- BASRA - "Give my life
to Saddam!" Fatima shouts out from her hospital bed. Her leg has just
been amputated, two days after a mortar fell on her house, killing five
members of her family.
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- The 22-year-old learns that US forces pounded a site
in Baghdad where Saddam Hussein was believed to have been hiding. She can't
hold back the tears.
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- "We don't have anyone else like him. I know he's
not dead."
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- At a nearby hospital bed, a mother stands vigil over
her two-year-old son Hassem, who she says was hurt four days earlier by
a tank at Abul Jasib on the outskirts of Basra, Iraq's second city.
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- "I don't think Saddam is dead. He knows very well
what he's doing. We saw him yesterday on TV. This is just a lie by the
Americans," she says.
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- British troops have been received cordially in Basra
since they established control over the city on Monday, the most frequent
reaction being smiling "thank you"s from children.
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- But to many of the hundreds who were wounded in the two-week
battle for the city, the feelings are bitterness, anger - and for some
a longing for Saddam Hussein to remain in charge.
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- Saddam Teaching Hospital, the city's largest medical
centre with 450 beds, has taken in hundreds for treatment since the war
began on March 20. The situation is similar at Basra's other hospitals.
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- Muayad Jumah, a surgeon, estimates more than 1 000
wounded were admitted at Saddam Teaching Hospital from Basra and other
cities including Umm Qasr, Safwan and Nasiriyah.
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- The hospital only treated civilians and offered its services
for free. Militia fighters were given first aid but then referred to a
military hospital, Jumah says.
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- In one room, the family of Zahar Abdul Hassan, 23, is
just waiting for him to die.
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- The young farmer took the impact of a mortar in Safwan
on the first day of fighting. Both of his feet have been amputated, his
intestines are perforated and he suffers from trauma to the head.
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- "The Americans said they came here to liberate us,"
his father says angrily. "But we're the ones who are suffering. We're
losing our children."
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- The ravages of war have also hit the hospital staff personally.
Its director, Dr Akram Hassan, a well-known figure in Basra, is said to
have lost 10 members of his family when a bomb demolished his house on
Saturday.
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- Hassan survived because he was at work - waiting for
more casualties to come in.
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- The hospital remains in mourning, and angry.
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- "The United States created Saddam, gave him weapons,
made him strong and then forgot about us," says Fadila, a nurse. "They've
used him up now, so they're putting someone like him in his place."
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- In room 54, in the men's part of the hospital, talk of
Saddam's possible death prompts furious debate about what direction Iraq
should take.
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- "We need leaders who are against Saddam and can
take his place, but for the time being no one has emerged," Jumah
says.
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- Within moments, the discussion heats up.
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- "He was a dictator. I hope he's dead," says
a Basra resident being treated for splinters from a missile to the torso.
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- "Saddam is our leader forever!" shouts out
a man from a nearby bed.
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- "Shut up!" the first man replies. "We
all know you're from (Saddam's) Baath Party."
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- Jumah, the doctor, intervenes to restore order.
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- "In any case, what difference does it make whether
Saddam is dead or alive? That won't free us from the current occupation."
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- At that thought, the room turns pensive.
- http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1345043,00.html
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