“Ah, but that's where you are wrong,” he replied confidently. “My grandfather was named after a magnificent lion seen on the outskirts of Baghdad the day he was born. There have been lions in Iraq for thousands of years.”
His statement took the wind out of my sails. That was that; the conversation was closed.
But Stephan gamely believed he might have more success. “Let me go back to him and at least try,” he said.
The next day Stephan came back dejected. “They will not release them; they're not interested. I'll have to go and tell Barbara,” he said.
As far as the Baghdad Municipality was concerned, the issue was no longer negotiable.
I
F WE THOUGHT the zoo's uncompromising announcement that the lions would not be relocated was the end of the matter, we were seriously mistaken.
The release had barely gone live before reporters from a TV network in Lebanon arrived and started questioning our staff members. The first to have a microphone stuck in front of him was ex__Republican Guard Jafaar Deheb, who worked with the lions. What did he think of the animals being removed?
They weren't going, he said.
That wasn't their information, said the TV interviewer. They had spoken to a German woman at the zoo who said not only were Uday's lions and Saedia going, but they would soon be followed by a cheetah, a wolf, and a jungle cat.
What?
Jafaar called over his colleague Ahmed, who was in charge of feeding the zoo's animals.
“It's true,” said the TV interviewer.
The two men told other zoo workers and within minutes a posse stormed into Adel's office.
“Why is Lebanon TV saying all our animals are going to be taken away?”
Adel explained that certainly was not the case, but he could see they didn't believe him. “It's on TV,” they said.
He hurriedly summoned me and Sumner and we listened to the story with increasing consternation. Sumner said we had to clear this whole mess up once and for all. He was going to call a meeting where Barbara herself could explain what was going on and why she thought the animals should go and the staff could question her directly.
After that Adel would tell the staff categorically that no animals were going and they never would without the consent of the Iraqis. The animals belonged to them, not the foreigners.
We got a message to Barbara at the hotel, and to her credit she agreed to attend what could be a lively meeting. Unfortunately, earlier that morning she had claimed Jafaar had made “a throat-slitting gesture” while sitting next to her in Ali's taxi. Brendan, who was also in the car, said that Jafaar was actually in a good mood, even wearing his new CWIT-shirt, which Barbara had given him, and was laughing and playing the fool.
But Barbara had no doubts. Back at the hotel she told a group of soldiers an Iraqi zoo worker had threatened to cut her throat, and that's not something an American GI takes lightly. In no time an armed guard had been formed to escort her to the zoo.
When Brendan and I arrived at the hotel to collect her, she said she wasn't going with us; she was going with the soldiers. They were her bodyguards, her life had been threatened, and they were going to “sort things out” at the zoo.
We stared at her, stunned, but sure enough, standing behind Barbara was a contingent of fully armed soldiers, ready to leave.
This had disaster flashing in neon lights all over it.
“Barbara,” I said, “this is all completely unnecessary. There is
no threat to anyone. William Sumner is a U.S. Army captain. He is there and he is in charge of security.”
I knew full well that in the volatile Baghdad climate American combat troops arriving at the zoo with Barbara could spark an extremely inflammable situation. The soldiers were angry, believing that a woman had been threatened, and there was no doubt they were keen to teach Jafaar a lesson. Zoo staff would possibly now also believe we foreigners were plotting against them, even calling in soldiers. This could destroy everything.
Brendan and I decided our best bet was to get to the zoo first and cancel the meeting. Ali was outside and we sprinted toward his taxi, shouting at him to step on the gas.
To my dismay I saw the entire zoo workforce had assembled by the office, ready for the meeting. They wanted some straight answers. We rushed out of the taxi and ran over to Sumner, shouting that armed soldiers escorting Barbara were on their way.
“You must be joking,” he said. “When will they be here?”
As he spoke, two SUVs loaded with troops arrived at the gate.
“Shit!” cursed Sumner. “Break up the meeting, quick. Get the staff out of here! Now, now!”
Brendan and I turned to the staff. “Get back! Get back!” we yelled, trying to disperse the workers. They looked at us bemused, not understanding what was happening or what we were saying.
“Go back to work,” I yelled. “We'll call you later.”
The SUVs skidded to a halt and the soldiers leaped out, rifles at the ready. Barbara jumped out after them and stayed in the background. The staff started milling around, confused. As the soldiers came toward them, they fled.
Adel ran up. “Why have you got your guns out? Have you come to kill my people?” he shouted.
At that moment Sumner reached the soldiers. “What's going on here?”
Seeing an officer, the soldiers stopped. Sumner informed them
he was in charge of security and there was no need for their presence at the zoo. He ordered them to leave immediately.
The tension eased and the soldiers decided to go, happy to know everything was under control. Barbara went back to the hotel with them.
No further meaningful dialogue between Dr. Adel and Barbara was possible. The next morning the agitated Iraqi vet met with Baghdad's soon-to-be-installed deputy mayor, Faris al-Assam, who drafted a letter from the town council banning Barbara from the zoo and had it delivered to her at the Al-Rashid Hotel.
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THE NEXT DAY Ted Morse unexpectedly pitched up at the zoo. Barbara had been in his office with a final plea for the animals' release, and although he initially had sanctioned the move, he now wanted more clarification.
He first met privately with Adel before asking Sumner and me to join them. After listening to all sides of the story, Morse finally made his decision. Uday's lions and Saedia, the bear, belonged to the Iraqi people and would not be moved without the formal approval of the Baghdad Municipality. In the future no zoo animal would be relocated anywhere without the municipality's expressed consent.
The matter was closed.
Seeing that Morse was in a reasonably good mood, I again brought up the issue of Husham getting his job back. Morse's smile dropped like a guillotine and he abruptly shook his head. That matter was closed as well, he said.
But I wasn't going to give up on a man I considered a conservation hero and once more phoned Tim Carney, arguing the case for the brave Iraqi vet.
It was a tough call, but Carney suggested I refer the matter to the Baghdad's deputy-mayor-in-waiting, Faris al-Assam. Carney figured the Iraqis themselves would know Husham wasn't some sinister Saddam supporter; he had been required to be a Ba'ath
Party member in order to keep his position, like hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis.
The end result was a compromise. A few days later Husham was reinstated as a vet but lost his position as deputy director, which kept both the Americans and us at the zoo happy.
He arrived at work the next morning and we embraced. It was good to have him back.
Unfortunately, it did not end there. Six months later, in January 2004, he was dismissed again in a new round of “de-Ba'athification,” and it now seems permanent. Most regrettably, he has not been seen or heard of since. But whatever happened, no one can take away from him the fact that he risked his life to help the starving, thirst-crazed animals of Baghdad Zoo. The zoo will always be indebted to him.
Husham, I'm afraid, was a victim of the times. De-Ba'thification may have got rid of some bad eggs, but it also barred a lot of talented professionals from working for the new Iraq. The fact that many had to join Saddam's Ba'ath Party to survive is well documented, and sadly, many innocent people may have had to pay a price for that.
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I COULD NOT HELP SMILING. There, at the entrance to the zoo, the staff was walking in a circle, solemn faced and holding hand-scrawled placards: “Iraqi lions for the Iraqi people.”
Some of the banners were in English; others, in Arabic. The protesters, about thirty in all, waved as we drove in while soldiers at the gates monitored the gathering with vague interest, just in case it got out of hand. This was nothing unusual for them; they came from a democracy. But in Iraq, a protest that wasn't cynically stage-managed by the former regime for the benefit of international cameras was a heady new experience. In fact, this was probably the first authentic citizens' protest in the new Iraq, and Uday's lions had unwittingly heralded a new era of freedom. The thought filled me with pride.
The saga was now over; the animals were staying and Barbara had left Iraq. It was unfortunate she and the Iraqis parted on a sour note. She had the guts to come in alone during the highly volatile initial stages, and she provided the dart gun that had been vital to our rescue missions. For that alone she has our enduring gratitude.
There is no doubt Barbara is a committed, courageous conservationist and her heart is in the right place. One of the only regrets of my time in Iraq is that she and the Iraqis clashed so bitterly at the end. When one distills it to its essence, the sole cause of the dispute between her and the Iraqis was the timing of the proposed relocation, not the theme. Like everyone else, Barbara genuinely wanted a better life for the animals she had chosen for relocation. It was her overriding concern.
To her, the politics and dynamics of the situation were secondary.
J
ULY 4, America's Independence Day, was fast approaching and the rumor on the streets was that Saddam's loyalists were going to stage some spectacular retaliatory hits against the Americans. Civilians affiliated with the Coalition Administration were warned against venturing out of the heavily guarded Green Zone on America's most celebrated day, and military patrols throughout the country were massively stepped up.
At the zoo we were usually blasé about such rumors, as they whizzed around all the time, but I thought if the insurgency was planning something big, Independence Day would be when it happened. Even Ali, who had planned to take Mariette Hopley and Jackson Zee to the meat market that day, decided we should all stay in.
However, the Americans weren't letting anything get in their way. This was the biggest holiday of the year. Even if they were in a war zone, they were going to have one hell of a party.
On the day itself, anyone not on duty in the Green Zone was invited
to Saddam's Four-Headed Palace. Free beer was on tap around the swimming pool, and the luxury of quaffing a cool(ish) brew on a hot desert night and cavorting in the ex-dictator's swimming pool on Independence Day was not lost on the crowd.
The pool was almost Olympic size, with a twenty-foot-high diving board and a fountain in the middle. As beer stock sank, more and more revelers found the courage to plunge from the high board with wildly varying levels of acrobatic competence. The number of soldiers nursing red bellies and backs from ill-advised somersaults or other fancy aerial maneuvers, not to mention sore heads from the beer, must have been astronomical the next morning.
The Four-Headed Palace itself was typical of Saddam's gargantuan ego culture. It was officially called the Al Salam Palace, but due to the fact that it had forty-foot bronze busts of Saddam's profile on each of the rectangular corners everyone called it the Four-Headed Palace.
The building had been specifically earmarked as a future administration complex before the war and thus was spared most of the bombing. Sections of the right wing, however, had been damaged. When the Americans found a miniature architectural model of it, they put it in the entrance hall and broke off pieces corresponding to the real-life bombed sections to make it easier for newcomers to navigate their way around the labyrinth.
Saddam's palaces are bigger and grander than any castle you will find in Europe, and all have enough kitsch and decadent opulence to overwhelm the senses, particularly when you see the squalor millions of Iraqis live in.
But perhaps the most telling feature was the huge palace mosque. Pride of place among the devotional paintings lining the walls of this place of prayer was a gaudy twenty-foot mural showing Scud missiles pointing toward heaven, giving serious thrust to the phrase “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”
The scene of utter humiliation for the Führer of the Arab world couldn't have been be more complete on that Fourth of July 2003,
with enemy soldiers whooping it up, downing beers in his private swimming pool and running irreverently around his gardens.
Despite the talk of threats, there were no serious incidents on Independence Day. The same thing had happened on April 29, Saddam's sixty-sixth birthday. It was whispered on the streets that the day would be “celebrated” by fierce attacks on coalition troops and poison gas releases to “thank” the people of Baghdad for supporting the Americans. Saddam's birthday was usually one of forced gaiety and compulsory street adulation for most people, but on this occasion it was marked by an eerie tranquillity. Some later said the “calm” had been Saddam's gift to the people of Iraq.
The more prosaic view was that he was scared out of his wits.
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WITH ONLY DAYS TO GO to the official handover of the zoo to the Iraqi nation, we held our breath as we watched military engineers toiling flat out to get everything shipshape. I looked out over the refurbished buildings, and I couldn't recognise the place as the same hellhole I had walked into all those months ago. Everything was green, lawns were neatly trimmed, the paths were clean, and the lakes that meandered through enclosures were fresh and I could see fish swimming in the clear water. Enclosures were repaired and repainted. Little vending outlets were sprouting up and selling sweets and sodas. A restaurant had opened on the island in the lake where I had entertained mercenaries with barbecues in the anarchic early days, begging them for protection. I remembered how firefights had raged in the city and flares exploded overhead as we spoke.
I walked over to the tigers; both were robust with health, and I recalled how we had battled to keep them alive. The lions had a huge outside area and spent most of the day lazing in the sun or lying under the cool netting we had provided. Lumpy the camel's once-mangy coat was growing back, now thick as a carpet. The “suicide” ostriches had an expansive area to run in. The bears were glowing with well-being. The cheetahs, their dapples making them almost invisible in the shade, were sleeping contentedly.
I marveled at our growing animal population. When I first arrived there were only thirty or so survivorsâthose with sharp claws or wicked teeth to defend themselves. Now apart from the lions and tigers we had desert foxes, jackals, badgers, a camel, a wolf, a lynx, rhesus monkeys, wild pigs, boars, gazelles, a pelican, a swan, ducks, an Egyptian vulture, porcupines, hyenas, ostriches, eagles, cheetahs, the original zoo bears, Saedi and Saedia, and our Luna Park dogsâwhich I still found strange to see in a zoo. Also there, of course, were Uday's lions and the Last Man Standing and Wounded Ass bears.
As head of the new SPCAânow named Iraqi Society for Animal WelfareâFarah had already started getting dogs out of Iraq. She eventually got over a hundred street dogs out to homes in America. An absolutely astonishing achievement given the logistics and difficult circumstances she was working under. Farah had helped simply for the love of the animals and had made a vital contribution to the rescue.
All the cages were clean and most of them now had extended outside enclosures with shade cloth roofs to cut the harsh desert sun. The animals had settled nicely into their new surroundings; they were all well fed and healthy, and hygiene standards were high.
Morale among staff was also high. They were now on the city payroll and earning much-increased salaries thanks to new minimum wages laid down by the Americans. Dr. Adel had books on modern zookeeping and animal husbandry courtesy of Barbara Maas, as well as a new computer, and we were trying to get him an Internet connection. Plans were afoot with David Jones of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association to take Dr. Adel and his key staff to the London Zoo for an educational tour, and they were leaving shortly to visit a more modern zoo in Jordan to see how other countries built and ran zoos.
But even so, the refurbished Baghdad Zoo was still far from perfect. The improvements, while a great leap forward, were in essence only better relative to when I arrived, and a lot of work still needed to be done to lift it to acceptable international standards. I had found
out earlier that it was modeled on the Cairo Zoo, which was in turn based on the London Zoo of the nineteenth century. The evolution to spacious habitat-oriented wildlife enclosures that had taken place all over the First World had not reached Baghdad. This was to be a long-term project, something that would have to be addressed by the Baghdad Municipality, and I briefed them extensively on the subject. Whether anything would happen I didn't know, especially with the ongoing war, but we intended to keep in touch.
Brendan came up and snapped me out of my reverie: “It's strange to say, but the war was the best thing that could have happened to this zoo.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“Think about it,” he continued. “It's better now than it was before the war, Adel and his staff are going to be connected to other zoos, they are better paid, and for the first time ever they have access to modern animal husbandry and veterinary techniques and outside universities. Things can only get better from here.”
He was right.
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BAGHDAD'S COLORFUL CITY MARKET, situated across the Tigris River in the Shwaka district, was back in full swing. Farmers were once again bringing in meat, vegetables, and other necessities to feed a hungry city, and the exotic bazaars bustled with thousands of buyers haggling noisily with merchants over prices and quality.
For some time now we had been making regular buying trips, traveling to the market with fistfuls of dinars to obtain necessities for the zoo. From a security point of view the market was a gray area for Westerners, so Ali would always be there, acting as a bodyguard, guide, and chaperone, explaining away the presence of his Anglo-Saxon friends to anyone who became too interested. On more than one occasion he would warn us off the trip saying, “Today market bad, no good for you.” And we would always heed his advice, thankful for his inside knowledge.
IFAW's Mariette Hopley and Jackson Zee were on just such a
shopping excursion with Ali one morning when, standing in the entrance of a crowded meat stall, Mariette heard what sounded strangely like huge hailstones striking a tin roof. She turned around and was surprised to see holes suddenly appearing along the side of a refrigerated truck parked in front of them. She froze and then her military experience kicked in, and realizing what was happening, she grabbed Jackson and turned, and the two of them frantically dived into the meat freezer in front of them for shelter.
They lay there horrified as the shooting went on, interspersed with the screaming of terrified shoppers prostrating themselves on the walkways. Suddenly Mariette and Jackson's butcher walked to the entrance of the stall with an AK-47 in his hands and, firing on full automatic, emptied his magazine in the direction of the shooters. Other stall owners rushed out also carrying AKs, shooting randomly. Then silence. It was over.
“Ali Baba,” said the butcher, turning to Mariette and spitting on the floor.
Ali, who had taken refuge in the next stall, came rushing in as soon as the shooting stopped, greatly relieved to see everyone was okay. “Ali Baba steal money, better we go,” he said anxiously. As they left, Mariette grabbed a fistful of AK-47 shells as souvenirs.
Back at the zoo, Mariette and Jackson energetically recounted the story with Ali standing by nodding. “I must phone Sarah Scarth at the head office and tell her all about it,” said Mariette, her adrenalin still pumping. “She won't believe it.”
“Mariette,” I said, “do you still want to stay in Baghdad after this?”
“Are you joking? Of course I do,” she replied. “I am definitely not going anywhere.”
I told her to think carefully about what she was going to say in that call. Though she has military experience and views things like this differently, I knew it would seem much worse to a civilian on the other side of the world. I was sure that when Sarah heard what happened she would want to bring the IFAW team home.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Mariette phoned and, despite her tact, Sarah, already worried silly about all the bad news coming out of Baghdad, saw the shooting incident as the last straw. Despite my pleas on Mariette's behalf, the IFAW team was immediately pulled out for good. Mariette, who was crestfallen at the decision, made arrangements with Farah to handle the funds they were leaving behind for the zoo, and they solemnly packed up and left. Their commitment and courage had been exemplary, and I will always be grateful for their help.
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EVENTUALLY THE MOMENT ARRIVED and on July 19, 2003, the repaired and renovated Al Zawra Park and Baghdad Zoo were officially reopened by Ted Morse, accompanied by a U.S. Army general, Dr. al-Assam, and a retinue of senior American and Iraqi officials surrounded by soldiers and bodyguards.
Only a few dozen Baghdad residents were there, but we expected that. In a city that was still lawless, a stroll in the park was difficult to contemplate. But that was the significance of it all. If they wished, the people of Baghdad were now able to take a stroll in the park. All of those who came said they liked what they saw.
For the authorities, both the coalition and the Iraqis running the City Hall, it was the symbolism that counted, not the lack of crowds. This was the first tentative step toward normality. As Ted Morse said in his official speech, “The park's reopening is symbolic of the new freedom in Iraq. The zoo is a place for the community to go and reflect on the meaning of life.”
In battle-scarred Baghdad, that was no small request. That was what we at the zoo had been fighting for.
Dr. Adel spoke for the zoo, thanking everyone responsible for winning the battle for the animals' lives. The biggest miracle of all, he said, was that there was anything to hand over after the carnage of war.
But perhaps the most poignant observation came from Emad
Abbas and his young son Ali, who were among the first visitors. Abbas, a former Iraqi soldier, said his son had specifically wanted to see wild animals.
“We haven't been able to enter this park for many months, but now it looks good. Saddam deprived us of so much,” he told a Reuters News Agency reporter.