Feb 16th

Chance and lateness combine to put me inside Downing
Street, opposite number 10, as the Cabinet comes out.
I've just delivered a letter to Tony Blair telling him
I'm going to Iraq to act as a human rights observer
and gather evidence of likely and actual breaches of
the Geneva Convention on protection of civilians. CND
and Peacerights have served a "letter before action" -
the first stage of the legal challenge process - and
although countries like Britain and the US frequently
flout international law with impunity, I want Tony to
know people are still holding him accountable for the
effects of his war on ordinary Iraqi civilians.

So I've delivered the letter and Sky News want an
interview, which is why I'm waiting behind the
barriers when they all come out. The Sky reporter
shouts "Is it a united cabinet, Mr / Mrs..." whatever
at each member as they come out. They all pretend they
can't hear. They've all been in there debating whether
to kill thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of
innocent people, and now they're filing past me in
their smart suits, chauffeured safely away from
impertinent questions. Robin Cook appears: he of the
ethical foreign policy. That makes me quite cross. I
don't recognise Geoff Hoon but the reporter calls out
to him. Geoff Hoon is one of the cabinet's chief
warmongers.

"How many Iraqi kids are you going to kill Mr Hoon?
They're going to die because you're going to stop them
getting food or clean water Mr Hoon. It ceases to be a
collateral effect when it's foreknown and inevitable,
Mr Hoon. It becomes genocide Mr Hoon."

Expelled from Downing Street for asking a minister a
couple of questions. How naughty.

Next to me on the plane is a Palestinian man who was
studying on a scholarship in Sweden when the 6 day war
made him an exile. He can visit Jerusalem on a
Jordanian passport now, but he can never go home. The
owner of the taxi company that takes us from Jordan
airport into Amman city tells us that 750,000 people
have left Iraq through the border with Syria, since
the border with Jordan was closed. He's moved most of
his cars from Amman to Damascus because that's the
route people are taking now.

It strikes me, as I make my own journey: how
frightening, how dislocating, to leave knowing you
might never be able to come home.

Though it's dark for most of our 960km journey to
Baghdad, there are trucks and tankers on the road
without lights. Literally without them, not just
without them switched on. Others have no brakes - or
none to speak of - and simply have to sound their
horns constantly to warn whatever is in their path.
There aren't any spares, but life has to go on.
Likewise the street lights are not on until the
outskirts of Baghdad. If you look closely, there are
no lights: only poles.

The inside lane and the roadside are liberally
ornamented with the remains of tyres. On my last visit
I saw what those tyre remnants mean. People can't
afford new tyres: 60% of them have little or no income
aside from the food ration. Bald tyres blow out and
the driver loses control of the car, which careens
across the road till it finds something to crumple
into. No flowers, just torn rubber marks the spot.

Baghdad, though, seems surprisingly solid. All the
talk of cruise missiles, uranium bunker-busters,
carpet bombing and the rest made the whole city
precarious in my mind, but Saturday is a gloriously
sunny day and people are going about their business.
We talk to a few people about the risk of bombing.
There are shelters but no one wants to go in them
after the coalition bombed a civilian shelter last
time, burning or boiling over four hundred people who
were trapped inside their sanctuary. Inside a building
is a bad place to be. Somewhere wide open is the best
bet - a field, a park, the riverside. We walk down
along the riverside, past feral dogs and a group of
boys playing football.

Ahmed and Mohammed are still where they always were,
outside the Al Fanar. Ahmed's face has matured - he
must be 16 now, but he's still very small. Saif isn't
there. I wonder - he had what looked like melanomas on
his face, but Ahmed says he's fine. There's another
boy now, a smaller boy, Hassan, shining shoes now on
their pitch. The soles of his trainers aren't attached
to the rest anymore and his feet are too long for
them. I try to ask what size he needs, but our mutual
language isn't up to it yet. I go looking for Muna,
but her money exchange isn't there any more. I check a
couple of times, up and down the street, in case I've
just missed it, but she's gone. I wonder, but I'll
never know.

Over the evening bread and hummus in the Al Fanar
hotel we're entertained by a woman at the next table
who works for Oprah Winfrey. She's just set up an
interview with Huda Ammash who is, she says, a
powerful woman and the voice of Iraqi women. The name
is familiar. She's one of the highest ranking people
in the ruling Ba'ath party. She was interviewed by
Scilla Elsworthy, head of the Oxford Research Group,
who was out here a few weeks ago. The Oprah woman
doesn't want her to say the same as she said to
Scilla. She wants her to "break out of the box". Huda,
it seems, is gaining, or being given, quite a lot of
credibility.

Perhaps there is a pattern emerging. In any conflict
in which the UK or US has deposed an existing leader
or regime - such as Afghanistan and the Balkans -
there follows a process of legitimising the people who
have fought their way to a position of power before
the ceasefire. Elections are then called and declared
to be free and fair providing the right people win and
behold, the US / UK has brought democracy, freed the
people. No matter whether it is someone the people
want, whether the people are safe, or able to do any
more than previously; no matter what the new leader
did to get into the position of power he or she is
then legitimised in. In Bosnia, the election was
declared free and fair while the election observers
were still on the bus returning to give their reports
that there had been intimidation of opposition parties
by the power brokers within each area. There was a
103% voter turnout.

Oprah-woman carries on to tell her companion about the
Non-Aligned Students and Youth Organisation
conference, which Julia and I are going to. We'd been
chasing visas for weeks before we heard about the
conference and as soon as we registered we were given
visas. She says there are over 1000 students going to
the conference and not one of them female. Surprised,
Julia and I check under the table that we've not
undergone any changes in the last hour or two. No,
we're still female. And this woman is part of the
process of legitimising possible future leaders of the
Iraqi people.




Student Peace March Feb 18th

The gang of lads asked my name, then dissolved in
giggles, slapping each other's shoulders, when I told
them mine and asked theirs. Overcoming their shyness,
they asked where I was from, how old I was, what I
thought of Baghdad, and we danced down the street
together to the clatter of drums and hand clapping.

It was an anti-war march, organised by the students at
the Non-Aligned Students and Youth Organisation
(NASYO) conference. A Japanese group carried a banner
saying "Japan - Iraq. Peace and Friendship" in both
English and Japanese, chanting "No to war. Yes to
Peace." The Nigerians were in national costume. The
Belgians were out in force. Australians, Estonians,
Swedes, Turks, Mauritians and a plethora of others
were there. Conspicuous by their absence were the 27
US students who had registered to attend the
conference but withdrew at the last minute, apparently
under persuasion from the US State Department. It
remains illegal under the US sanctions for its
citizens to even travel to Iraq unless as journalists
or UN personnel. Ah, the Land of the Free.

I marched with a group of young Iraqi women, clapping
their hands and chanting. The students we met in the
colleges were roughly half and half men and women.
Probably around two thirds covered their hair, but
many wore trousers and make-up. Like their male
counterparts they ere shy at first, then friendly and
welcoming, keen to practise their English and eager to
know what I thought of their city.

I bounced up and down clapping hands with a mixed
group, to the bugling of an old man behind us, once we
halted outside the UNDP building, and a small boy
dived into the middle of the melee and began break
dancing. Over the noise we exchanged names and
favourite English football teams - mainly Liverpool
and Manchester United for them; Brighton and Hove
Albion for me. Julia Roberts is popular here, with
both men and women, as are Westlife, N-Sync and the
Backstreet Boys but even so, there's no excuse for
bombing these people.

A tribe of young men were jumping up and down, going
round and round in a circle, chanting, arms raised
punching the air. The rage against Bush was tangible
as they chanted "Down, Down Bush" and "Down, Down
USA". Their glee was genuine as I expressed my view
that Tony Blair was a muppet. Many of their chants and
banners praised Saddam and there was a large banner
saying "Saddam is our Choice.". Like the pictures in
every shop and office, this is perhaps more a matter
of expediency than political preference.

People talk when they know no one else can hear. The
feeling is that they would prefer genuine democracy,
greater freedom, but if the choice is Saddam or the
USA, they will take Saddam. They do not believe, even
when they speak freely, that the US and UK will be
"liberating" them. Some are angry at the way weapons
inspections have been carried out. They tease, says
one. They tip out bins in colleges as if that is where
the evidence of a weapons programme would be hidden.
They are aggressive.

It was as intense an experience as any in my life, to
march with the Iraqi students and to feel their anger
and their powerful energy. During the march it started
to rain, despite the bright sunshine. The sun was over
the river Tigris, and I looked for a rainbow opposite.
I couldn't see one. If it was there, it was hidden by
the UN building.