Boozing in Baghdad

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boozing in baghdad

Quest for Arms Reveals zest for Drinks

Iraq has had a more liberal outlook toward alcohol than other Arab countries. Despite a ban on public drinking, sales at a Baghdad liquor store are brisk.

By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Iraq,
- When Dr. Hussein al-Dureml went with hls friends to the Tiger Eye liquor store recently, they had a laugh wlth a fellow Iraqi customer called Wall about the united Nations weapons inspectors who went looking for nuclear bombs in three gin factories outside Baghdad.

"It's not an atomic bomb they're putting in there is it, Wali?" one shopper asked as a $21 bottle of Jobnnie Walker Black Label whlskey was slipped into a brown paperbag.

Wali, a 24-year-old electrical engineer, chuckled, as have many Iraqis sincee learning about the strange business of the nuclear detectives in the booze plant. In Iraq, the liquor trade thrives as in no other Arab country. But the way It is consumed reflects the shifts in Saddam Hussein's rule. Since he proclaimed a "faith" campaign in 1996, abandoning a secular model for one more influenced by Islam, alcohol, has lived in a twlllght zone. Drinking in public Is banned, and the English-style pubs that used to line At Nidal Street in the center of Baghdad, a legacy of Britain's colonial role here up to 1932, have closed. Now, Iraqis drink at home, or in restaurants and nightclubs furtive enough to serve alcohol in frosted glasses.

For the folks at Tiger Eye, recent days have been a bonanza. It is the Middle East's equivalent of Christmas - the Id al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fastlng month of Ramadan. Men like Dr. Duremi and his friends have been stocking up for their parties, which have been taking place, more than usually, in the quirky atmosphere of hope and fear, that characterizes lIfe m Mr. Hussein's Iraq.

After his defeat in the Persian GUlf war in 1991, Mr. Hussein was an Isolated figure, no longer credible as a pretender to the leadership of the Arab world. His 1996 "iman"campaign - the word means faith in Arabic - was one response. He began showing up more regularly at mosques and suffusing his speeches with Koranic references, and in the late 1990's he ordered the construction of two new Baghdad mosques that are to be the biggest in the Islamic world, one to be named after himself.

The 1996 ban on drinking In public places was another result. Iraqis say Its most obvious effect, apart from the closure of bars and pubs, has been the proliferation of speakeasies and a sharo rise in drinking at home. The Tiger's Eye was founded after the 1996 ban and moved to its present location two years ago amid the boom in sales. Most customers, predictably said they supported Mr. Hussein's decision to curb public dringking. But It wasn't long before some of them, moving behind the liquor racks to find the privacy they needed to speak more candidly ,said the faith campaign had made deep inroads Into their ration of fun.

These days some ofBaghdad's most popular drinking places, Apart from the speakeasies, are those that sell a brew that Iraquis know as pacha. With a histry going back to Ottoman times. pacha comes from boiling goat's heads until the bones dissolve into a creamy broth.