Grief Fills ‘Vale of Peace’ as Iraqis Bury War Dead

NAJAF, Iraq — Despite the dazzle of spring sunshine glancing off the golden dome of the Mosque of Ali, the crumbling streets of ancient Najaf are filled with haunting reminders of death.

Funeral processions by the score lend the city a melancholy rhythm as entire villages arrive here to bury Iraqi soldiers who have died in the war with Iran. Black-garbed marchers hold up hand-colored photographs of smiling young men with fierce mustaches. Sidewalk peddlers hawk glasses of tea and pistachio nuts to the bereaved.

The more affluent mourners charter a bus for the funeral party. Others arrive in orange and white taxis, with the slender coffins, frequently wrapped in an Iraqi flag, tied to the roofs like vacation canoes.

The grave of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, is here, and thus Najaf is considered a holy city by followers of the Shia Muslim faith. It was here, residents note, that Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, found sanctuary when he was exiled by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

For centuries, millions have come to Najaf’s vast graveyard, a virtual city of unoccupied buildings known as the “Vale of Peace,” to bury their dead.

With Iraq locked in a war for survival with Iranian forces in the Faw Peninsula for the last six weeks, Najaf has witnessed an outpouring of grief unusual even by the standards of a city whose fate seems so inextricably linked with death. There are now traffic jams in the cemetery.

Iraqi officials have issued no casualty statistics since the war began in September, 1980. Western diplomats in Baghdad believe that up to 10,000 Iraqis may have been killed since February. Perhaps 30,000 Iranians have died in their human wave attacks.

The gloom of Najaf contrasts sharply with life in Baghdad, the capital, where the authorities have taken pains to keep the war from intruding too severely.

Indeed, if it were not for the evening television news, which shows endless film of Iranian casualties at the front, a visitor to the capital might never be aware that a war of major proportions has been waged for more than five years.

The shops seem well stocked by Iraqi standards, and the streets are filled with gleaming new Volkswagens made in Brazil. Entertainment, in nightclubs and bars, has thrived.

Hotel space in Baghdad was at a premium the other day because of a conference of poets and an international convention of insurance brokers, who, appropriately, specialize in war risks.

According to diplomats, funerals are rarely permitted in Baghdad. This is in keeping with an effort to keep up morale.

Refrigerated Bodies

One diplomat recounted the experience of a close friend who went to look for a dead relative. He was ushered into a refrigerated warehouse where, the friend said, he saw at least 2,000 bodies.

According to the diplomat, the dead are frequently brought from the southern city of Basra by overnight train and transferred to the mortuaries, with a few bodies released to families each week. In this manner, the grief is spread over an entire year instead of being concentrated in the aftermath of big battles.

Travelers to Basra are startled to see taxis hired by the army transporting the dead north. Often, a family’s first indication that something is amiss with a relative in the armed forces is the arrival of a taxi with a rough-hewn wooden coffin on the roof.

“There is no question that the Iraqis are tired of this war,” a Western diplomat in Baghdad said. “But it is no longer a case of winning. It is now a question of not losing.”

Overflowing With Wounded

According to diplomats, most hospitals are overflowing with war wounded. Only the most critical surgical care is available for the civilian population.

One of the ways Iraq has been able to maintain the appearance of normality despite the heavy burden of the war has been to import manpower to replace young men who have been drafted and sent off to the front.

It is estimated that between 1 million and 3 million foreign workers are in the country, which has a population of only 14 million. The great majority of the foreigners, perhaps a million of them, are laborers from Egypt.

With the price of oil falling, Iraq has been forced to tighten its belt economically. Among other recent measures, the government has lowered the amount of money Egyptians can send home from 57 dinars (about $182) to 25 dinars ($80).

Exodus of Egyptians

The immediate consequence of this has been an exodus of Egyptians. Airline offices in Baghdad are mobbed with Egyptians squatting in line for hours.

“People tend to focus on the war as the root of the problem,” a Western diplomat said. “But the decline of oil prices coupled with the decline of the dollar is having a more significant impact.”

According to Western estimates, Iraq’s income is expected to decline from $11 billion or $12 billion last year to about $9 billion or $10 billion this year, even though the country has increased oil production from 1.1 million barrels to 1.5 million barrels a day. To increase exports, a pipeline to Saudi Arabia was opened last fall.

In addition to cutting back worker remittances, projects are being abandoned or completed more slowly. Iraq is asking for longer repayment terms from its creditors, the largest of them being West Germany and Japan.

Minimizing Expenditures

In a recent interview with a group of visiting journalists, Iraqi Information Minister Latif Jasim noted that the government is “launching a campaign to minimize expenditures.” But he declined to say by how much.

“In the past the Iraqis have been able to support a guns-and-butter economy--both the consumer sector and the military sector--at the same time,” a Western economist said. “Now it’s going to be a guns economy. There will have to be a little butter, because the regime knows it has to meet basic needs.”

With foreign currency needs topping $15 billion--a deficit of $3 billion at least--it seems likely that Baghdad will need increasingly to pressure Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--Iraq’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf who are terrified at the prospect of a victory by non-Arab Iran--to help finance the war effort.

An Arab resident of the capital for the last three years said he had noticed a dramatic rise by Iraqis in the use of a popular aphorism to describe their current predicament.

“No luck,” the saying goes, “and no good mood.”