[A-List] Iraq: they call it humanitarian intervention

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Allied bombs threaten a new generation of children with trauma, disease and
death
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
The Independent
10 March 2003

The tension of the weeks of waiting is reaching fever pitch, and fear is now
all-pervasive as Iraqis wait for the ferocious bombardment that the
Americans have promised to unleash upon them.

Pentagon plans which have appeared in the Western media are now the subject
of anxious discussion among Iraqis - 3,000 Tomahawk missiles in 48 hours for
Baghdad alone; Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace and power base, to be
razed; six kilos of ordnance for every Iraqi ... There will be very little
by way of return fire.

At the Saddam General Hospital they are stocking up for the war. There are
young cancer patients here who, it is claimed, are the victims of a residue
of the last war - depleted uranium. Murtaba Riayad is three and a half years
old, a smiling boy with bright, curious eyes. He has lost all his hair to
chemotherapy. His mother, Karima, says a number of children from Nejaf area
in the south-east have developed cancer.

Dr Murthada Hassan, a senior haematologist, says simply: "We cannot save the
boy. He looks well now, but there will be a relapse. We really haven't got
all the medicine we need. And now we can look forward to hundreds more
children coming to this hospital. Even if we forget depleted uranium, think
of all the other types of casualties we can expect from war. That is the
reality we have to face."

The 1991 Gulf War, the sanctions that followed, and now the fear of a coming
war has been particularly traumatic for Iraq's children. In their drawings,
the pupils of al-Quds primary school in Baghdadshow flowers, their parents
and friends. But there are the other images; planes dropping bombs, homes on
fire, dead bodies.

In a country where almost half the population is under 14, aid agencies
predict that a new conflict will bring widespread death, displacement and
disease, and for those who survive, lasting psychological problems. The
situation is already serious. More than a third of Iraqi children are
undernourished, and those suffering from serious diseases, including cancer
allegedly connected to the use of depleted uranium shells in the Gulf War,
has doubled in the past 10 years. One in four babies born is underweight;
eight million children depend on state rations.

A recent report by international welfare agencies called Our Common
Responsibility: The Impact of a New War on Iraq's Children warned of many
thousands of child casualties and concluded that the 13 million children in
the country "are at grave risk of starvation, disease, death and
psychological trauma".

Amina Nasr, a child behaviour specialist, has studied the psychological
effect of Gulf War bombing on the young. "Years later they would still have
nightmares. If you see their sleeping patterns you notice sudden, spasmodic
movements as if they could hear or see explosions. I have seen this with my
own son. Then there other signs - nervousness, lack of concentration,
disinterest, and problems with education. These are the usual symptoms."

At al-Quds school the headmistress, Khulla Allani, has experienced the
effect of the last war on her charges. "Of course they were affected, they
came back different," she said. "You noticed the changes in their behaviour.
Some had lost relations, others had seen dead and injured people for the
first time. The fathers and mothers of many of them did not have jobs
afterwards. It is difficult to believe that all that is going to happen
again soon. We shall have to shut the school down, like last time, but I
shall try to keep in contact with as many families as possible to see the
children are all right."

The school has 464 girls and boys aged between six and 12. Nine-year-old
Lubbab Muaed, whose mother is an engineer, wants to be a doctor. She is too
young to remember the Gulf War, and has a vague notion of what might happen
this time. "America wants to attack Iraq, bad things will happen and I am
very afraid."

Yasser Salman, nine, has heard there will be bombing. "I am not scared," he
said. "But I do not understand why they want to bomb us.

"My family say it was very bad the last time. I would like to meet boys from
America and England, we could be friends, but I do not know if that is
possible."

Gastroenteritis is one of the most common killers of children in Iraq, and
the main cause is contaminated drinking water. The water supply and
treatment system suffered massive damage during the Gulf War. A recently
unearthed Defence Intelligence Agency report in Washington revealed they may
have been deliberately targeted. The report, written in the first week of
the Gulf War, concluded "Full degradation of the water treatment system
probably will take at least another six months."

The disease was spread rapidly by tons of raw sewage that drained into the
Tigris and the Euphrates. In the 12 years since the war, some of the
infrastructure has been repaired. Now it may get damaged again.

What little optimism there was that war could be avoided has been replaced
by endemic fatalism. At the Shah Bandar café off Rashid Street Selim Yunys
Ali, an anthropology teacher, said: "Many people here think that this will
be like the bombing in 1998 or 1991. I don't think they know that this is
going to be very different, and the aim of the Americans is to change Iraq
for ever.

"Everyone says we have got to appear to be brave, but I don't think that
there are many people who don't feel very scared. We don't know what's going
to happen, and the uncertainty is the problem."

In the last 24 hours the food stores in Baghdad have begun to empty. At the
Arafat district, near the centre of the capital, Hamida Nasruddin, who runs
a food shop, said: "It's only now that there have been people coming in and
buying lots of things for their family. They are buying the very basic
things, nothing luxury.

"There is a feeling that something is going to happen this week, and there
is no way one can escape from that. I myself have been buying things to
store, my husband has been buying kerosene and lamps."

In these days, just before the storm, there are, for Iraq, surprising sounds
of hope that the violence to come may eventually lead to better things.
Majid, who runs a stationery shop, said: "This could be one of the richest
countries in the world, but for the last 20 years we have had nothing but
wars and sanctions. Some people are responsible for this, and they have got
to answer for what has gone so wrong."

However, it is not all doom and gloom: the Baghdad stock exchange has been
climbing steadily as the war clouds gather. Property prices too, are rising
in the capital, Basra and Mosul as those with cash invest for the building
boom to come. One of the perennial tourist purchases of Iraq is also more
lucrative than ever - sales of Saddam Hussein watches, clocks and posters
have never been higher.