Babylon's Ark (20 page)

Read Babylon's Ark Online

Authors: Lawrence Anthony

BOOK: Babylon's Ark
3.72Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Two days later Sumner organized a convoy with a group of military engineers to attempt another rescue. This time the plan was
not to sedate the animal (you know, tough Iraqi bears from the mountains, etc.) but to coax her from her current cramped quarters into the zoo's transport cage—similar to what we had done with Luna Park's Last Man Standing.
As always, nothing went smoothly and they faced immediate problems, not least because of the inconvenient discovery that the bear cage's door opened outward, making it impossible to place our mobile cage flush against it. After some head scratching it was decided to saw the door off at the hinges and then move the transport cage—which had a drop door—into position. Once the two cages were square against each other, the sawed-off main door could then be yanked up and discarded.
They cut through the metal as rapidly as possible to avoid spooking the animal more than necessary.
But they needn't have bothered about stress. For the clinic workers again went ballistic with their metal rods, violently prodding the animal to get her to move into the other cage. This further vexed the already-distressed animal and she scurried wildly around her tiny confines, howling in anguish as she tried to snatch the rods from her tormentors.
The poor creature's frenzied scrambling resulted in ripping the savage wounds on her paws even deeper. She also started defecating all over the cage, due to both terror and rage. That this proud and beautiful animal had been degraded and reduced to such pitiful circumstances was absolutely criminal.
Thankfully, through the red haze of fear and fury the semi-starved creature finally noticed the food placed as bait in the new cage and scampered in. The drop door was slammed down, the padlock bolted home, and at last we had her.
The cage was then winched onto the back of the hemmit and driven back to the zoo without further incident.
With proper diet, care, antibiotics, and a flat surface to walk on, the bear's suppurating wounds and ripped paws healed rapidly. Zoo staff spray her daily with water to keep her cool, and like Last
Man Standing she has an outside section to her enclosure with a shade cloth on the roof.
All things in life are relative, but Wounded Ass considers her new quarters to be luxurious. She is thriving. The potentially gangrenous abscess on her butt is now covered with glossy thatch, but the name Wounded Ass still sticks.
The zoo team was ecstatic with the success. We now had two new bears—although the drama in getting them to the zoo perhaps should not be considered classic textbook rescue missions.
But given the extreme circumstances the rescue team had no choice except to wing it as best they could. There was no other option. This was no First World Disney situation. They could only use what they had at their disposal and, crucially, no one—either human or animal—got hurt.
That's the nub of it. The true story behind the two bear rescues was the gritty determination of everyone at the zoo to save them at all costs. In extremely hazardous armed-conflict situations, using makeshift equipment and homemade, rudimentary cages with barely functioning wheels, the rescue team managed to move starving, dangerous, wild animals from conditions of appalling squalor to as decent a home as possible.
Few can dispute that's what care for our fellow creatures is all about.
 
 
HOWEVER, IT WAS NOT ALL WORK and no play, and a couple of days after the Wounded Ass bear rescue, Jeremy arrived at the zoo in a black SUV with darkened windows and yelled, “Do you want to see the test match? We're playing Kiwis and a couple of my mates have jury-rigged up a satellite feed.”
Rugby is the national sport in South Africa and an international between the Springboks and our archrivals the New Zealand All Blacks is the highlight of the year.
“Excellent!” Brendan shouted back. “Where?”
There was one “minor” problem. The TV was in a hotel on the other side of the city, somewhere Jeremy and his crack team would go, but not civilians like me and Brendan.
I started asking questions. I knew these guys, and for them a shoot-out on the way was just another day at the office. On their last trip into the city they had ended up in a spontaneous gunfight and killed an insurgent on the street.
Seeing my concern, Brendan pulled me aside. “What the hell,” he said. “They have got enough weapons to stage a coup, and it's a test match for God's sake. Let's do it.” We were joined by two other SUVs and sped out from Al Zawra in a convoy through the checkpoints and into the Red Zone. As we drove, the windows went down, the weapons came out, and the men at the doors turned in their seats and took up positions so they could observe and return fire. Whenever the vehicle was slowed by traffic, the guns went out the windows and they screamed at pedestrians in Arabic to stay away from the car. If the traffic got too slow, we drove along the sidewalks, speeding like maniacs with the horn permanently on, swerving past pedestrians, donkeys, and pavement stalls.
“The insurgents target SUVs, so we do anything to avoid stopping,” said Jeremy. “But if we have to stop, we all get out and take positions, one at each corner of the vehicle, facing outward, rifles at the ready, until we are on the move again.”
We made it, shaken but still in one piece, and leaving a guard with the vehicles hidden around the back, we rushed into the room where the satellite feed had been rigged just as the game was about to start.
Unfortunately, South Africa lost, and we left repeating the crazy high-speed drive through the city back to the zoo. The ride gave us an insight into the daily lives of VIP protection in Baghdad in those wild days. It was not a job I would do for any money—but at least we did get to see the rugby.
T
HE CLATTER OF HOOVES hammering up Damascus Street on the east bank of the Tigris rattled like rapid rifle fire.
All guards at the checkpoint on the Al Jamhooriah Bridge jerked instantly alert. The 120mm cannons on the two Abramses swung into position.
Then they saw the horse, a magnificently muscled gray stallion, galloping at full tilt. The animal was obviously panicked out of his mind and stampeding blindly.
The soldiers watched in awe as he charged straight at them. Reinforced concrete barriers and coiled razor-wire fences protected them, but it was a still a daunting sight.
With a sickening thud of flesh the steed crashed into the concrete, then bounced off, tangling and shredding himself in the wire barbs. The horse was killed instantly.
What had spooked the animal so terribly? What had sparked such crazed terror for him to stampede headlong into a concrete wall?
The checkpoint guards extracted the ripped carcass from the wire, winched it up onto a troop carrier, and took it to the zoo. Every combat soldier in the city knew about my perpetual quest for protein to sustain our starving animals. This would be a treat for the lions.
It was. Indeed, it was probably the most expensive feast the cats would ever enjoy. The horse was one of Saddam's prized Arabian stallions, one of a herd worth millions of dollars that had mysteriously disappeared before the Americans took the city.
The lions and tigers didn't make distinctions, of course. Within thirty minutes the horse was just a scatter of splintered bones.
Despite his sad demise, the dead horse was the breakthrough I had been searching for. I now suspected that at least some of Saddam's magnificent Arabians had survived the aerial carpet bombing of the palaces and were still in Baghdad. And if I could help it, I would try to save them.
 
 
HUSSEIN'S BLUEBLOODS could trace their gene pool in a direct line back to the Crusades, and their fate in the aftermath of the invasion had intrigued me from the moment I set foot in Iraq. I had been told beforehand of this magnificent equestrian collection that the dictator kept corralled in the grounds of his Baghdad palace, and it was something I wanted to see for myself. Saddam's herd has a genealogy that is unique in the equestrian world. Indeed, it is not too much a flight of fancy to believe some of his horses' forebears were sired ten centuries earlier to steeds saddled by the legendary caliph Saladin himself.
For history enjoys such quirks of fate, which is what makes it so fascinating. Saladin, like Saddam, was born in Tikrit. But unlike Saddam, Saladin was a Kurd. And considering the genocide Saddam waged against the Kurds, if alive today Saladin—Islam's greatest warrior—would have been a blood enemy of the Hussein tribe.
As far as I was concerned, to be in Iraq and not visit something as unique as a collection of exquisite thoroughbreds of a bloodline
untainted since the days of Saladin was like going to Paris and neglecting to pay homage to the Mona Lisa. But the horses had seemingly vanished into thin air. I quizzed Adel and Husham, who shrugged and said they believed the herd disappeared at about the same time as Saddam and his family fled the city. Husham was convinced the horses had gone for good. Animals as valuable as that would have been instantly seized by black marketers.
I had to agree that was the most likely scenario. But the thought of an irreplaceable breed of horses apparently evaporating off the face of the earth kept buzzing about my head like a mosquito I couldn't swat. They had to be somewhere, and if there was a chance they were still alive and corralled somewhere in the city, I would find them.
Thus what started off as mild curiosity grew into an almost obsessive quest. It was my duty, I believed, to trace this national treasure—particularly as everyone else seemed so indifferent.
After the arrival of the dead horse, at the next staff meeting I told everyone a full search was now on for Saddam's horses. And any news of the herd—whether it be rumors, hearsay, gossip, or grapevine—was to be reported back directly to me.
The zoo staff was less than enthusiastic. They were, like Husham, convinced it would be a wild-goose chase. There was no way, they told me, that animals collectively worth millions of dollars would still be on the loose amid the urban anarchy. And even if they were alive, how on earth were we going to find them in a chaotic city like Baghdad?
I assured them that “no” was not an option, so they reluctantly started asking around. Brendan and I also requested soldiers at checkpoints to be on the lookout, as well as anyone we bumped into at the Al-Rashid Hotel or the palace. Checkpoints radioed other checkpoints and soon the word was out all over the city: the zoo people wanted Saddam's horses.
All I had to go on was what the Iraqis told me: that the horses had disappeared from the palaces during the early bombing raids and, if they were alive, they were possibly being hidden in heavily
disguised stables somewhere in the teeming city. I couldn't have asked for a sketchier scenario.
Staff members also regularly warned me that looking for the horses was not a road I should go down. If I did, I probably would butt heads with black-market thugs. And a bigger bunch of cutthroats was hard to imagine, as we had seen with Abu Sakah and the Wounded Ass bear. The characters involved in illicit animal trading were not squeamish about butchering anyone who crossed them, particularly when you considered what was at stake. We were not talking about the odd sick bear here. Saddam had the finest Arabian stock in the Middle East, indeed, arguably in the world. When Saddam wanted a particular horse, he got it.
According to local lore, his core breeding herd numbered about seventy and was kept in special paddocks at the equestrian Chival club near the Baghdad airport. Where they were now was anyone's guess.
Looking at the arcane crisscross of streets on a Baghdad map only made me more confused. Where does one even begin? There was no logical kickoff point, so I reverted to the only option open to me: word of mouth. Surely someone somewhere would have noticed a herd of prime horses being moved around the city? Surely the regal steeds must have stood out among the donkeys and goats?
Apparently not. After weeks of intensive questioning at every roadblock I encountered, all we had seen was one shaking head after another. This, of course, confirmed the zoo staff's belief that the horses were now either dead from falling bombs or so deeply enmeshed in the underworld's murky web that they were irretrievable.
However, the death of this splendid stallion, tragic as it was, gave me new hope. There must be others around. According to eyewitnesses, it appeared as though the incredibly valuable horse was being used to draw a cart like a donkey but had broken loose and, in an unhinged stampede for freedom, had bolted blindly up the road until he thudded into the concrete blocks at the checkpoint.
This meant our initial theory was probably correct; that the other animals were still somewhere in or around Baghdad. So we
resumed our quest with vigor, again pestering patrols to be on the lookout for horses being covertly moved and to get word to the zoo instantly if any were found while soldiers were searching transport trucks. These horses were stolen property, we stressed, and as the last direct descendants of the “Crusade” herds, they were worth a fortune.
Eventually our persistence paid off. One day out of nowhere a man called Dr. Abu Bakker appeared at the zoo and whispered to a staff member that he knew where the horses were. This news was relayed to Farah faster than one could kick a ball, but frustratingly, when she rushed over to meet him, he had disappeared and hadn't left an address.
We thought we were back to square one. But fortunately not, and one morning Adel arrived at the zoo to find the elusive man waiting for him.
Yes, said Abu Bakker, he knew exactly where the horses were hidden. He had been Saddam's chief equestrian vet and was intimately acquainted with the animals.
Adel summoned me and we moved into the zoo office, as Abu Bakker was reluctant to be seen discussing the matter in public. He told us that a few days before the Hussein family fled their palaces the horses had been taken to a secret complex of stables were they would be kept until Saddam's “return.” To my dismay, the stables were right in the middle of one of most dangerous places in Iraq at the time—Abu Ghraib.
Abu Ghraib is a district about twenty miles west of Baghdad on the edge of the city's shanty suburbs that sprawl uncontrolled into the desert, a seething, densely populated ghetto, home to thieves, black marketers, smugglers, and hash dealers. And now fedayeen and al-Qaeda-linked operatives, who lurked in the lawless, dark alleys, were filtering in as well.
The town is also synonymous with the Abu Ghraib jail—the most brutal in Arabia—where unspeakable torture was inflicted by Saddam's henchmen on the regime's opponents, and which ironically would later become a massive embarrassment for the American
military, resulting in court-martials and a deluge of anti-American outrage.
All in all, Abu Ghraib was a town one did not want to visit unless absolutely necessary. We would need serious military backup to pull this rescue mission off, and so I took Farah along to discuss the matter with Coalition Provisional Authority Director L. Paul Bremer 's popular chief of staff, Pat Kennedy.
To my relief Kennedy instantly grasped the significance of the issue and asked for the coordinates of the stables' location, which he could pass on to a general who would follow it up. Kennedy pledged a tank and troops to do the job.
Indeed, he said, this would not be the first time U.S. soldiers had rescued priceless horses during conflict. During the Second World War men from Gen. George Patton's Third Cavalry saved the Lipizzans, a herd of top-pedigreed high-stepping classical riding horses that had been seized by the Nazis. Patton was a horse lover, and when he heard the unique steeds were being held at a German depot in Czechoslovakia he vowed to rescue them. But as the Russians were advancing from the east, with the United States further back in the west and south, it seemed certain the Russians would get there first. So Patton cut a deal with the Germans to turn these horses over to the United States and prevent the Red Army from capturing them. It was said at the time that had Soviet soldiers—who were basically living off the land and close to starving—found the herd, the animals would have been butchered and eaten. Thanks to Patton's prompt action, the horses were shipped to America, where their unique genealogy has been retained.
Kennedy said as far as they were concerned, Saddam's Arabians would be as important as the Lipizzans to future generations of Arab equestrians.
Unlike Lipizzans, which are a “niche” pedigree, Arabian bloodlines are found in all today's top racing breeds. The Bedouins first tamed them around 1500 B.C. and there's no question these noble horses were absolutely intrinsic to the desert economy. Without a
good speedy horse, a Bedouin could not successfully plunder his neighbors and grow rich.
Consequently these tough desert tribes believed the steeds were a gift direct from Allah. Even Muhammad commanded “every man should love his horse.”
In those days the most prized Arab horses were bred deep in the desert, as only the hardiest survived. They were—and still are—rugged, brave, wild, fast, and beautiful. Not surprisingly the ancient Greeks fashioned the mythical Pegasus in the image of an Arabian stallion.
The effect of the Arabian on the global equestrian industry is inestimable. Virtually every quality light horse in Europe and America today has Arabian blood in its veins, and the belief among breeders is the higher the percentage of that blood, the better the horse. The conquistadors used Arabian offshoots to conquer South America, the forebears of the famed mustang.
A purebred Arabian has a distinctive “dished profile,” with prominent eyes, large nostrils, and a small muzzle. The Bedouins attached mystical significance to these features; the large forehead was said to hold the blessings of Allah, and the arched neck and aggressive stance were a sign of the horse's courage. But the true power lay in its muscle-ridged chest, short, powerful back, and strong, sloping shoulders. No European horse could touch it for speed and hardiness, and when the Crusaders first clashed with the Muslims in 1094 captured Arabian horses were prized booty. They were shipped back to Europe as breeding stock to “lighten” the ponderous workhorses used by the Europeans. Today, from Ascot to Churchill Downs you will not find a racehorse that is not a carefully mixed cocktail of bloodlines, with the dominant strain being Arabian.
The horse still is a powerful symbol in the Arab mythology. One of Osama bin Laden's favorite quotes is that people will always follow the man on a strong horse, which explains his penchant for being photographed on a muscular white stallion.
Saddam also liked to be considered an expert horseman. Hence his desire to own the finest collection of Arabians in the world.
 
 
ALTHOUGH ABU BAKKER'S INFORMATION provided a potentially vital breakthrough, further proof was needed. We also wanted some form of documentation to establish his credentials as Saddam's horse doctor, so the next night Farah drove Brendan in her battered little Passat to the vet's house in the Al Saydeiah suburb. He furtively let them in, hurriedly closing the door behind Brendan, fearful that some spy would snitch to the terror networks that a foreigner had come to his home.

Other books

Leaves of Hope by Catherine Palmer
Quota by Jock Serong
The Jewish Neighbor by Khalifa, A.M.
Owl and the City of Angels by Kristi Charish
Devil's Creek Massacre by Len Levinson
Tales of Madness by Luigi Pirandello
The Edge of Town by Dorothy Garlock
Wolf Hunt by Armand Cabasson, Isabel Reid (Translator)
You Better Knot Die by Betty Hechtman