Just in from Baghdad

Here is another dispatch from Jack in Baghdad. Now you tell me: is this biased, lazy, butt-covering, Vietnam-templating journalism? Judge for yourself...

A day in the life of an Iraqi ambulance driver
by Jack Fairweather in Baghdad

The bomb had gone off half an hour before, an improvised explosive device that sent a cloud of dust into the air. Planted in the central reservation of a crowded street in al-Hadamiya district of Baghdad, the bomb’s intended target was an American convoy. But the makers of the device had set the timer wrongly. At 9.00 am, the convoy passed safely by. A few seconds later, as Iraqis made their way to work in the poor but quiet neighbourhood, the explosives detonated. The street was reduced to carnage.

Bring out your dead. Ahmed Fousi is head of control at Baghdad’s main ambulance centre, and Wednesday’s explosion in Baghdad was just another bloody day in the life of an ambulance man in the Iraqi capital. He’d already been up all night following a bomb attack the previous evening in which 3 Iraqi policemen were injured. ‘For us that was a quiet night,’ he said.

Since hearing this morning’s bomb blast he’d been out on the street looking for casualties. In post-war Iraq, the ambulance service has no radio communication and must rely on word of mouth to find their patients. Driving down the wrong side of the road to avoid a traffic jam, Fousi arrived at the blast site to find another team of ambulances already at work.

One Iraqi had been killed and 20 others injured. A mini bus took the full blast of the bomb, careering wildly across the street before crashing into a tree and bursting into flames. Another vehicle, further back, had its windscreen knocked out, its bonnet a heap of twisted metal. A witness of the bombing described the silence after the explosion before the injured began called for help.

A reserved, dedicated man, Fousi was nonetheless horrified by the attack. ‘These are not Iraqis who did this to their own people,’ he said. ‘They are monsters. They do not care about the consequences of their actions.’
Such blasts have become an almost daily occurrence in an amateur but deadly bombing campaign that has claimed the lives of 4 Iraqis and 45 injured in the past week. Last month the UN headquarters in Baghdad was struck by a devastating truck bomb which 22 people, including the UN head , Sergio Vieira de Mello Sergio.
The targets of such attacks have been forces associated with the American-led occupation, but the victims are often innocent Iraq bystanders. Anti-US terrorists were also blamed for the attack in al-Hadamiya.

The hospital was overflowing when Fousi arrived. ‘No room, no room,’ said a nurse as she carried out a bucket of bloody rags and medical equipment. Inside it looked like war had been revisited. In dirty concrete rooms with little medical equipment, casualties sat two to a bed as they were hastily treated by the staff. ‘This is the worse attack I have had to deal with since the war,’ said Dr. Ahmeed Sharka Chaduri.

Among those patients well enough to speak, shock was already beginning to turn to anger. Marsan Taha, a 55 retiree who had been out shopping when shrapnel from the blast injured his foot, said, ‘These are bad men who did this and god will punish them,’ he said.

Another patient, Nipras Jassim Saloon, who had a head injury, said,

‘Sure, I’m angry with Iraqis who do this to their own people.’ He carried in his hand the glass shard which had lodged beneath his chin.

‘Maybe when they these people see what they have done, they will stop. We all just want to live in peace.’

But in the short-term there appears to be little chance of peace returning to Baghdad. There are no reliable figures for the levels of violence, although Dr Chaduri described how he has been treating one gun shot victim an hour for the past 6 weeks. ‘They are becoming a little less frequent not, but victims from bombs are increasing,’ he said.

The ambulance crew had already begun to prepare. There were rumours that a bridge in Baghdad had been packed to explode. Fousi had already set off to look for it.

Ahmed Abdulila, 22, another ambulance driver said,

‘It is a terrible job, but we know we are serving the Iraqi people against its enemies.’

ends