Though based in Moscow, I traveled widely in Iraq after the first Gulf War and returned in 1999 to cover Iraq's problem with looted archaeology. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a difficult, miserable, fear-soaked universe crawling with informants. People could not even trust family members, much less neighbors. A child might even unwittingly betray its parents if politics were spoken of openly in the home. The parallels to Stalinism were no coincidence. Saddam used Stalin's tried and true methods to great effect.
I wrote a story for Time magazine in February 1992 about how a Baghdad family had to turn up music and shut windows before they would discuss politics with me, about the young girl who had to be hustled out of danger by an older relative simply because she talked to me. I have never forgotten her. She asked me for a book to read in English and I was not able to give her one. During that trip I visited a Basra nightclub with the writer, also a woman, and our government minder. We spent the evening talking with two prostitutes who told us of their woeful lives, one of them in tears. Then the lights were turned on and army troops marched in, led by an officer. They rounded up all the young men in the club and took them away. I had slipped my camera below the table, and my finger was on the shutter. I was tempted to shoot a picture quietly--just lay the camera on the table. With just one click I would have something. The minder begged me as if he had read my mind: "Don't do it--please. I will be punished." How could I?
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