 At A Baghdad Hospital, Anger Is Focused At U.S. By CRAIG NELSON Cox News Service BAGHDAD, Iraq -- There's pain in their eyes but revenge in their hearts. Two hours earlier, Ali Sabah had been in his house, preparing to go outside and change the oil in his car. Suddenly, there was an explosion and blinding pain coming from somewhere in the direction of his left leg. The next thing he knew, Sabah says, his brothers were loading him into a car and rushing him ten minutes away to a hospital in southwestern Baghdad. Now, the face of the 24-year-old civil engineering student contorts in agony as he tries to rest. Over a wastebasket overflowing with blood-soaked bandages, a doctor and nurse have dressed the dime-sized hole and five-inch slice in his left thigh -- wounds they say were inflicted by a cluster bomb dropped by a U.S. warplane. Bashir Mohammed has slipped into the bed behind Sabah and is cradling his brother's head against his shoulder. Sabah, however, is not easily consoled. In cryptic English, he spits out his plans for the Americans who he believes have robbed him of a piece of his life. "I try to find just one of them and then I kill him in many ways. They are infidels and criminals," says Sabah, who attends Baghdad's Institute of Technology. Then, weakly motioning upward with his arms, he exclaims, "There may be rockets up there. There may be planes up there. But we have Allah up there!" With the tumult of shouting, wailing and feverish attempts to treat the wounded and console relatives of the dead, the corridors of Yarmouk Hospital on Friday were an incubator of the kind of venom that may give U.S. military officials pause as troops and armor of the Army's 3rd Infantry draw within an artillery shell's range of downtown Baghdad. Will American soldiers be able to win over the residents of a city that, rightly or wrongly, blames them and their country for the pain they have suffered? It's not, of course, as simple a picture as officials here and most ordinary Iraqis would have outsiders believe. Eyewitnesses say Iraqi authorities have moved mobile Scud missile launchers in and out of residential neighborhoods. There are also hints that schools, hospitals and other "civilian" installations have sometimes been evacuated in favor of Iraqi army troops and militia in a kind of elaborate shell game to hide their whereabouts. Even here at the Yarmouk Hospital, where reporters were taken on a tour with Iraqi government escorts, there's every effort to show that Iraqi civilians are the Americans' main target in this war. A nurse pushes a gurney down the fluorescent-lit corridor piled with bloodied trousers and shirts that closely resemble Iraqi military uniforms. When the nurse sees reporters standing at the end of the hall, she quickly covers the pile with a sheet. Yet most Iraqis claim Washington is the author of their suffering. On Friday, Najid Mohammed posed a litany of questions from his hospital bed that add up to a familiar protestation of Iraqi innocence. Mohammed claims an American bomb on Wednesday inflicted shrapnel wounds in his back and legs. The tens of thousands of feet separating Mohammed from the alleged American warplane and its pilot doesn't stop the 45-year-old driver for a Baghdad electrical company from personalizing his anger and vowing a very individual revenge for those Americans responsible. "If it takes 100 years, I will kill him. What did I do to him? What did we Iraqis do to him? I was in my house. He hit my house. Couldn't he see it was a house?" The clamor at Yarmouk Hospital comes as Iraqi army troops, elite Republican Guard units and artillery galvanize for battle on the city's outskirts. The streets along the airport road were deserted on Friday. So too, it appeared, were the concrete and stone homes lining those streets: The driveways out front were empty of cars. Militarily, at least, Baghdad was akin to a hard nut with a soft center, as residents inside the city's increasingly militarized outer neighborhoods tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy despite the power outages that plunged the city into darkness Thursday night and kept much of it without electricity on Friday. At a street corner in the southwest al-Beha district, Tariq Faruq Hussein, 47, sold fish he says he brought from the southern city of Basra two days earlier. Nearby, a man overseeing a curbside tea stand dumped heaping teaspoons full of sugar in four-ounce glasses, then poured the steaming bitter brew on top for a half-dozen waiting customers. Within minutes, a man took the presence of a television camera as a cue and led an impromptu chant in support of Saddam Hussein. |
advertisement
advertisement
Marketplace
Receive 10% off membership to an online database of 400+ sitters by entering promo code COX at www.KeikiSitters.com
Experience the enjoyment and fun of learning an instrument from Alan Akaka .
Hui Ho'omalu & Kokua 'Ohana Invite You To Learn More About Foster Care In Hawai'i And How YOU Can Help!
A parent participation preschool where parents and children learn together to ensure school success. Learn more here .
Get a Goal. Get a Life. Get College!advertisement
Territorial Airwaves is Hawaii's longest continuously running radio broadcast proudly celebrating 30 years on the radio!
Get your 2010 Lei Day Celebration application forms here .
Check out the latest happenings Around Hawaii ...brought to you by Road Runner!
100% original, 100% local. Full episodes of shows and sports. Live streaming 24/7.
From fast food to fine dining, find it all in our Local Business Directory .
Shop for cars, find a dealer, and get the latest automotive news in our Local Car Buying Guide powered by AutoTrader.com
Better sound. New stations. No fees. Discover the benefits of HD RadioTM
© All Media Guide, LLC. Portions of content provided by All Music Guide®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. 