Baghdad quietly braces for war

Baghdad quietly braces for war

Normal routines are changing

The facade of normality adopted by ordinary Baghdad residents is beginning to crumble as a US-led invasion looms, correspondents say.

Enormous queues have formed at petrol stations as thoughts turn to escaping the city, which is likely to be the stage for some of the fiercest fighting.

Schools and shops remain open, and people are reported to be mobbing pharmacies for medicines.

But the sense of normality that Iraqis have maintained over the past few months is starting to evaporate, our correspondents report.

Tanks and lorries carrying artillery and cannons have been filmed at a military base just north of Baghdad turning onto the road toward the capital.

Apart from that evidence of preparation, the military build-up inside the city has seemed so far only half-hearted.

Soldiers have laid sandbags outside government buildings and road junctions, but no military hardware has been visible on the streets.

'Hornet's nest'

Our correspondents inside Baghdad say they have seen few preparations for war - a perception challenged by a US air force chief in an interview with the New York Times.

Tanks and artillery headed toward Baghdad - some of the first signs of the city's defence

Major-General Dan Leaf, the air force chief at the US land command centre in Kuwait, said Saddam Hussein "has brought back almost all his significant resources into a heavy defence of Baghdad".

Compared to the 1991 Gulf war, he said, Baghdad was "stronger because they have brought everything in".

"It is a hornet's nest right now. There is nothing subtle about it."

Officials also said trenches around the city had been filled with oil to be set alight once the attack begins, to obscure the battlefield and make targets more difficult to spot.

Rising prices

With the last Gulf war still vivid in many memories, ordinary citizens are readying themselves as best they can.

The price of bottled water has doubled, reports the French AFP news agency.

But many people are not bothering to buy perishable items, such as meat, which would rot if power cuts render refrigerators useless.

State food rations could halt in the event of invasion

"We have bought pasta, rice and small tins of food so that you don't waste any," the AFP agency quoted Nabil, a retired journalist, as saying.

Government ministries meanwhile have moved out computers, fax machines and other valuable equipment.

Embassies have reduced or evacuated staff - or are about to - and the UN has cut back staff from 1,000 to 200, notably affecting the humanitarian programmes on which Iraqis depend.

The state system of food rationing is particularly vulnerable to attack, giving an added urgency to Iraqis stockpiling provisions.