The Al-Rasheed

If you were alive in 1991, you’ve heard of the Al-Rasheed. Baghdad’s poshest hotel is in central Baghdad and falls inside the Green Zone. It’s the hotel that Peter Arnett reported from during Desert Storm. When I arrived in Baghdad, it was empty. The pool was empty and in need of repair. There were bullet holes on the outside and the parking lot was filled with the detritus of war: helmets, uniforms, vehicle wrecks, etc. We just ignored the place and concentrated on the Convention Center across the street. After about two weeks, a rumor spread that KBR, an American Contractor, had opened a dining facility inside! We walked across the street and sure enough it was true. No air conditioning, still fairly grungy, but in one the restaurants they had set up a chow line. The buffet had hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries, and salad fixings. You were authorized no more than two sandwiches. They had a soda machine. Coke and Diet Coke. We loved it! After two weeks in country of nothing but MRE’s (Army pre-packaged rations, "meals ready-to-eat"), it was manna. You would grab a table, drop your gear and weapons and leave a guy to watch everything. Load up on food and come back and let the stay-behind grab his.

Over time (a very short time), the hotel was whipped into shape. The management – all being Baathist Party members and Saddam toadies – fled. The employees, being out of work, entrepreneurial, and knowing how to run the place, came back. The hotel had two restaurants on the ground floor. The most elegant one opened first. The wait staff were immaculately turned out. The food and service were excellent. Iraq has the best dates the world by far. Dates grown in America are tasteless compared to Iraqi dates. When dates were in season, you would go this restaurant and they would have 18 little pyramids of dates laid out on a marble countertop as you walked in with signs in Arabic as to what type of dates they were. Before you were ushered to your table, you would go through a date-tasting session and select the types you would like sent to your table after you sat down. The menu wasn’t very extensive but there were still plenty of choices. They served alcohol. They also had a few American dishes but we stuck to Arab fare as we didn’t want to eat the Iraqi concept of what they thought a “steak” would be. During Ramadan, Muslims would break their fast with yogurt and dates. This would happen at the Al-Rasheed too. At sundown, they would bring out dates and yogurt – for Muslims only. No political correctness here. In fact, Iraqis are the most politically incorrect people I’ve ever met. If you were single and wanted to meet Iraqi women, you would just tell one of your female interpreters what you were looking for: Christian, light brown hair, eye color, skin color and tone, height, weight, shape, size of nose, etc. and they would ask around and in time would be able to recommend someone for you to meet. No offense was ever taken and in fact the less detail you provided the more suspicious they became. If you wanted to meet a Muslim girl, you had to be prepared to convert.

Back to the Rasheed. By mid-summer 2003, they had repaired and filled its pool, a sports bar in the basement with billiards, a sports bar on the main floor, two restaurants, and numerous small shops. The top floor had a disco. Room amenities never caught up with the rest of the building. There was no room service, plumbing often didn’t work, and air conditioning often didn’t work. Plus, due to its height, prestige, and location in the Green Zone, it was a prime target for every half-ass rocketeer and mortar maggot that wanted to make a statement. The most famous attack was when Paul Wolfowitz was staying there for a visit. I was across the street at the Convention Center. The rockets missed him, but a few people were killed and several wounded. The rooms were vacated, but the activities on the ground floor remained. This was because the trajectory of the rockets and mortars would not allow them to hit targets on the ground floor. In the main ballroom KBR had set up what was a very elaborate dining facility. Gone were the days of rationed hamburgers. In fact, the food was so good and plentiful that we restricted ourselves to two meals a day because we were all gaining weight. Our female interpreters went from the food rationing regime of Saddam that they had lived under all their lives to this horn of plenty. They were getting fat! Over the course of a year, I saw many a young lady put on 20-30 pounds because they had dining privileges at the Al Rasheed. They put on both a Thanksgiving and Christmas feast that would rival any Sunday brunch in the states. In fact, in mid-December we came to work one day and the interpreters had put up an 8 foot fake Christmas tree, complete with presents at the base. This caught us totally by surprise, that they would even know about Christmas, let alone have a tree! There were about 800,000 Christians in Iraq when we arrived, but that’s out of a population of over 25 million. When we asked them about this (and we did have a handful of Christian interpreters), they told us that they knew all about Christmas and that in Islam Jesus Christ is revered as a prophet. So why not celebrate his birthday? Seemed like a good idea to them.

The Al-Rasheed regained its former glory, minus the rooms. At least while I was there. By the time I left, the lobby was filled with vendors selling fake Saddam era stuff to our replacements who had a lot of money and were too dumb to figure out that they were being sold fakes. We didn’t say anything and just laughed and nodded knowingly to the Iraqis as we walked by on our way to Alaskan King Crab legs and steak.