"The Americans have no mercy in their hearts"

["M. Junaid Alam" <redjaguar@xxxxxxxxx>]

Parents of dying Iraqi children vent fury at Bush

      By Samia Nakhoul

      BAGHDAD, Oct 23 (Reuters) - If President George W. Bush believes that
ordinary Iraqis will welcome U.S. troops with open arms he may be in for a
rude surprise.

      However much they fear to say what they think under the ruthless rule
of President Saddam Hussein, their feelings of deep-seated hatred towards
Bush are only too clear.

      They see the United States as primarily responsible for the sanctions
that have destroyed their economy and the social fabric of their
once-prosperous lives, as well as leaving an estimated 1.6 million children
dead and many more stunted.

      As much as the deprivation, they resent the humiliation of having been
driven back into an almost pre-industrial age.

      Nowhere are these sentiments more in evidence than at the Mansour
Hospital for Children, where youngsters with cancer lie dying from what
doctors believe are the effects of the 1991 Gulf War.

      "Look! These are the children of Iraq," said Nouhad Abdel-Amir
pointing at the cancer ward packed with frail children with no hair, many
lying unconscious with drips strapped to their bodies.

      She herself was holding her one-year-old baby who had his arm
amputated to stop the progress of cancer in the absence of injections
doctors say are banned by the sanctions committee which claims they have
dual use.

      "This is what the Americans did to us. This is the effect of all the
bombs they fired at us. It is showing now. It is all America's fault that
our children are dying," said Najate Salem, whose son Mohammed, five, has
stomach cancer.

      International medical surveys have reported a dramatic jump in cancer
cases, genetic deformities and abnormalities in children born after 1991,
especially in the south where depleted uranium munitions were fired by U.S.
and British troops as they drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

      "The Gulf War is the only indicator for the increase of cancer in
Iraq. The rate of cancer has risen five to seven fold more than before
1991," said Loua'i Latif Kasha, a pathologist and director of the 300-bed
Mansour hospital.

      He said U.S. bombings of water treatment plants, the collapse of the
health and sanitation systems as well as a stringent embargo that made it
difficult to import medicine has led to the sharp increase in cancer among
Iraqis, mainly children.

      "Apart from these factors, radiation pollution from depleted uranium
bombs by itself causes cancer like leukaemia and thyroid," Kasha, who
trained at the Whitechapel Hospital in London, told Reuters.

      At Mansour hospital, desperate and broken parents sit by their
children's bedside praying for a miracle. Without a miracle, many will die
because the appropriate medicines are not all available and are beyond the
parents' means.

      Humanitarian supplies under the U.N. oil-for-food programme are
intended to alleviate the impact of 12 years of sanctions but cannot meet
the massive need.

      Many parents, originally from poor southern provinces, have sold
household goods and furniture to buy expensive medicine.

      "We've sold everything we own to get him medicine. We have nothing
left except our mattresses and he's dying," said Camila Mohammed, whose son
Ali, six, has kidney cancer.

      Sleeping on soiled and bare mattresses in stomach-churning smelly
rooms, the children with no hair, yellow faces and sad eyes listen to their
parents venting their rage at America.

      "I pray to God to hit America with a massive strike because a strike
from God is much stronger than from a human being...I want them to suffer
like we're suffering. They are the reason for our misery," said Kazema
Tshaloub, 30.

      Whether they like or loathe Saddam, their rage and hatred are mainly
directed at the U.S. administration.

      Most, who come from areas that witnessed an anti-Saddam uprising after
the Gulf War, distrust the declared intentions of Bush to end Saddam's
23-year-old rule.

      Bush's father, then President George Bush, encouraged Shi'ites in the
south and Kurds in the north to rise up against Saddam after the Gulf War
but did little to help them.

      "Bush still wants to hurt us more. What more does he want? Is there
anything he hasn't done...All the destruction, sanctions and diseases aren't
enough? What have we done to him, we haven't hurt him or attacked him," said
another mother Ghaziya Rasheed.

      Even if Iraq is about to change for the better, for many people this
change will come too late. Nothing will bring back their loved ones.

      "They fought us with all their means. Our children are stunted,
malnourished and illiterate," said Sahera Khalil whose son Ahmed, four, has
leukaemia.

      "In six weeks at the hospital I've seen eight children die," she said.
"The Americans have no mercy in their hearts. This is what they have done to
the future generation of Iraq."

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