The sirens ring again

But Dr Ali and his colleagues, indeed the people on the streets, seem in no hurry to run for cover. There is a macabre fatalism at work in Baghdad, typified by the wedding party driving merrily past his hospital, leaning on their horns, adding to the ambience of 8220;what will be will be8221;.

Dr Ali8217;s first Operation Desert Fox victims began arriving a little before 1 a.m. 8220;In minutes the casualty unit was full and there was a lot of blood and a lotof noise. Some of them were on beds, some in chairs and the worst were taken immediately into theatre,8221; he said. He saw his last patient at 10 a.m. 8212; a 13-year-old boy, Qasim Jassim el Fatlawi, who, he said, had been standing outside the front door of his home in the Jihad district when he was struck by shrapnel. 8220;It pierced his skull, killing him instantly,8221; added the doctor, fingering the pieces of shrapnel sitting on his desk.

8220;When it was all over we had treated 35 injured and 14 martyrs.8221; His word for the dead struck not quite so odd a note in the hospital director8217;s office when one took into account the large portrait of President Saddam behind his desk. We were invited to meet the survivors, having first been warned that the most seriously wounded had been moved to specialist units. Accompanied by minders8217; provided by the ministry of information, journalists covering the crisis are given full rein to suggest what they want to see, though a suspicion lurks over how much remains concealed.

Itseemed strange that Baghdad had echoed to the sounds of incoming cruise missiles for six hours and yet so little damage was apparent. Dr Ali8217;s hospital serves approximately a third of Baghdad and he had no idea how many civilians had been killed elsewhere. The ward was filled with gentle moaning, bloodstained sheets and bandaged heads. The face of one whimpering man was blue-black and distended. Nobody looked in a fit state to tell what had befallen them. But then, in a corner bed, a man was beckoning us over.

8220;Are you English?8221; he asked me. 8220;Are you American?8221; to another reporter. 8220;I am a businessman, what did I do to America and England? So why do they send a rocket to my house? Why?8221; His name was Jassam al Zubeidi and he had only recovered consciousness an hour earlier. Later we went to look at his house, a fine middle-class villa in el-Adil, a new suburb north of Baghdad. It looked as if a landmine had sneaked in through the back window and exploded.

Late, because his children were frightened bythe sounds of the missiles, Jassam had gathered the family in one room. He recalled drifting into sleep, his last thoughts for his two-week-old son Mohamed. 8220;I remember nothing else, only my wife coming to me and taking the ceiling off my body and me asking her, Where is my child?8221;8217; Then he had blacked out.

The baby boy was fine and being cared for by neighbours, according to his brother, Kadim. Jassam said: 8220;I want to ask the American people and the English people, what have the Iraqi people done to you so that you punish us like this? I love my country and I love my Saddam. I ask Saddam to take revenge for me. For the sake of Saddam I will sacrifice myself and my children.8221;

The minders were nervous when we asked to visit Jihad and the home of the dead teenage boy. They could not get an adress from the hospital and besides, one admitted, there might be a military installation in the area. This was the background to our tour of the damaged centres of Baghdad. The truth is that they are few and farbetween and, harrowing though the stories of Jassam and others are, they are the unfortunate exceptions. Most civilians were unscathed.

The government-owned newspaper al-Qadissiya said in an editorial: 8220;Iraqis are pulling together to go forward to bury the strikes of aggression and continue their new crusade to teach the enemy lessons which they will never forget.8221;

The truth was more prosaic. Baghdad was quiet, but its citizens were getting on with their lives. Children were playing football in side streets while women were shopping for fruit and vegetables. Everyone was waiting to see what the night would bring.

The Observer News Service