Tuesday, 25 November 2003

19:30 – Baghdad. Miscellany.

A couple of hotels were attacked with rocket propelled grenades (RPG’s) last week. The perps only aimed at one building (the one housing the journalists), but hit an adjacent structure through an unintended ricochet. About the same time, the Ministry of Oil (MOO) was attacked with missiles. For each, the perps scrapped together a multiple rocket launcher by welding several sections of pipe together. Then they camouflaged the whole contraption onto donkey carts. CNN showed one of the donkeys some hours after, still numb and shaking. Numerous other donkey-driven destructo-carts were discovered soon thereafter.

One more reason to be paranoid.

Should the palace be attacked any time soon, we will be warned not by the Gurka Horns, but by the “Giant Voice”, which has been installed this week. Not entirely dissimilar from the Civil Defense horns we use domestically, but modified so that we aren’t confusing tornadoes with mortars. If the attack is by air (rockets and launched stuff), a loud wavering tone is broadcast. During a ground attack, the system will play a bugle call (assembly, maybe, or swimming,… I can’t identify the tune yet). If livestock attacks,… I don’t know. Once the worst is over, a steady tone will sound. When it’s all done, the Giant Voice will announce “all clear”.

Sorry. “ALL CLEAR”.

I was really hoping for a more giant-like phrase, like “Fee Fi Fo Fum, beat the crap out of Al Qaida bums”, or even a good “Ho ho ho” a la the large green guy. Well, as it is, we can’t hear a thing, as we’re too far away from the horns. We’ll probably just stick our heads out the door and listen for the gunfire, as always.

The next few nights might make that strategy tough. With Eid al Fitr (the end of Ramadan celebration, not another acronym) in progress, we expect lots of celebratory gunfire. Throughout the party, many folks feel the most festive and satisfactory way of breaking their fast is to discharge lots and lots of bullets into the sky. Why we never did this in the suburbs is beyond me. There’s nothing in the sky, of course, so what could possibly go wrong?

We’re limiting our time outside after dark anyway, keeping a reinforced concrete roof between our heads and the empty sky.