I Am A Thief Of Baghdad, by Paul William Roberts.

First published in the Globe and Mail, April 19, 2003

BAGHDAD -- The French windows of the Oasis Club on the grounds of the British embassy look over a particularly scenic stretch of the Tigris River, framed by some of Baghdad's finer modern buildings. Hibiscus are in bloom, and behind the oleander bushes lies a soccer pitch, tennis courts and a swimming pool with shaded swinging seats.

As the late-afternoon sun breathes fire onto baked dust and desiccated leaves, a cold beer from the club's bar is about the only thing on my mind. All that stands between me and that beer is the fact that the Oasis Club isn't open. Indeed, it hasn't been open for 13 years, and like the rest of the embassy, its doors are bolted, its windows smashed, the rooms within either wrecked or concealed by steel shutters.

The other obstacle to relaxing in a deck chair and watching the river flow is the very large bearded man who has his pistol pressed to my cheek just below my eye. For the past minute or so, he has been screaming: "Look what you have done to my city!"

In fact, I had been videotaping part of the picturesque skyline that had just started belching thick clouds of black smoke. A huge building, perhaps 15 storeys high, was on fire -- not an usual sight in Baghdad these days -- and this was at the root of the very large man's anger.

"Look, look!" he had yelled before pulling the gun from his robe. "Ali Babas everywhere!"

Ali Baba, of course, had 40 thieves, which was a lot. But to make as much impact as a felon in Baghdad today, he would need 40,000. Everyone I know here is a thief. I am a thief.

Thieves bother the very large man more than the recent bombings and the still more recent invasion. "The Ali Babas" are mainly poor Shia Muslims from the Saddam City district whose thievery is connected with their outcast status and abject poverty. When our paths cross, as they did earlier in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, professional courtesies are often extended. For example, they kindly moved the leather sofa obstructing my access to top-secret files -- indeed, they moved it right out of the building.

But today has not been as lucrative for me as it has been for those particular Ali Babas. So far, I've managed to steal only the Iraqi Foreign Ministry's chequebook, maps, spy manuals and several thick files on artifacts from the Baghdad museum that were mysteriously sold at a Paris auction house last year.

The British embassy looked more promising but, frankly, it was a letdown. My partner in crime is a journalist with a leading British newspaper, and he, too, was hoping for more. But all the loot we have from the embassy is a couple of huge Union Jacks, a sheaf of headed stationery, some ceiling wax and a bag of rubber bands.

Yesterday, however, was much better. Today began in the smouldering ruins of the Foreign Ministry, where a Tomahawk missile had left everything charred and in considerable disarray (parts of the floor were still so hot that my shoes began to melt). Yesterday got off to a much better start.

After a quick jaunt through the mausoleum of Baath party founder Michel Aflaq, where I stole his personal ink blotter and a signed first edition of the Baath manifesto, we raided Saddam Hussein's private office, just opposite the mausoleum, overlooking an especially lovely bend in the Tigris.

This netted a calendar with only one appointment pencilled in (Oct. 7) for the rest of the year, although things looked quite hectic up to mid-March. I was going to take a nice satin Baath party flag, but there was a rotting body beneath it, and Phillip Sherwell of the London Sunday Telegraph, a highly conservative newspaper, said I should probably leave it.

My next target was the little palace belonging to Saddam's infamous son, Uday. Even to a seasoned criminal like me, this turned out to be a hit beyond the dreams of avarice.

We began in the forward structure known locally as Uday's "shag pad." Professional modesty prevents me from listing my entire haul, but if I say that before entering the main palace, I had discarded a stuffed wallaby, 35 video cassettes, a gold-plated toilet seat, a set of crystal wine glasses engraved with the Iraqi crest and a real hand grenade the size of a football, you'll get the picture.

One hazard of looting as a profession, I find, is that you are generally obliged to carry your own loot as you proceed from place to place. In an Aladdin's cave like Uday's home, this poses grave problems. The serious looter is forced to make many hard decisions. For example, do you abandon the stuffed ibex head in favour of the gold toilet brush and stand? Knottier still, do you jettison the monogrammed grenade launcher for the antique gold-handled sword engraved with "victory to God" in Sanskrit?

Tough decisions, but the professional looter has to make them because, as we like to say, there is only so much you can carry.

Uday's palace was probably my toughest job yet. Every room was an embarrassment of riches, but the most embarrassing room of all was what appeared to be the heir apparent's party wardrobe. It dispelled any doubts that Saddam's son was a party animal. There were racks and racks of clothes that were not just colourful or fanciful, some actually defied description.

The only reason to believe that some garments belonged to Uday and not, say, a travelling pantomime troupe was the stark fact that Uday and I are clearly the same size. Okay, he must be two feet taller, but his torso and mine share the same powerful build (probably because of all the working out we do). I wear the biggest shirts there are, so does he. I don't wear skirts, but his fit me.

He was a billionaire, so all this stuff must have been custom-designed and handmade in Paris. In fact, one pair of pants was so finely customized that two designers had been obliged to collaborate. It bears both of their exclusive labels: Thierry Mugler and someone named Yves "Sanit" Laurent. Usually you find this kind of anomaly on a cheap knockoff from Hong Kong, surely not the case here.

Hassan-i-Sabbah, 11th-century Persian founder of the Order of Assassins, said that "nothing is true; everything is permitted," which could be the motto of Baghdad today.

For example, you may ask just who is protecting Uday's pad from looters like me. The answer: the U.S. Army, and it takes a cunning disguise to foil professional soldiers. You can't just claim to be a journalist; you actually have to be a journalist. That allows you to shout to a couple of them: "Hey, give me a hand with this picnic cooler full of loot, will you?" And they will carry your trophies out of the crime scene for you.

It may seem too good to be true, but it's not. This is a nightmare world where right is wrong and wrong is right. We journalists have seen too much here. Amid our glibness and hysterical laughter at the madness around us, you can almost hear Kurtz in Heart of Darkness crying out: "The horror."

Killing, desperation, insanity, appalling carnage, the stench of death, total anarchy, a dozen political parties screaming for a part to play in the façade of democracy, thirsty people, hungry people, people driven to the edge -- all this is normal here.

One minute, I talk to a man who has lost his house, his wife, his children, his parents; the next, I talk to a Marine captain who has lost his wallet and says: "I'm glad we taught these fuckers a lesson."

This morning a mob outside the Palestine Hotel carried a banner that read: "Bloody libration [sic] movie is begin -- bad directors."

The English is mangled, but I know what it means.

I also know that, when the very large man put his gun to my cheek, I was ready to feel its bullet rip through my brain -- because that's the least I could suffer to pay for our crimes here, which have only just begun.

Toronto writer Paul William Roberts, whose books include The Demonic Comedy: Some Detours in the Baghdad of Saddam Hussein, is in Iraq to cover the war for Harper's Magazine. Rocking The Cradle, his article on the country's historical significance, appeared in Focus on March 29.