Baghdad Ready to Take Up Arms
Demand for Weapons High as Threat of Invasion, Chaos Rises
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A19
BAGHDAD, March 17 -- With a crash, Nahad Shukur slammed down a plastic bag stuffed with rounds for an AK-47 assault rifle on the display case of his gun shop. There are 50 in here, he said, but more are available if you need them.
Shukur pointed to a row of eight bags behind the counter and ticked off the offerings: 100 rounds in this plastic bag and 200 in that one. In the rainbow-colored bag were 500 rounds and in the other one, 1,000. He paused, then, with a knowing glance, waved a visitor to a back room.
"These are the big ones," he said, grinning, as he pointed to a lumpy bag sprawled across the floor with 2,000 rounds. "When customers come, we're ready, whatever they want. The way things are, we don't even have time to count."
As the veneer of calm fades across Baghdad, Iraqis are emptying gun stores of their weapons, stocking up on ammunition whose price has gone up fourfold and repairing everything from World War I-vintage rifles to the latest in double-barreled Czech shotguns. At Shukur's store, many shelves were bare after what he said was a run of hundreds of customers since the weekend.
"Every day we get closer to war, we sell more," said Shukur, drinking sweet lemon tea as he showed his wares to a crowd of customers in the working-class neighborhood of Bayaa. "It's nonstop, all day. Families are buying guns like they are stockpiling food and water."
For weeks, Baghdad maintained an almost eerie tranquillity. Residents continue to boast of their ability to endure a U.S. attack. But the run on the gun stores that dot upscale neighborhoods such as Mansour and working-class enclaves such as Bayaa provides a hint of the anxiety that courses beneath the surface.
In public, and in the presence of government escorts, Iraqis make clear that the U.S. military is their target.
"Only for Americans are they buying the weapons," insisted Nadhir Qahtan, 35, the owner of a gun shop in Mansour who said business, especially for ammunition, has doubled in the past few days.
But privately, customers and gun store owners hint at the anarchy they believe is likely if government authority collapses. That anarchy, perhaps more than the government itself, may pose the most serious challenge to U.S. forces that attempt to enter Baghdad, where residents boast that every family has at least one assault rifle and one pistol. Many Iraqis expect bloodletting, score-settling and lawlessness in the weeks ahead.
"God willing, there won't be security, and God willing, there won't be anarchy," said Shukur's partner, Amal Jabbar, 43. "But there's anxiety, and there's a lot that's unknown. We have to defend our families."
From the Kurdish-controlled areas in the north to the port of Basra in the south, Iraq rivals Yemen as one of the best-armed countries in the Arab world. It seems like everyone -- from art gallery directors to Western-educated aid workers and bureaucrats -- boasts of having at least one rifle at home. Hunting has a long tradition in the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Gun stores can sell only hunting rifles and pistols. But AK-47s, the weapon of choice, are provided to millions of members of the ruling Baath Party and allied militias such as the one known as Saddam's Fedayeen. In the recent run on gun stores, ammunition has been in the most demand, particularly for AK-47s.
"We buy guns before we buy a refrigerator for our house, I swear to God," said Jassim Nassir, 33, a customer at a gun store in Waziriya, another Baghdad neighborhood. "Everyone in my family has a weapon, even the young, even the women. Iraqis love weapons!"
Nassir, who said he wanted to protect his wife and 18-month-old daughter, spent $260 for a .45-caliber Colt pistol, with a sleek silver barrel and imitation wood handle. Each bullet cost $1, and he bought two boxes of 25.
Many of the store's shelves were empty. A few Brazilian, German and Turkish hunting rifles were propped up against the wall. Much of the ammunition in glass cases was 9mm, the most popular. Alongside were a few remaining Belgian- and Iraqi-made pistols. Overhead hung one of Baghdad's most popular pictures: a portrait of President Saddam Hussein dressed in coat and tie and firing a rifle into the air.
Through the morning, customers entered asking for everything from ammunition to rifles to leather holsters, some emblazoned with the inscription, "A gift from the leader, President Saddam Hussein." One asked for a British-made revolver, but it was sold out.
The prices of shotguns ranged from $100 to $1,200, a fortune in a country where newly graduated doctors can make $5 a month. Pistols were going for $50 to $700. Each bag of 50 AK-47 rounds at Shukur's store cost about $6.
With the threat of war, customers said the cost was worth it. What else, they asked, would they spend money on? They said it was a given they would fire their arms, at the very least to protect themselves in communal violence.
"We're sleeping with our guns under our pillows," Shukur said. "We won't fall asleep without them there."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
