December 22nd - Abu Ghraib
24 Dec 2003
Fear, suspicion, weirdness and miscarriages in Abu Ghraib.
She’s had five miscarriages in the five years since 1998. Her two girls were born in 1991 and 1994 and since then she’s lost each one at three, four, five months of pregnancy. In the hospital they told her they had about 100 cases currently of women who were having repeated miscarriages. Another woman lost six babies in ten years, five girls and a boy, each one born prematurely at about 8 months. They were born alive and died within the first day. Another lost her baby about three weeks ago at 8 months pregnant. She says she got a fever, lost all her water and the baby died. She saw him, she says. He was perfect and complete.

B’s baby is fine. It’s got a normal heartbeat and is moving normally in a normal amount of fluid. The first day I met her she said she hadn’t been able to feel it moving lately so she was going for a scan the next day. The Abu Ghraib hospital didn’t have working equipment for the scan and she couldn’t afford the 9000 Dinar fee [3 quid, $4.50] for the private clinic so she hadn’t had one.

B’s husband used to be a school teacher in Nasariya. Until recently he was working as a security guard at a school in Baghdad. His colleague was shot for “working for the Americans” and threats were made against him too so now he’s off on leave. He doesn’t know whether to go back and risk being shot or quit and be without money for B, the two kids and the new baby.

When we went to pick her up some men came to the house. Was she going to be a spy for the Americans? What were we going to pay her? Surely she didn’t believe that this was about health? A woman came in and sat down. Who were we? What were we doing? Why were we taking B for a scan? Why were we asking about health? What was in it for us?

In any case the Abu Ghraib part of the survey is over after our local contact was threatened. Men went to his son’s house last night and said his father was working as a spy for the Americans and they were sure he knew what happened to people who worked for the Americans.

The conviction couldn’t be overturned by any amount of explaining that we weren’t Americans or spies – that one of us is Iraqi – nor by any amount of questioning what information we might obtain from discussing health with the women of the community that the American troops couldn’t find out with door to door raids.

Last week US troops came and searched three of the Dairy Buildings, the blocks of flats next to the huge milk factory beside Baghdad airport. We let them in, the women said, we didn’t argue, but they turned everything upside down and still didn’t find any weapons. Shouting distracted us and we all went to look off the landing. Three US humvees were passing and the boys were running after them shouting “Ali Baba” – ie, thieves – and throwing mud.

Too many of their people are locked in the compounds at the prison and the airport, too many dead, too many houses raided. People say it wasn’t something we should have expected, it wasn’t foolishness to go there and ask questions in the first place. Just before the war once I wrote about a swamp of fear and suspicion that seemed to suck you in and suffocate you. In Abu Ghraib, at least, neither the physical toxic swamp nor the metaphorical one has yet been drained.