inlaid with carved metal pieces.There is a mortar shell on the cabinet, and the body of the shell is covered with various oil paints.The high table against the wall is full of photos of the ambassador's family, and there is also a huge photo of Marilyn Monroe, a sexy kitten. The film has been electronically color-separated, and the face colors have been simplified to black, red and dark green.On the opposite wall is a poster commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Museum of America. The picture is messy. I can only distinguish Kennedy in front of his fingers, paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division who are landing, and a Muslim cap.Large expanses of red, green, and blue fill the screen.The ambassador's desk is empty.Next to the leather swivel chair is an American flag topped by a golden bald eagle with outstretched wings.When a white reporter asked, "What's changed at the US embassy compared to a month ago," the Chargé d'Affaires lazily replied, "The only change I know of is that a month ago we had more than 40 staff, and now There are only five." Another reporter asked again: "What do you think of Saddam Hussein's Army Day speech yesterday?" The Chargé d'Affaires was expressionless: "I fell asleep at the time." Then he rubbed his eyes: " I haven't woken up until this morning."

At 22:10 on January 13, when the tired-faced UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar appeared at the entrance of the VIP building of Saddam International Airport, more than 200 reporters who had been waiting for a day swarmed up. The authorities had to mobilize the military and police. Wearing a woolen coat, de Cuellar had a melancholy expression and a slight stutter in his speech. He only briefly described his mission in English, and no one interpreted it.Standing to his left is Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz, wearing a black coat and smiling disciplinedly.Five minutes later, de Cuellar disappeared behind a door in the right corner of the conference room.The crazy reporter rushed up, but was immediately driven back by the tall military police.The reporters yelled at Aziz in English in unison: "Is war coming?" Aziz didn't answer, but still smiling, he got into a car under the escort of a group of armed guards in dark green military uniforms. The black Benz sped away.

At night, the highway from the airport to downtown Baghdad implements regional lighting control.The roadside is full of soldiers with AKs and Republican Guards huddled in gray Land Rover jeeps.We drove very slowly so as not to irritate the highly nervous soldiers.The streets were quiet, sweeping away the bustle of the past, and the shops closed early. At dawn, I went to the street to take photos of Baghdad before the war.There was a long queue to buy milk in the Mansour district where rich people live in Baghdad, and the shopping center of the Ministry of Commerce was closed.The military and police did not allow reporters to take pictures of the crowds queuing up for shopping and the empty shop windows. Some goods on the shelves had not been removed from the wrapping paper printed with the word Kuwait.

In Saddam's city near Baghdad, black market flour is 7 Iraqi dinars per kilogram, 129 times higher than when Kuwait was invaded on August 2. Under the statue of Abdul Wahab on Rashid Street, the United Nations maintains A Danish soldier and a Malaysian soldier of the Peace Corps were exchanging money with locals at the black market price of 5 Iraqi dinars per US dollar, nearly 15 times the official price of 3.228 US dollars per dinar.According to the black market price, one dollar can buy nearly three cans of Nescafé coffee. The number of soldiers on the streets increased significantly, and the military police with AK-47 rifles even got into the cement hole at the corner of the highway overpass.Republican Guards wearing red berets also stood at the gates of banks, government agencies, celebration squares, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and supermarkets.Anti-aircraft guns were set up on the gate of the presidential palace, and armed helicopters circled in the air, startling the pigeons to fly aimlessly.

Due to the evacuation of the embassies of the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany, the number of demonstrations there has decreased significantly.I recall a demonstration at the gate of the American embassy a few days ago.A "peace group" composed of six or seven people demonstrated in the rain, and a young man who spoke English spoke impassionedly to the camera.An Australian, wearing a cowboy hat and holding two pistols, asked me if I was Japanese. He wanted to sell these two pistols to Bush and Saddam: "Nochemicalwespons! (Don't use chemical weapons!)" A German The old lady held up a big sign and stood silently. I only know the German word "Ich" which means "I". It seems that there is another word for Nuremberg.

IchHabe1945DieHoelle Von Dre Sden Ueberlebt Inder Nurubegerstrsi A11eMenschenwerbenBruederWodein Sanfter Fluegelweilt. After translation, I realized that it borrowed a line from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: "We are all good brothers, and I am a survivor of the Dresden bombing." On January 2, 1991, the Iraqi government ordered all boys born before 1973 to immediately report to the reserves.Seeing the 17-year-old half-grown child rushing to the conscription office with high spirits, my mood couldn't be brighter.The government has begun firing guns on militias, and airport kiosk clerks proudly show off Colts on their hips to reporters.

The taxi driver asked in amazement why I hadn't left, "because the city and its 3.5 million people would cease to exist". Corresponding to the excitement of the young people, the old people are surprisingly calm and even pessimistic.Our landlord weeps for his life. He only has relatives in Mansour, which has been targeted by the multinational forces because of the chemical weapons base there. The hospital began to centrally count the medicines and pack them into boxes for concealment.Military vehicles appeared on Rashid Street in the center of Baghdad. Soldiers heading for Kuwait enjoyed the 50 dinars a month that the government recently gave them.Private Muhammad Ali, who was on leave, stopped his temporary rental business and was ordered to go to the front line.A gendarme auctioned off several expensive cameras to foreigners at a low price.I instinctively thought of my facsimile apprentice who dreamed of being a photojournalist. I bought a Nikon FE with a motor lens and a caliber of 1.2 from this military policeman for only 200 dollars. If he can go back alive, bring this camera to him.

Some government departments closed early.At 2:30 in the afternoon, Iraqi Tunju used pliers to cut the cables of three new telex machines, and also cut the cables of several other old telex machines that were temporarily unused.I moved these telex machines, punchers, and English-Arabic typewriters downstairs and loaded them into a "Coster" car.I also put some other items in the trunks of "Mercedes-Benz" and "Toyota". Lao Zhu drove a "Mercedes-Benz" and I drove a "Toyota". They took them twice.My back hurts so much, I move heavy things, but the chief cares about the soft ones.At four o'clock in the morning, I went back to pack my luggage, disassemble the darkroom, amplifier, etc., and finished the work within half an hour.I went to wake up the landlord again and gave her the chemical protective clothing and food.The old landlady asked, "Youll leave really (are you really leaving)?" She began to cry as she spoke. In the early morning of January 13, Lao Zhu and I sent the evacuated comrades to the airport.Several nuns are kissing an elderly priest goodbye as they plan to fly to the Vatican.Airport security confiscated English journalist Li Dawei's watch "because it was suspected to be an explosive."Li Dawei pointed to me and said, "This big guy with glasses is a friend of Ramadan (Vice President of Iraq), and his armed belt was given by Ramadan." Republican Guard military belt with eagle buckle.Seeing that the soldiers didn't believe it, Li Dawei hurriedly unpacked his luggage and took out a 10-inch fax of Ramadan's military salute.This photo was taken with a 200mm lens in front of Ramadan when the national flag was raised at the opening of the World Muslim Conference on January 9, as if Ramadan was saluting me.The soldier on duty took the photo and looked at it carefully, and was immediately dumbfounded, turned around and stood at attention with a "snap". Dark clouds overwhelmed the city. After filming, developing, enlarging, and faxing, I began to write text news.In the state of war, I feel more and more that pictures alone cannot meet the special requirements of the imminent war.As Baghdad is heading towards the abyss of war and increasingly becoming the focus of the world's attention, my shitty articles and photos have appeared on the pages of domestic and foreign newspapers and periodicals.Even the "Beijing Evening News", which seldom used the Xinhua News Agency at that time, published my "Baghdad Near the Showdown" on the front page on January 15, 1991.Afterwards, Xin Shaoying, the founder of Zhengda Variety Show of CCTV, asked me how I sent out the manuscript in Baghdad, where communication was cut off. I said it depended on my first-class Chinese pinyin. Entering January 1991, all international communications in Iraq were interrupted. Because there was no telephone, the fax machine used by Xinhua News Agency to send news to the outside world could not work.At this time, the only radio station that can communicate with the outside world is the embassy.It's a pity that the radio station can only send encrypted codes, which makes the Xinhua News Agency reporters who usually send their articles in text helpless.Just when I was running around like an ant on a hot pot, Ambassador Zheng recruited me into the official residence.He asked me if I could write articles in Hanyu Pinyin and code punch them with a typewriter.I said that my Chinese pinyin is at least the first in the Middle East of Xinhua News Agency, and as for typing, coding, and punching, it doesn't matter.After hearing this, the ambassador said: "Boy, from today onwards, I will use the radio station of the embassy to send a manuscript for you every day. But the operator only sends out punched and coded paper tapes. Bring your paper to the office before 5 pm every day. I'll bring it." From then on, I reduced what I saw and heard every day into a paper tape with a width of one centimeter, rolled it into a roll tens of meters long, and input it into the transmitter of the embassy. world.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beijing, thousands of miles away, copied it, then reduced it into a paper tape with a width of one centimeter, and sent it to the head office of Xinhua News Agency in Beijing.This trick is not available to any reporter. The reason why I was able to shock the world with occasional crickets during the war was due to my old senior, Zheng Dayong, the Chinese ambassador to Iraq. But good times don't last forever.The director of Xinhua Middle East Branch called Baghdad and ordered me to withdraw immediately. I tried my best to explain the necessity of my stay in a pleasant manner.But the head of the Middle East bureau kept his word and ordered me to hand over the phone to the head of the Baghdad branch: "Call the chief reporter right away, don't waste time!" The implication was that I was not at the level of arguing with him at all.I went to the embassy and yelled at the officials sent by Xinhua News Agency to the Middle East who only receive Dai salary and stick to the rules.Military attache Cao Pengling and his wife are my Peking University alumni, and his wife used to be a reporter for Xinhua News Agency.The two seniors advised me not to be petty, and the only thing I can do is to obey.They have been obedient all their lives.Until 1998, CCTV invited the ambassador, the military attache and me as guests to commemorate the Gulf War. When the military attache met me in the CCTV studio, he suddenly had tears in his eyes: "Maybe I shouldn't have persuaded you back then." In the early morning of January 14, we all boarded the "Coster" heliport, evacuated Baghdad, and flew to Jordan.I carry my helmet and bulletproof vest so I don't get overweight.I wanted to sneak into the airport to shoot some retreat scenes, but the soldiers refused to let me in. A little spy said viciously: "Why did you let me in?!" I suddenly found a group of western TV reporters walking in to shoot TV, a guy from the news department Leading the way, they drove straight in.I also hung all three cameras on my body and walked inside shaking.The little spy came out to block me again: "I think you look like a passenger." "I'm a reporter." I pushed him away and walked inside. At the airport, I was detained for failing to obtain a departure visa.In wartime Iraq, permanent residents had to go through visa procedures when entering and leaving Iraq.Because I wanted to resist my boss's evacuation order, I didn't go through the exit procedures with other colleagues, and I planned to hide. Now I was "escorted" by the ambassador to Jordan and handed over to the Jordanian branch of Xinhua News Agency.Don't want to get arrested at the border.Several compatriots in the embassy came forward to argue that it was useless, and they were kicked out of the office.Ambassador Zheng had to go out in person: "I am the ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Baghdad, and I guarantee this person..." I have seen the ambassador personally guarantee workers and others several times. He is calm, flexible, patient, firm and demeanor. At noon, we arrived at the Amman airport, and all went to the embassy for dinner. I didn't go, so I went back to the branch to send faxed photos.In the afternoon, the English reporter Li Dawei and the chief Lao Zhu continued to fly to Cairo, Lao Yang from the Jordan branch went to Damascus, and I stayed in Jordan, the "Switzerland" of the Gulf War, waiting for an opportunity.