BAGHDAD, 12 March 2003 — Flags are being lowered, sensitive documents shredded and sandbags erected as most of the remaining foreign embassies in Baghdad prepare to evacuate the capital ahead of an expected US onslaught.
The imminent withdrawal of diplomats, who have been active at every twist and turn of the Iraqi standoff with the United States, has cast a pall over the city, giving the definite impression that the talking is almost over.
“We will leave before war erupts. When military troops enter, the diplomats leave,” one European diplomat said. “When they begin their job, ours end. There can’t be work for both.”
Nearly all embassies have been reduced to the ambassador and a skeleton staff. At one Western embassy, the ambassador answers his own phone, types his own letters and makes his own coffee.
The leading European ambassadors still in Baghdad — the French, the German and the Russian — have all stayed this long in the hope of a last-minute compromise to avert war.
All three countries oppose a US invasion and their envoys have decided to stay on until diplomatic channels are exhausted, delivering messages and persuading Iraq to meet UN demands. Most embassies are now empty except for security guards and local staff.
“We will leave within 24 hours before the attack. We will stay until the last moment not to surrender to the option of war. We continue to pass on messages every day,” one Western diplomat said.
The top envoys of Russia, Cuba and the Vatican will stay during an eventual war along with a handful of Arab envoys, diplomats say.
The departure of the French and the Germans will send a clear signal. The point of no return will likely be the withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors who came on a mandate to avert war by finding and destroying Iraq’s prohibited weapons.
Diplomats and UN sources say there are signs the 250-member inspection team may have started cutting back.
Two planes are on standby ready to evacuate the team when the order comes from UN headquarters in New York. United Nations and other relief organizations have already sent their international staff home, leaving mostly local staff to handle the operation.
The United States and Britain have massed a powerful military force of around 250,000 troops around Iraq. Washington has spoken of removing President Saddam Hussein from power.
But France and Russia have threatened to veto a draft resolution at the UN Security Council giving Saddam until March 17 to disarm or face attack. The United States and Britain are lobbying to ensure nine of the council’s 15 members support their resolution in a likely vote this week, but the two allies reserve the right to launch a war without any further UN resolution.
“The United States has decided to change the Iraqi regime and will not renounce without achieving its objective,” one diplomat said.
“The American military is ready, the US declarations are going on in the same direction — that the moment for action has come. The general sentiment is that war is near. This is why diplomats are leaving,” the diplomat added.
Diplomats are no longer discussing prospects for war. Talk is now about the date. The US strategy, they say, is to move swiftly and start massive air bombardment of all government symbols — ministry buildings, communication centers, palaces, houses of top officials, intelligence and Baath Party headquarters.
US forces, they add, would avoid attacking the military in a message designed to encourage them to rise up and defect, a prospect that could make Saddam’s resistance weaker.
