The most disturbing news today has come from Al-Jazeera, they said that
nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and flying "presumably"
towards Iraq, as if they would be doing a spin around the block. Anyway
they have 6 hours to get here.
Last night was very quiet in Baghdad. Today in the morning I went out to
get bread and groceries. There were no Ba'ath party people stopping us from
leaving the area where we live, this apparently happens after the evening
prayers. But they are still everywhere. The streets are empty only bakeries
are open and some grocery shops charging 4 times the normal prices, while I
was buying bread a police car stopped in front of the bakery and asked the
baker if they had enough flour and asked when they opened; the baker told
me that they have been informed that they must open their shops and they
get flour delivered to them daily. Groceries, meat and dairy products are a
different story. One dairy product company seems to be still operating, not
state owned, and their cars were going around the city distributing butter,
cheese and yoghurt to any open markets. Meat is not safe to buy because you
wouldn't know from where and how it got to the shops. Anyway we bought
fresh tomatoes and zucchini for 1000 dinar a kilo which would normally be
250. and most amazingly the garbage car came around.
The Iraqi Satellite Channel is not broadcasting anymore. The second youth
TV channel (it shows Egyptian soaps in the morning and sports afterwards)
also stopped transmitting. This leaves two channels: Iraq TV and Shabab
(youth) TV. They are still full of patriotic songs and useless "news", they
love the French here. We also saw the latest Sahaf show on Al-Jazeera and
Iraq TV, and the most distressing minister of Interior affairs with his
guns. Freaks. Hurling abuse at the world is the only thing left for them to do.
On BBC we are watching scenes of Iraqis surrendering. My youngest cousin
was muttering "what shame" to himself, yes it is better for them to do that
but still seeing them carrying that white flag makes something deep inside
you cringe.
we sit infront of the TV with the mao of Iraq on our laps trying to figure
out what is going on in the south.
:: salam 3:13 PM [+] ::
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/