Bunny's Baghdad adventure and reporters on the take
Bunny Champers
Well, you won't believe this — honest. I spent all of the Iraqi war in a Baghdad clink. See, I said you wouldn't believe it. It was the kind of place that would make any Salvation Army detox centre look like the London Ritz. I'd have written a lot sooner about my experiences but I've only just dried out — I mean recovered.
Anyhow, I know you're wondering how I ended up in Saddam City. To tell the truth, it's all Hugh Morgan's fault. At least that's how I feel right now. Because of Hugh the ol' Western Mining Corporation gravy train got derailed and yours truly ended up broke and sprawled across the tracks. It was so bad I couldn't even afford a bottle of cheap burgundy, not that I would touch any of that Frog stuff now. Only a good patriotic red from places like Mildura will do for Bunny now and in the future. Damn those frog-eating backstabbing roosters.
My dad always said you couldn't trust Frenchies, which brings me back to Hugh. Because Hugh got thrown out of the company (oops, I mean retired from service) I had to go to the old man for a loan. Well blow me down, if he didn't demand that I go and get a job.
"Why should I get a job", I said, "when Ray and Hugh didn't". That set him off I can tell you. (Unfortunately, I can't tell you what he said about Ray and Hugh, even though it was true). I spent more than 20 years milking — I mean helping — Western Mining shareholders and now he tells me I've got to go to work. What kind of work would I be fit for now?
(I know you're wondering what all this has got to do with Saddam, but I'm getting to that).
Dad then tells me that he's fixed me up with an old mate of his called Brookes who owns an internet publishing company. No way, I said. In any case, I don't know a damn thing about fishing. But the old man put me wise to what the net really is. Was I amazed, paperless publishing! When I wrote for that Irish guttersnipe Gerry Jackson I actually thought his magazine was printed. (I can't wait to tell Ray about this splendid new invention).
Alright, alright, I'll cut to the chase. I got fixed up as a roaming correspondent with a foreign assignment. Great, I thought, a few weeks in the Med would do me just nicely. The next thing I know I'm standing in the middle of Baghdad — or was it Saddam? — airport with written instructions to report on the internal situation.
A waiting taxi took me to my hotel. They didn't have a decent drop of red in the whole, nor white nor whiskey. Not a drop. The place was dryer than a dingo's bones. The next morning I staggered out into the street, pencil and notebook at the ready. Funny thing though, I was the only correspondent (I rather like being called a correspondent) with paper and pencil; the rest were carrying little brief cases and microphones. They didn't look like reporters to me.
Anyhow, being a correspondent is what got me in the clink. I thought that correspondents had to ask questions and report the facts — and that's what I tried to do, which brings me to Fergus MacFiddle of the Sydney Morning Herald.
He was standing in the foyer taking a large brown envelope from a rather shifty looking joker in a leather jacket. I knew there was something funny about him because there a huge bulge from the left-side of his chest. Even Ray and Hugh didn't have wallets that big. But then I thought he must be one of those oil-rich sheiks.
I sauntered up to Fergus, casual like, and jokingly whispered in his ear: "On the take, then, Fergie." Well, I never. He turned a ghastly white and almost fainted. I thought it must have been the heat. It had to be about 250 degrees of whatever they call it in ragland.
He gives a sort of queer look — not one of those queers, idiot — and started to stammer. Good, I thought, he's coming out of it. Maybe it was the way I said it because he suddenly perked up once I told him I was Bunny Champers on a special mission from Melbourne.
I'm not stupid, you know. I'd quickly worked out that this could be quite a doddle if I did what I did at grammar and just cribbed the stuff. That's where MacFiddle came in. (But how was I to know that he was an anti-American, Saddam-loving, Commie bastard and an ol' Scotch boy? Still, that comes later, but not much later.)
I told him I was new to the game would welcome any tips. "No problem," he said. I should have guessed something was up by the way he started to smirk. Well, he shoved me into a Saddam-provided limo and we then shot-off to the Saladin Hotel where the real journo's — well, that's what they said — were staying.
It was a very peculiar setup. They were just standing there while more of those shifty looking leather-clad fellas handed them instructions on how to report things. All very odd, I thought. Still, it would make cribbing easier, I reckoned. It also made me realise why so many reports from Baghdad all read the same way. But who was I to criticise anyone for cribbing.
Then I got to thinking. That was my near-fatal mistake. I always get into trouble when I start thinking. So what was I thinking? Well, I thought, what if I spiced up some of my reporting with some man-in-the-street interviews, just to differentiate myself I might stand out a bit.
So I followed old Fergie into the street. (I really should have taken notice of his thuggish looking mates). Well, Fergie starts 'interviewing' ordinary Iraqis and they start telling him what rotters Bush and Blair are — Howard, too — and what a marvellous chap Saddam was and all that.
That's when I noticed that Fergie and those other Iraqis were being prompted by Fergie's mates. "Of course", I said to myself, "translators, that's what they are. Well, two can play this game."
I slowly slid up against ol' Fergie and then I suddenly shoved myself in front of the camera — I used to play rugby, you know — and thrust my pencil and notebook under one chappie's chin and said: "Now, what about these torture chambers we've been hearing about?" He wet his pants, honest to God, he really did.
Next thing I know Fergie is screaming that I'm nothing but a trouble-making reactionary and should be locked up. And you know what? They did just that. The rotters carted me off in a smelly Arabian paddy wagon. As we raced through the streets of Baghdad (I thought I'd add a little colour to my reporting) I started wondering if I was going to spend the war standing with my back against a cell wall. "It's going to be just like boarding school," I thought.
Well it wasn't. It was a lot worse.
It was then I began to realise why they call the Sydney Morning Herald the Saddam Times.
Reliving this nightmare is giving me headaches. I think I'll have to finish later in the week because I have to back to the bar now. Sorry, meant bed.
Bunny's escape from Baghdad and his heroic return to Melbourne
Bunny Champers (Albert Bartholomew de Champion) is Brookes' correspondent at large
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