Buyer Prepare: Once-Banned Items Now Within Reach
Iraqis Open Impromptu Markets For Satellite Dishes, Other Goods

Back to the War on Saddam Hussein Page

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 9, 2003; Page A18

Ahmed Hussein rents out his satellite telephone in Baghdad, where the going rate is $1 a minute. Ordinary Iraqis were not allowed to have cell phones when Saddam Hussein was in power, and people assumed regular phone lines were tapped. (William Booth -- The Washington Post)

BAGHDAD -- Tayseer Samaray recalled with a wide grin the day five years ago that security forces knocked on the door and demanded to see his roof.

"I knew, of course, what they were looking for," said the former shoe salesman, who had erected a banned satellite television dish atop his house. "Forbidden! Every little thing, every small comfort, it was against the law, unless you were one of the big shots."

Being caught with a dish was punishable by a $300 fine, confiscation of the offending technology and the possibility of six months in prison. Samaray said his business partner was caught three times and served two months: "He loved his European channels."

Cellular telephones were also forbidden, as were newspapers printed outside the country. Ditto for CDs, videotapes, books, magazines and Internet sites deemed offensive by the government of Saddam Hussein.

Such prohibitions were what Iraqis called "the forbidden fruits."

The regulations could appear to be a footnote to the Baath Party's three-decade rule. But to the window-shoppers in towns across the country, the overnight appearance of once-outlawed goods like satellite dishes represents tangible proof that Iraq is emerging from its dark age. They may still be awaiting reliable drinking water and electricity, but they are starting to get their MTV.

Ali Hassan, an unemployed construction worker, watched a pair of dueling TV sets in a satellite bazaar, one blaring a music video by a band called Atomic Kitty, the other showing an Arabic-language news broadcast from London. "Of course," he said, " I have no money to buy one."

"Such things were only shown in hidden places before," Hassan said. But even though he may never own one, Hassan pointed out that the satellite stations are already appearing on TV sets in coffee houses all over town.

"We will become part of the world," Hassan said. "We will look and we will see all that we have missed."

High-ranking Baath officials had many perks, including satellite TV, and so, too, did a few other people who were willing to buy the systems on the black market and risk fines or imprisonment. But now, for $250 or $500, a man like Samaray can hook you up. Forget shoes. He is now a wheeler-dealer in the booming new market for satellite TV.

"I'm going to make a fortune," he said. In the last 10 days, Samaray has sold 600 units. The potential market? "Millions, if God wills it. Every house in Baghdad should have one."

While many stores remain shuttered throughout Iraq, every town now sports a bustling bazaar selling dishes, large and small, smuggled into the country from Iran, Syria, Turkey and Kuwait or brought down from the northern Kurdish provinces. They are the most ubiquitous consumer item now for sale.

"It is like we Iraqis have been starving and this is a new food to eat, these TV stations and radio programs. That also goes for speaking freely on a cellular telephone. Can you imagine it?" said Saad Bazaaz, publisher of Al Zaman, an independent daily newspaper that recently began publishing in Iraq. Bazaaz plans to start a 24-hour satellite news station next; he has $10 million in start-up money and hopes to be on the air in three months. "I tell you, after the famine, the Iraqi people will eat these programs up."

The Hussein government did not ban Internet cafes. But Majid Khadduri, the manager of one such cafe, said his place "was crawling with spies and Baathists." Khadduri joked that his Baghdad site should have been called "The Access Denied." If he did not block forbidden Web sites, such as the BBC and CNN, "they would shut me down," Khadduri said.

Now he is awaiting the restoration of telephone service, disrupted by U.S. bombing. When it comes back, he said, "everyone will want to see what they have been missing. You know Iraqis. They'll sit here all day, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes, surfing the Internet, and I'll charge them by the hour."

Under the previous government, ordinary citizens were not allowed to have cellular telephones, although a small network existed for high-ranking officials to use in Baghdad. Iraqis could make long distance telephone calls from homes and businesses, but everyone assumed their lines were tapped or that the numbers they dialed were recorded, especially international calls.

With the fall of Hussein, the business class is clamoring to erect a cellular phone network. In the meantime, an impromptu curbside service has been established, whereby hawkers offer passing drivers use of their Thuraya satellite phones to make international calls. The going rate is about $1 a minute.

"But if they are rich, we charge more. If they are poor, I give them a couple of extra free minutes," said Ahmed Hussein, who was renting out his bosses' phone at an intersection in Baghdad.

"Competition is fierce," Hussein said. "Everybody calling, calling, calling."

He had to cut an interview short to hand his phone into an idling taxi, whose passenger spent six minutes catching up with relatives in the Netherlands.

Of all the forbidden fruits, one that seemed the oddest was the prohibition against curtains and tinted windows in automobiles. This, too, might seem a small matter, except that in Iraq temperatures in the summer can reach broiling highs of 120 degrees.

In a downtrodden corner of Baghdad, where used car parts are bought and sold, Usama Hakeem runs an automobile upholstery shop. He said he made curtains for the car windows of the BMW and Mercedes belonging to Hussein's elder son, Uday.

"Only they could have such curtains, and you know why?" asked Hakeem, who taught himself English and likes to quote Shakespeare and Freud. "This curtain, this is a symbol. They would say the curtain is forbidden for security reasons. Maybe someone will attack them with hidden guns behind these curtains. But that is not why they were against the law. They outlawed the curtains because they were saying to the Iraqi people: 'We will drive in the cool air of our big fancy cars, while you Iraqi people, you are condemned to fry in the sun inside our little cars.' "

The forbidden fruits were "about the same old thing," Hakeem said. "Power."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company