|
U.S. Hospital in Iraq Treats Civilians
Sitting on a hospital bed, a young woman shrouded in black cradles the bandaged stump where her right foot once was and weeps for her husband and family - killed when Saddam Hussein's forces put them in the middle of the fighting. ``We blame Saddam for this,'' 25-year-old Metaq Ali said Thursday, tears streaming down her face as she recovered in a tent at a U.S. military field hospital. Her relatives died as members of Saddam's Fedayeen militia — dressed in civilian clothes — moved in and around people's homes firing at American forces, she said. Her extended family tried to escape by car and a bomb tore apart their three vehicles. Fedayeen fighters commonly set up anti-aircraft guns near homes and forced families to remain there at gunpoint, residents said. When the civilians were injured, Saddam's fighters ran away and left them bleeding. Explain to me how George Galloway could support these guys — oh, I forgot, he's a Stalinist. Doctors and nurses at the 86th Combat Support Hospital at Tallil Airfield have heard the story many times since U.S. forces fought their way through fierce resistance by irregular Iraqi forces in nearby Nasiriyah. Patients told hospital staff they were given guns that no longer worked and forced to advance toward U.S. positions as Fedayeen forces fired shots from behind them. ``That was the most disturbing thing for me in this war,'' said Col. Harry Warren, an orthopedic surgeon and hospital commander. ``I knew we'd keep receiving more and more civilians — and we did — because they were being placed in these situations.'' Medical staff here have admitted more than 500 people since the war began — most of them Iraqi men, women and children. Many more have been treated for injuries that didn't require hospitalization. The 550 hospital staffers opened the 84-bed facility, with operating tables, a digital X-ray system and the latest resuscitation equipment, the day after fighting began. Staffers performed their first operation — on a Marine shot in the stomach — three hours after they arrived. Cooks and mechanics dropped what they were doing to help carry stretchers on one of the busiest days at the hospital, when they received 101 patients — 81 in one hour. Damn — busier than even the Cook County Hospital ER. Among the patients that day was Zara, a 7-month old baby with sparkling eyes who arrived with shrapnel wounds to her feet and chest. Her mother died while clutching the infant, whose name means ``Flower'' in Arabic. Hospital staffers fashioned a crib out of a medical supply box and fed Zara baby formula through the fingers of a surgical glove. She lost a toe but otherwise recovered, and an aunt was expected to collect her soon. The facility packs into 100 containers which can be moved by truck, ship or plane. While designed to receive life, limb, and eyesight emergencies, the hospital has treated everything from simple rashes to people with most of their faces blown away. Most of the 60 patients there Thursday were Iraqi civilians or prisoners. Even those wounded by American bullets and bombs smiled and flashed a thumbs up signal when asked about the care they were receiving. ``I don't think the Americans meant to shoot me,'' said Saad Abdwyasr, 32. He was caught in crossfire as he tried to carry his sick father to a local hospital in Nasiriyah. Down the ward — a yellow tent decorated with children's drawings and American flags — Fayza Kamal, 43, had just been reunited with her injured nephew after an agonizing 16-day search. Captured during the fighting, the man lay stiffly under a blanket with his leg in a cast. Beside him was a cardboard tray with lasagna, cookies and an apple. ``I think they are good people,'' Kamal said, of her nephew's captors. ``Before we thought they would invade our territory and take over. But now I see they are taking care of us.'' We can't buy better public relations than this. Everyone in Iraq needs to hear this guy. Posted by: Steve White 2003-04-25 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=13451 |