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Sept. 18: We Have Gas, But No Pumps

By James Rupert | Staff Correspondent

3:53 PM EDT, September 18, 2003

When the 10-man crew of the Saadoun Street gas station arrived at work this morning, they found the electricity off, and the station's generator out of commission. Half went home, and the other five decided to hang around and hope for some way to make a little money.

The state oil ministry owns most of Iraq's gas stations. The stations' managers are fulltime staff members who are now getting solid $120 paychecks backed by the U.S. occupation authorities. But the guys who pump gas are, "temporary" workers who get 15 (24-hour) shifts a month for the equivalent of 50 cents each. They can score $2-3 per workday in tips if the electricity stays on the whole time, and they sell gas to black markets for a cut of the profits (maybe another $2).

The power came on at 8 a.m. For three hours, the crew hustled drivers to the one pump (of four) that is in working order - and they made maybe 50 cents each in tips before the electricity moved on to some other part of Baghdad.

After many years here, Marwan Mahmoud Mohammed is the crew chief - and still a "temporary" worker. With the power out at midday, he sits soberly dragging on a cigarette and re-reading an order from the oil ministry. Stations are to stop pumping gas into containers, a rule meant to halt the supply to the black market guys.

One of Marwan's main black market clients is Ali, a guy in his 30s whose weightlifter's muscular bulk is starting to sag into fat. Ali used to be in Saddam Hussein's army, but he deserted, then got caught and did a year in prison. He lives near the gas station and is like one of its crew; since the war, he has helped guard it at night to keep looters out. Now he is slumped glumly on the broken sofa in the office, wearing a dirty T-shirt (like half the clothes in Iraq, a castoff from America) that advertises "Ibelieve.com - your link to the Christian life."

Marwan is sympathetic. "Now I can't sell to Ali anymore," he says. "They [the oil ministry] would fire me in a second if they caught me." Ali is a nice guy and a friend, Marwan says - not nuts like some of these other black market guys. Some, when I refuse them, are going to think I'm trying to cut them off. They won't believe there's an order, and they'll threaten to kill me."

Ali lights a cigarette, too. He doesn't know what he'll do for money now - for himself or his two kids. So his mind drifts to the other thought that has occupied him in the five months since the Americans came. Ali's brother was imprisoned and killed under Saddam, Ali says, denounced by a Baath Party member who still lives not far away. "I've been thinking of killing him," Ali says.

Now, if nothing else, he'll have the time.