GIs: ‘Nobody is perfect!’

Catastrophic situation in Baghdad hospitals 

Bert De Belder 

The situation in Baghdad is plainly catastrophic, the doctors of Geneeskunde voor de Derde Wereld (Medecine for the Third World) say. When driving around the town they saw horrible, perplexing scenes of looting.  Private houses and government buildings alike. Ghazwan, an Iraqi friend, was wailing: 'plundering government buildings, what is it good for? They are needed to govern the country! And all this happening while the Americans are just standing by and watching!' Dr. Geert Van Moorter tackled the American GIs about this: 'in one day you have people destroy what has been has been constructed for thirty years!' The answer: 'we are here for waging war not for policing. Nobody is perfect!' 

The Medical Team visited three hospitals or what is left of them. The Yarmouk hospital, where Geert and Dr. Colette Moulaert went several times, has been completely plundered. 'We saw that a garbage truck had been emptied to be filled with hospital furniture', Geert says. 'Medicines were on the floor scattered and trampled upon. In the Fertility Center we saw youths playing with echography and Doppler machines. The premises of UNICEF and UNDP, some hundred metres from our hotel: completely ransacked. The National Health Laboratory, the same.' 

Only the Saddam Center for Plastic Surgery is still functioning, because it is there that the British cameraman Paul Pasquale is treated, the one who received first aid by Dr. Van Moorter after the American shelling of the Palestine Hotel. There Geert in the first place wanted to reconstruct the report of the ambulance being shot at by US troops. 'Seeing a big American tank one thousand metres in front of him the ambulance driver started to slow down,' Geert noted. 'He may have been driving at about just 60 kms per hour when he was shot at by 4 or 5 American soldiers. The driver, Omran Shahad, felt a stab in his back, and lost all feeling in his left leg. He tried to stop the car but hit a tree. There was another machinegun volley directed at the ambulance. The first aid worker, Rahim Abbas, got a bullet in his foot. It was little short of a miracle that, thanks to an extraordinary effort he succeeded in returning to the hospital. Two of the three severely injured patients that were in the ambulance have probably died. Assisted by us, the driver and the first aid worker want to claim damages from the US for the physical harm they endured. The director of the Hospital, Dr. Walid Abdul Majid, will sue as well and bring a civil suit for material damage to the ambulance. Shooting at an ambulance is a gross violation of the article 12 and 21 of the Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions regarding the law of war. Each time I have to negotiate with US-soldiers I confront them with this shameful deed.' 

The working day of the Medical Team was not over yet. 'In an ambulance with one wounded person in it, we drove to the Nafez hospital,' Geert continues. 'All-in-all we still found one doctor there, taking care of a lot of patients. Mission impossible, a complete chaos. Doctors are afraid of going to their work, the atmosphere is tense and chaotic everywhere. Colette absolutely wanted to stay to assist the poor doctor, but this was far too dangerous: youngsters armed with Kalashnikovs were running around. We were nearly unable to reach our hotel, GIs refusing to let us go through. We pulled up at 500 metres from their tanks and I went to negotiate, dressed in my white doctor's coat. This cost us an hour and a half...' 

Also about the mood in Baghdad, after the apparent disappearance of Saddam Hussein's government, the doctors learned something. Geert:'last night I talked to several common Iraqis in our hotel, which certainly does not give a univocal picture. When the American soldiers entered the hotel yesterday, their first order was to remove all symbols and portraits of Saddam. Many people have mixed feelings about this. Most of them do not feel like celebrating. Someone said this:'I am glad the tyrant has gone, but I am afraid in the first place. We are in a dark room now, we are in troubled waters.' An employee of the hotel: 'they will treat us like animals. They will give us just enough food to survive, but there will be no progress.' Our friend Ghazwan was more cynical: "The only things the 'dictator ' gave us were watermains, electricity, telephone. The 'liberator' has come to destroy all that. But I guess we will receive cell phones now and bottled water, for which we will have to stand in line and say 'thank you Sir'..."