288 EPILOGUEOne cannot simply apply for and receive an exit visa at Baghdad Inter-
national Airport. No, that would make too much sense. In order to obtain
an exit visa, I first had to offload my Hallab 1881 baklava–laden luggage
from my Turkish Airlines flight and return to Baghdad and find a hospital
and get a blood test (I am not making this up). I never did find out the
rationale for the blood test. After the blood test—the results were irrelevant
to the process—I would normally have to spend several days waiting for a
bureaucrat to do his job and issue the aforementioned exit visa and blood
test stamp in my passport, before returning to the airport to try again.
Imagine going on a week-long trip to any country on earth with a valid
visa, for business or pleasure, and then being told for the first time at the
airport minutes before departure that you must get a blood test and an
exit visa if you wish to leave the country. (In retrospect, I’m pretty sure this
was belated payback for my handling of Yuri Jerkov’s visa case in Belgrade
many years ago.)
No Iraqi bureaucrat would even think of actually doing his job without
demanding and receiving sufficient baksheesh (bribe payment) in advance.
If I wanted to depart Baghdad only one day late (as opposed to several days
late), I would have to pay nearly one thousand dollars in cash for the privi-
lege. (I did not say this out loud, but at that point I was thinking it would
have been a bargain at twice the price.) Not every foreign businessperson
is as patient as I am, and this type of brazen corruption that permeates
literally every aspect of Iraqi society will undoubtedly impede Iraq’s future
growth and participation in the global economy. I wonder if this is what
the Eagles had in mind when they penned their haunting epic “Long Road
out of Eden” song about the war in Iraq and the folly of empire building.
This book has covered its fair share of difficult ground, but I’m going to
conclude on a positive note. You may recall the situation that I described
in the preface, in which the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia arrested our key
man in Basra in an effort to extort large sums of money out of Babylon
Inc. in exchange for a “license” to operate. They threatened to shut down
our entire business in southern Iraq, which now accounts for a very large
percentage of our company’s Iraqi business. We could not and would not