First Person: Where the lift man is a secret agent

Every day, I trample on the face of George Bush Senior and walk past the scorch marks left by an exploding cruise missile. A small army of secret policemen monitors my every move.

The presidential palaces and military installations all around me now find themselves in the crosshairs of the mightiest military machine in history. In consolation, I am frequently offered salvation by one of the few evangelical Christians in the Arab world.

This is the memorable experience offered by the Al Rashid, the biggest hotel in Baghdad. If the facade of this 14-storey tower block is grey and nondescript, the same is certainly not true of the goings-on behind it.

In the next few weeks, the Al Rashid could be pulverised into a smoking crater. Even if it survives, American and British military muscle may soon rid Iraq of Saddam Hussain and blast the country into mundane normality.

With Saddam gone and Iraq a boringly successful democracy, the Al Rashid will doubtless be taken over by the Sheraton franchise and transformed into yet another charmless, Identikit international hotel.

The hotel has placed a mural of the elder Bush on the floor of its lobby, forcing everyone to trample on the poor man's nose. The artist who created this masterpiece gave Bush an expression of mild astonishment and added the slogan 'Bush is Criminal' beneath his face.

At the gates, a multitude of banners shouts defiance from grimy lampposts. 'Down with America' is there of course, but my favourite reads: "With the leader Saddam Hussein we will keep going the Iraq march for the faithful of the martyrs of the immortal." In a few months' time, the banner will probably say: "The Sheraton Baghdad is a member of the Top Hotels of the World Club".

On a typical day, I step firmly on Bush's jaw and walk across the lobby, with its obligatory portrait of Saddam staring from the wall. The concierge greets me warmly. Then he notes the time I entered the hotel. Earlier, he noted the time I left. The concierge has a dual job. Like every other smiling, polite member of the Al Rashid staff, he is on the payroll of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's secret police.

I enter the gloomy reception area, where beaming receptionists-cum-secret-agents bid me a good morning. On the wall above the ground-floor windows are the faded scars inflicted by the last cruise missile to strike the Al Rashid.

I walk into the bar, which has purple chairs, a permanent air of gloom and serves Pepsi. Nothing else, except possibly Seven-Up. On the far side of the bar are the computer screens of the Al Rashid's Internet cafe. Here, I receive my daily offer of salvation.

Firas Behnam smiles from behind his desk. As well as running the Internet cafe with scrupulous efficiency, Firas is a regular at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Baghdad.

Firas, who may not be a Mukhabarat agent, greets me in his customary fashion. "Praise the Lord," he says. "Praise the Lord," I reply and settle down in front of a screen.

Surfing the web is something of a challenge in the Al Rashid. The Mukhabarat likes blocking websites and appears to choose its targets at random. The Daily Telegraph and most Western papers are not considered subversive, but try Yahoo! or Hotmail and your screen turns brown and "Access Denied" appears in red letters.

I hand Firas 2,000 Iraqi dinars, about 60p, and he writes out a receipt with intense concentration. "Hallelujah. All we need is to love the Lord," he says as he hands me the scrap of paper. "Hallelujah," I reply.

I walk over to the lifts, where Ahmed greets me politely. Ahmed is the lift-man and a Mukhabarat agent. When the lift arrives, he ushers me through its silver doors. Then he notes the time I chose to go to my room. Earlier, he noted the time I left.

When the lift reaches the eighth floor, I emerge. I am immediately greeted by Yassin. Yassin is the man in charge of the eighth floor and a Mukhabarat agent. He notes the time I returned. Earlier, he noted the time I left.

My room is faded and gloomy. Its decor seems to have been designed with gloominess in mind. A faded brown carpet offsets faded, dirty white walls. I have two leather armchairs and an ancient television offering the local channels. Satellite stations are almost unknown in Iraq.

State television's daily output consists of plump women singing Saddam's praises before shots of a suspiciously youthful leader waving to adoring crowds. The same sequences are shown night after night. My room affords a bird's-eye view of central Baghdad, which spreads out like a vast bombing range beneath my window. I can spot many of the targets that may well be smoking ruins in a few weeks' time.

The room is a stone's throw from several ugly tower blocks housing the Air Force headquarters, the Foreign Ministry and the Military Industrialisation Com-mission. Luckily, concrete blast panels protect my windows and the double-glazing is reinforced and bullet-proof. None the less, it's best not to dwell on the view.

The minibar contains Pepsi, Seven-Up and two bars of chocolate. One is covered with dust and its wrapper says "Best before 1995". The Al Rashid says it has five stars but, as with the chocolate, this claim should be accompanied by a "best before" date.

It was best before about 1980. Built when Iraq was flush with oil wealth in the 1970s, the Al Rashid was designed to be the finest hotel in Baghdad, meeting all international standards. The need to spy on every guest made this difficult. The onset of war and sanctions in 1990 made it impossible.

Every room is bugged. Any call made over the crackling phone line will have a large and attentive audience. When your room is cleaned every morning, a Mukhabarat agent accompanies the cleaners and rummages through all your bags and possessions. One journalist recently left a camera hidden in his room and captured the daily search on film.

Room service is wildly erratic. When I picked a spaghetti bolognaise from "The Special Menu" for lunch last Tuesday, the cold, shrivelled offering arrived, with profuse apologies, in time for lunch on Wednesday. When I tried for a sandwich on Thursday night, it took 10 minutes.

The Washington Post correspondent left the Al Rashid in a hurry last week after contracting amoebic dysentery.

Breakfast, consisting of cold croissants and an unappetising display of fruit, costs £20. You pay this sum whether or not you manage to eat anything.

But the Al Rashid remains by far the best Baghdad has to offer and it boasts a remarkable variety of patrons. Even the hardiest tourists stopped coming here years ago, but there are journalists by the hundred, shady Russian businessmen in dark glasses and, most bizarrely of all, Saddam's worldwide circle of admirers.

The latter group appears to be a club of international oddballs. Tony Benn dropped in at the Al Rashid a few weeks ago, before holding his pleasant afternoon chat with Saddam and passing it off as a political interview.

Among the frequent visitors to Baghdad who can be relied on to parrot the regime's propaganda are George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, Jorg Haider, the far-right A