Anyone catch the pres?

[avx]

I know it was a couple of nights ago, but I just saw it again...What is he trying to tell us? Is Saddaam giving way? Did france finally agree to to do something?

I just cant sit and watch it, it bores me to death, he says 1 sentence; they clap for 3 mins...

[Byte 2.0]

I heard Saddaam agreed to destroy his missles.

That is not reassuring, is he intending to destroy them on impact??

[macrymble]

hehe...yeah, that's true, byte. he could destroy them, but take half the u.s. with them

[Byte 2.0]

..

[avx]

Why? Seems truthful enough to me...Just because everyone else thinks they can deal with another 10 yrs of these wussy terrorists doesnt mean we should have too...Personally, if France ever got into trouble again, I would be happy if the US didnt lift a finger to help...well, maybe 1 finger, but it wont be helping

[Paul Victorey]

Originally posted by macrymble hehe...yeah, that's true, byte. he could destroy them, but take half the u.s. with them

Nah, none of his missiles have anything near that range. He *might* be able to hit Israel, but his missile range is about 180 kilometers (roughly 110 miles). Even from the furthest west point in Iraq, Jerusalem is 373 kilometers, so it's unlikely he could reach any part of Israel with anything he has.

Even if he could somehow launch them all to the US, he'd only have enough to completely take out one or two cities. He has no nuclear ability, so levelling a city is not the easiest thing.

[avx]

you say 1 or 2 cities like it aint no thing...

[Byte 2.0]

Hmm didnt' he land a few scuds in Israel during the Gulf War?

He has been working on Nukes, but he has cheical and Bio weapons which can be nearly as bad.

[Paul Victorey]

Yes, he landed Scuds in Israel in 1991, which is why he now is not allowed to develop weapons of anywhere near that range, and so far, nothing has been found that's more than about 10-20 km over their range limits.

Biochem weapons are scary, but they're not very likely to cause widespread death. They work great in enclosed spaces, but they rapidly lose effectiveness in open air simply because there is such a huge volume of air that they disperse into. They're decent on the battlefield because the enemy will be in close proximity, but biochem weapons have nowhere near the widespread killing power that most believe they do.

Heck, the Soviets had an accident which left an entire town of 7 million exposed to weapons grade airborne anthrax, and it killed about 70 of those 7 million. Granted, 70 deaths is not trivial, but compared to explosives, the explosives are really the greater threat.

And of course it would be terrible to lose a whole city, but compared to half the country, one city isn't really a whole lot.

[mouse1]

From: SFC Red Thomas (Ret)

Armor Master Gunner Mesa, AZ Unlimited reproduction and distribution is authorized. Just give me credit for my work, and, keep in context.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since the media has decided to scare everyone with predictions of chemical, biological, or nuclear warfare on our turf I decided to write a paper and keep things in their proper perspective. I am a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert.

Lesson number one: In the mid 1990s there were a series of nerve gas attacks on crowded Japanese subway stations. Given perfect conditions for an attack less than 10% of the people there were injured (the injured were better in a few hours) and only one percent of the injured died.

60 Minutes once had a fellow telling us that one drop of nerve gas could kill a thousand people, well he didn't tell you the thousand dead people per drop was theoretical.

Drill Sergeants exaggerate how terrible this stuff was to keep the recruits awake in class (I know this because I was a Drill Sergeant too). Forget everything you've ever seen on TV, in the movies, or read in a novel about this stuff, it was all a lie (read this sentence again out loud!). These weapons are about terror, if you remain calm, you will probably not die.

This is far less scary than the media and their "Experts," make it sound.

Chemical Weapons Chemical weapons are categorized as nerve, blood, blister, and Incapacitating agents. Contrary to the hype of reporters and politicians they are not weapons of mass destruction they are "area denial," and terror weapons that don't destroy anything. When you leave the area you almost always leave the risk. That's the difference; you can leave the area and the risk but soldiers may have to stay put and sit through it and that's why they need all that spiffy gear.

These are not gasses, they are vapors and/or air borne particles. The agent must be delivered in sufficient quantity to kill/injure, and that defines when/how it's used. Every day we have a morning and evening inversion where "stuff," suspended in the air gets pushed down. This inversion is why allergies (pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of the day.

So, a chemical attack will have it's best effect an hour of so either side of sunrise/sunset. Also, being vapors and airborne particles they are heavier than air so they will seek low places like ditches, basements and underground garages.

This stuff won't work when it's freezing, it doesn't last when it's hot, and wind spreads it too thin too fast. They've got to get this stuff on you, or, get you to inhale it for it to work. They also have to get the concentration of chemicals high enough to kill or wound you.

Too little and it's nothing, too much and it's wasted.

What I hope you've gathered by this point is that a chemical weapons attack that kills a lot of people is incredibly hard to do with military grade agents and equipment so you can imagine how hard it will be for terrorists. The more you know about this stuff the more you realize how hard it is to use.

We'll start by talking about nerve agents.

You have these in your house, plain old bug killer (like Raid) is nerve agent. All nerve agents work the same way; they are cholinesterase inhibitors that mess up the signals your nervous system uses to make your body function. It can harm you if you get it on your skin but it works best if they can get you to inhale it.

If you don't die in the first minute and you can leave the area you're probably gonna live. The military's antidote for all nerve agents is atropine and pralidoxime chloride. Neither one of these does anything to cure the nerve agent, they send your body into overdrive to keep you alive for five minutes, after that the agent is used up. Your best protection is fresh air and staying calm.

Listed below are the symptoms for nerve agent poisoning Sudden headache, Dimness of vision (someone you're looking at will have pinpointed pupils), runny nose, excessive saliva or drooling difficulty breathing, tightness in chest, nausea, stomach cramps, twitching of exposed skin where a liquid just got on you.

If you are in public and you start experiencing these symptoms, first ask yourself, did anything out of the ordinary just happen, a loud pop, did someone spray something on the crowd? Are other people getting sick too?

Is there an odor of new mown hay, green corn, something fruity, or camphor where it shouldn't be? If the answer is yes, then calmly (if you panic you breathe faster and inhale more air/poison) leave the area and head upwind, or, outside.

Fresh air is the best "right now antidote" If you have a blob of liquid that looks like molasses or Kayro syrup on you; blot it or scrape it off and away from yourself with anything disposable. This stuff works based on your body weight, what a crop duster uses to kill bugs won't hurt you unless you stand there and breathe it in real deep, then lick the residue off the ground for a while. Remember they have to do all the work, they have to get the concentration up and keep it up for several minutes while all you have to do is quit getting it on you/quit breathing it by putting space between you and the attack.

Blood agents are cyanide or arsine which effect your blood's ability to provide oxygen to your tissue. The scenario for attack would be the same as nerve agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing/spraying something and folks around there getting woozy/falling down. The telltale smells are bitter almonds or garlic where it shouldn't be. The symptoms are blue lips, blue under the fingernails rapid breathing.

The military's antidote is amyl nitride and just like nerve agent antidote it just keeps your body working for five minutes till the toxins are used up. Fresh air is the your best individual chance.

Blister agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody wants to even handle it let alone use it. It's almost impossible to handle safely and may have delayed effect of up to 12 hours. The attack scenario is also limited to the things you'd see from other chemicals. If you do get large, painful blisters for no apparent reason, don't pop them, if you must, don't let the liquid from the blister get on any other area, the stuff just keeps on spreading. It's just as likely to harm the user as the target. Soap, water, sunshine, and fresh air are this stuff's enemy.

Bottom line on chemical weapons (it's the same if they use industrial chemical spills); they are intended to make you panic, to terrorize you, to herd you like sheep to the wolves. If there is an attack, leave the area and go upwind, or to the sides of the wind stream. They have to get the stuff to you, and on you.

You're more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver on any given day than be hurt by one of these attacks. Your odds get better if you leave the area.

Soap, water, time, and fresh air really deal this stuff a knock-out-punch. Don't let fear of an isolated attack rule your life. The odds are really on your side.

Nuclear Weapons Nuclear bombs. These are the only weapons of mass destruction on earth.

The effects of a nuclear bomb are heat, blast, EMP, and radiation. If you see a bright flash of light like the sun, where the sun isn't, fall to the ground!

The heat will be over a second. Then there will be two blast waves, one out going, and one on it's way back. Don't stand up to see what happened after the first wave; anything that's going to happen will have happened in two full minutes.

These will be low yield devices and will not level whole cities. If you live through the heat, blast, and initial burst of radiation, you'll probably live for a very, very long time. Radiation will not create fifty foot tall women, or giant ants and grass hoppers the size of tanks. These will be at the most 1 kiloton bombs; that's the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.

Here's the real deal, flying debris and radiation will kill a lot of exposed (not all!) people within a half mile of the blast. Under perfect conditions this is about a half mile circle of death and destruction, but, when it's done it's done. EMP stands for Electro Magnetic Pulse and it will fry every electronic device for a good distance, it's impossible to say what and how far but probably not over a couple of miles from ground zero is a good guess.

Cars, cell phones, computers, ATMs, you name it, all will be out of order.

There are lots of kinds of radiation, you only need to worry about three, the others you have lived with for years. You need to worry about "Ionizing radiation," these are little sub atomic particles that go whizzing along at the speed of light. They hit individual cells in your body, kill the nucleus and keep on going. That's how you get radiation poisoning, you have so many dead cells in your body that the decaying cells poison you.

It's the same as people getting radiation treatments for cancer, only a bigger area gets radiated.

The good news is you don't have to just sit there and take it, and there's lots you can do rather than panic. First; your skin will stop alpha particles, a page of a news paper or your clothing will stop beta particles, you just gotta try and avoid inhaling dust that's contaminated with atoms that are emitting these things and you'll be generally safe from them.

Gamma rays are particles that travel like rays (quantum physics makes my brain hurt) and they create the same damage as alpha and beta particles only they keep going and kill lots of cells as they go all the way through your body. It takes a lot to stop these things, lots of dense material, on the other hand it takes a lot of this to kill you.

Your defense is as always to not panic. Basic hygiene and normal preparation are your friends. All canned or frozen food is safe to eat. The radiation poisoning will not effect plants so fruits and vegetables are OK if there is no dust on em (rinse em off if there is). If you don't have running water and you need to collect rain water or use water from wherever, just let it sit for thirty minutes and skim off the water gently from the top. The dust with the bad stuff in it will settle and the remaining water can be used for the toilet which will still work if you have a bucket of water to pour in the tank.

Biological Weapons Finally there's biological warfare. There's not much to cover here. Basic personal hygiene and sanitation will take you further than a million doctors.

Wash your hands often, don't share dirnks, food, sloppy kisses, etc., ....

with strangers. Keep your garbage can with a tight lid on it, don't have standing water (like old buckets, ditches, or kiddie pools)

laying around to allow mosquitoes breeding room. This stuff is carried by vectors, that is bugs, rodents, and contaminated material. If biological warfare is so easy as the TV makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent twenty years, millions, and millions of dollars trying to get it right?

If you're clean of person and home you eat well and are active you're gonna live.

Overall preparation for any terrorist attack is the same as you'd take for a big storm. If you want a gas mask, fine, go get one. I know this stuff and I'm not getting one and I told my Mom not to bother with one either (how's that for confidence). We have a week's worth of cash, several days worth of canned goods and plenty of soap and water. We don't leave stuff out to attract bugs or rodents so we don't have them.

These people can't conceive a nation this big with this much resource.

These weapons are made to cause panic, terror, and to demoralize. If we don't run around like sheep they won't use this stuff after they find out it's no fun. The government is going nuts over this stuff because they have to protect every inch of America. You've only gotta protect yourself, and by doing that, you help the country.

Finally, there are millions of caveats to everything I wrote here and you can think up specific scenarios where my advice isn't the best. This letter is supposed to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations.

If you don't like my work, don't nit pick, just sit down and explain chemical, nuclear, and biological warfare in a document around three pages long yourself. This is how we the people of the United States can rob these people of their most desired goal, your terror.

SFC Red Thomas (Ret)

Mesa, AZ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Computer Hobbyist]

The country that scares the heck of me is North Korea. Ever since we started focusing on IRAQ they have been acting like they are wanting to pick a fight. They do have a bomb or two and while they might not be able to reach Washington DC they might be able to reach Seattle, Washington. That is the a real threat and one we will need to deal with sooner or later.


CH

[morriswindgate]

He will offer to destroy anything that has been found, but you have to find it first.

Paul Victorey
I beg to differ with the very naive attitude to chemical and bio weapons. It is much like the people attitude toward HItler in the 1930s, ie. I don't belong to that group so it doesn't effect me. In other words if he can only hit Kuwait, Jordan or Israel then I do not care.
ALthough BIO weapons present a problem in effective dispersal, there presence can take several days to weeks to detect, due to you need victims in most cases to know that the attack took place.
Chemical weapons on the other hand have the ability to be delivered effetivly by several means. A dedicated person who is willing to commit suicide could for instance do nothing more than enter, say a grocery store with a breath freshener size areosal device and walk down the isles lightly spraying the cans and bottles, and for the next 96 hours these would be deadly to anybody who touched them.
The danger in Iraq is the criminal that is running the country not the weapons.

For more reading:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003092852,00.html
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/bw/agent.htm
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/cw/agent.htm

[Paul Victorey]

A criminal we put into power and kept there. I notice we were very quiet, and in fact very helpful to him when he was OUR criminal in power.

I don't support Saddam, but I think there needs to be a lot more options exhausted before military intervention is tried. Also, Israel is safely out of range of Iraq's weapons, Jordan is not an enemy of Iraq, Iran isn't something the Iraqis want to get mixed up in again, and Kuwait is too dangerous because of international repercussions.

Saddam's single biggest character trait, thus far, has been looking out for #1. He is power hungry, and he won't do anything to risk his position or life. Heck, the only reason he invaded Kuwait in 1990 was because he thought the US would support him (he was the pro-US government we had installed, and he had fought for years against Iran, because we wanted him to). Now that he knows Kuwait would mean another gulf war, he'd never risk anything more than thumbing his nose, unless his back was to the wall.

Even your chemical weapons scenario isn't very devastating, from a numbers point of view. Something that would kill a dozen or two people, certainly not hundreds or thousands or millions that could be killed with a nuke.

Also, proper delivery is nontrivial. Even the best biochem weapons are useless without a delivery mechanism, and it requires skilled personnel with expensive equipment to make them weaponized.

And again, most weapons have a very small effective radius before they become ineffective. As mentioned, even in a Japanese subway, which presented a perfect, enclosed area, sarin, a lethal nerve gas, killed 5 out of 600 exposed.

[TimPoet]

My son's enlistment just got extended and he has a 50% chance of returning to the Mideast (please pray for him) and the way I see it, the only choice of action to take, as reason dictates, is what's going to happen starting within the next three weeks. We are going to resume hostilities and topple Saddam because he did not live up to the cease-fire agreements from the first war and he poses a direct threat to the United States by soon being able to deliver WMD via terrorist networks.
That's what's going to happen, we all might as well get used to it, the writing is on the wall.

[Tuf]

I agree with Morris your attiutde is not a reflection of what an effective chemical or even germ attack can do. Don't wonder why they quarantined buildings that potentially had an envelope containing Anthrax pass through them. It's because it's dangerous.

Thousands of people were gassed in World War I and thousands more have been gassed in Iraq itself. You can trivialize the closeness of soldiers in combat but they aren't any closer than any urban area. Smallpox is devasting spread naturally as are several other of the plague like diseases. How effective do you think they could be?

It doesn't require skilled people to do anything because they don't have to make them, there's plenty around the world already made.

It is ridulous to hope they kill just a few. We lost nearly 3,000 one morning a while back. It's a miracle we didn't lose more. One American life lost to act of terror is unacceptable to me.

[morriswindgate]

22 year old college student whose knowledge comes from listening to professors and teachers with little or no knowledge of weapons versus 51 year old who had 12 years in the U.S. Navy (E1 to E7 in 8 years) Top Secret security clearance, advance classes in NBC (nuc bio chem) warfare.
These weapons are a terrible way for a person to die, soldier or civilian and they are easy to make. And IMHO opinion anybody who has ordered their use or pulled the trigger to fire tehm should die in a horrible way.
To say that only x amount of people died out of a population of xx is very sick attitude. The fact is that in the world today the killers are dictators and want to be dictators, and these people should be hunted down like the animals they are and killed one by one, not reasoned with or negotiated with. Also the dictators in today's world are of the worst type, those who use religion to prepetuate their dictatorships through fanaticism.
I don't mean to get down on you personnaly, but I have been in several countries that managed to get rid of these little dictators (or for that matter the french) and I would shoot them myself if I could for what they did to people in these countries.

[Tuf]

Morris

Eleven years in Special Warfare and I know exactly where you are coming from. I have seen the results of what chemical warfare looks like firsthand and it's not quite as friendly as room freshener as the scuttlebutt would like to infer.

It's beyond belief. But I do believe that compulsory military service for educators that want to delve into such topics should be considered mandatory. Personally I believe every young man should spend his share of time in one branch or another.

Can you imagine the uproar that would cause...lol

[morriswindgate]

Most people do not know the degree of inhumanity these regimes do to innocent civilians, in their quest to retain/gain power or just for the pleasure of giving pain and suffering.
Professors tend to put forth the idea that the U.S. Military is a bunch of criminals and unfortunatly this soaks in to too many students heads.

[mwb1jr]

bomb first, ask questions later

[glc]

Okay, folks - the policy here is to discourage political discussions - which this is. I've left it open because the discussion has been respectful, informative, and nobody is getting ticked off. I'm not going to close or censor it as long as it stays that way. The last post is an example of a post that can warm things up - please refrain from comments like that.

[avx]

LoL, is that why?? haha, I figured this thread would be dead right after Paul Victorey's post...

So how about we stear a little further away from the politics...did anyone see the Dan Rather interview with Saddam, I think he asked pretty easy questions, pooor journalism in my eyes...what do you think...?

[glc]

The interview was totally run and censored by Saddam's people, kinda hard to ask pointed questions under those restrictions.

[avx]

You got a point there glc, but still...Why would Rather even agree to the interview if he knew they were going to have the last say on everything? I think he just did it for ratings sweeps...thats low...

[Doobie]

I personally think Saddam should not destroy his weapons. Either way the U.S. is going to attack. If it is not for the weapons then it will be for some other reason. How convenient to disarm your enemy before you attack.

[glc]

What news shark would ignore an opportunity for an exclusive like that, no matter what the terms?

Ratings - I think you nailed that one on the head.

[wrelax]

they spent billions of dollars mobilizing the troops and machinery over there i don't think they'll just pack up and go on back home if sadaam "complies."

war is inevitable.

[morriswindgate]

War is the only thing that will stop this SOB and the others who look up to him or want to be a dictator like him.

From and earlier post: most weapons have a very small effective radius before they become ineffective.

Tell that to these people. (Sorry GLC, but I cannot handle comments in the vein of, " It only killed a few people."

It was time again, and Payman Azziz looked inside herself to find the courage. The frail girl of 14 slipped the red gown off her right shoulder, stretched out on the floor and stared at the ceiling to gather the strength for what she was about to endure.

Weeks earlier, doctors cut away a mass the size of an orange that had appeared under her arm near her breast, and they decided to leave the wound open so it could heal from the inside out. But infection set in, and now it was time to change the pus-soaked gauze bandage and clean the wound -- a painful twice-a-day ritual.

Payman has never known a healthy day since March 16, 1988, when Iraqi war planes dropped bombs loaded with poison gas and deadly nerve agents on Halabja, killing more than 5,000 people and permanently injuring thousands. The attack, to put down an uprising by the Kurds during the Iraq-Iran war, is often cited by President Bush as evidence of Saddam Hussein's brutality and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.

Though the clouds of mustard gas and nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX enveloped Halabja 15 years ago, the survivors still bear horrific physical and psychological scars.

Payman was just two months old that morning when she choked on her first breath of poisoned air. Doctors say her body reacted as the gas intended, except for one miraculous thing: She survived. Today, growths appear on her body, her joints and glands swell up so that she can barely walk at times, her damaged lungs produce a constant cough and the fatigue is so debilitating that she can only attend school for two months at a time. Doctors watch closely for the first signs of leukemia.

At home, Payman's medical treatment falls to Amna, her mother. Amna knelt at Payman's side and pulled the bandages away, the easy part. Then she held down her daughter's wrist and quickly poured hydrogen peroxide and a dark pink disinfectant into the wound. It was so deep that it took a half-minute for the medicine to bubble up and dribble down her side. Then came a syringe filled with antibiotics.

Payman stiffened, opened her mouth and let out a short, high moan as the needle went in. She looked to her mother and tears streamed.

"She wants to show me how strong she is, but it is too much for her," said her father, Azzia Sulyman. "Every day, when the bandages are changed, I know from looking at her face that she cries more deeply inside herself than what she really lets you hear. The doctors say she is getting better. Who knows?"

The bandages would be changed again in the evening and she would have to gird up again. Payman talked in routine fashion about hating the man who brought this illness upon her.

Then, as if telling the world, she said in an almost proud voice: "I am one of the victims of Halabja."

The widows

The end of the month was here and soon the widows would arrive.

In the office of the Anti-Chemical Weapon Society-Kurdistan, a harried man worked to ensure the day ran smoothly. Aras Abid Akram, 37, readied the roster of names, opened the blue inkpad, made sure the money was stacked and secured. The wall above his desk was filled with wallet-sized black and white photographs of small children.

They are the survivors who depend on his skills and organization to keep the money from drying up.

The doors opened. Widows in black chadors floated through the dim light, past chalk-murals on bed sheets depicting the streets of Halabja in the hours after the bombings, with bodies of dead children in the streets.

One after another the widows stood at Akram's desk and gave their names to be checked off. From under their chadors, they stuck out a thumb, pressed it into the inkpad, marked their fingerprints next to their names on the roster and waited for the money.

Since 1991, Akram and his staff have worked to ensure that each Halabja child who lost a parent in the gas bombings receives support. Under his direction of the Halabja chapter of Kurdistan Save the Children, scores of families have been able to remain intact, rebuilding their lives in the city instead of in a maze of United Nations refugee tents. Currently, more than 270 children in Halabja receive assistance, the average payment per child the equivalent of $9 a month, Akram said.

Bakhan Hamad, 40, smiled at Akram as she received her small wad of old blue and purple dinars. She'd barely made it through the month and she was heading straight to the market. Without hesitation, she recounted the day that brings her -- every 30 days -- to Akram's desk. She lost her husband and four of her nine children that day.

"After the first bombs, I ran with all my children towards a village, but by the time we crossed a small stream the chemical bomb cloud was there and the water poisoned us," she said. "The children smelled the chemical all at the same moment and fell dead. They did not cry. They were just gone. The others, the ones who are alive, lost their sight temporarily. My youngest was a boy, four months. He died in my arms. The other three were my daughters, all under six."

There was no time to mourn, not if she and her husband were to save the rest. They left the bodies of their children along the stream bank and ran upwind, moving in the opposite direction of the clouds of poison. She said she doesn't know how they outran the gas or why she survived and her husband eventually died.

Days later, when she came down from the mountains, the bodies of her children were gone. "I don't know where they've been buried," she said.

Akram closed the office shortly after lunch. He walked to the Halabja Martyr's Cemetery and stood in front of an oval mound ringed knee-high with boulders. A black metal sign listed the names with a final inscription: "These are the victims of the chemical attack."

In that mass grave are the bodies of 22 of Akram's relatives, including his parents, three brothers and seven sisters.

"Every evening I come here to remember my memories about my family and the cruelties of Saddam Hussein," Akram said. "That day, we'd been bombarded heavily, and we stayed inside to play with the children to keep them calm. When you haven't any chance to get out, you're without hope. But we couldn't let them know. They stayed in our laps most of the time."

After a day of bombing, he left the house that evening. Outside, he walked over bodies and made it to a stream where hundreds of people were bleeding and vomiting. Children cried, wandering in the darkness, searching for their parents. Animal carcasses dotted the hills. He remembers being flown on an Iranian Army helicopter over the mountains for treatment. He returned three days later.

Akram found some of his relatives' bodies in the house lying "on top of each other with breaths of pain on all their faces." He found others in the scoop of a front-end loader that was collecting bodies.

"And then I became so confused that my mind is not the same. Today, I work for the ones who lived through all this. That is my only comfort."

A father's face

Morning came and Omar Ali Muhammed said he was sad that he was still alive.

The cancer is voracious and keeps eating away at his face. A mustard gas explosion is what triggered his cancer, doctors say. Beyond the skin and muscle, the gas has eaten away at his spirit to live.

There is a gaping hole from his eyebrow to below his cheekbone. The tissue is raw and bleeds into his nasal cavity. Tumors cover the socket where his eye should be. New tumors grow on top of old ones.

Each day he sits on a concrete floor, the air thick with the smell of kerosene heat. His grandchildren, wife and children putter around him.

From his mouth come these words: "I think there is no good in the world. I am finished and want to go. That fight was between Iraq and Iran, and we Kurds were caught in the middle. We became the victims of both sides. I felt the gas on my face and an hour later it began to feel distorted. It hasn't stopped since. Look at me."

When Sonija Muhammed, 31, stares at what has become of her father's face, she doesn't talk of sadness or victimization. She spits her words to the West -- to the corporations that sold the weapons, the governments that encouraged it and lastly at a reporter.

"Now you come," Sonija said in disgust. "Where were you then? How do you think this really happened? How do you think Saddam got these weapons?"

Sonija recounted how the United States and European nations were allied with Iraq against Iran at the time and had aided Saddam. The countries supplied Iraq with chemicals, missile components and computers that had military uses.

"France, England, Germany, and the United States -- all of your governments provided Iraq with weapons and the materials for him to make these chemical bombs. And for what? Because he had the money to pay. And then when he got them from you, he took them to drop on us. Now you come years later when it is too late. To talk to this old man and make money for your newspaper by letting your people see what has happened to his face. Look at my father. Where was the West? What were you thinking?

"We demand for America to finally help us."

Healing

The boy was 15 and wise. He had to be. Bakhtiar Faiq's parents had left Halabja a year earlier for Iran, seeing no end to a war that had already dragged on for eight years. He decided to stay and, except for an aunt, he was on his own.

As his parents predicted, war came to Halabja because Iranian troops and local Kurdish sympathizers controlled the city. By March 1988, the air attacks came closer and closer to the city. By the middle of the month, the boy's gut told him to get out of town and he convinced his aunt to trek 6 miles into the mountains. The next morning, he saw the jets.

"Eight planes," Faiq said. "Four attacked while the other four guarded them. It went from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. First the rockets -- all kinds of explosive bombs -- to drive the people inside. Then about half past two there was a different sound, a low sound, and I could see and smell the difference. It was a heavier gas that would go into the cellars where the people hid. The birds and the animals died first from these bombs. They smelled like garlic or apples. The Iranian soldiers up in the mountains . . . told us it was the beginning of the chemical attack. . . .

"My aunt and I, we were waiting for death. I put cloth over my mouth so I wouldn't breathe the cloud. The soldiers said it was mustard gas and nerve agents.

"I remembered thinking that if I lived through it, I would become a doctor and try to heal the people who lived through this nightmare."

He kept the promise he made to himself.

Now 30, Faiq rises early in the morning to work in the Halabja Martyr's Hospital. In the afternoon, he runs a clinic in the heart of the city. About 50,000 people live in Halabja. Faiq is one of the 10 overwhelmed doctors who serve them.

He is undaunted by the work, he said, while taking a break at his clinic. "I am doing what I dreamed that day up on the mountain, and I can see it is helping my people.

"There are, still, at least 5,000 people who are being treated for the attacks 15 years ago," he said. "I see it all -- history of convulsions, tremors from nerve damage, cancer, leukemia. Babies born from survivors are coming in with congenital defects, cleft palates, abnormal feet or hands. I have 27 to 30 small children like that.

"A great many of my patients are on anti-depressants. There are all sorts of neurological issues, but the worst long-term effect is the psychological damage done to these people who've lost families."

When he stepped back from his day's work and looked out across the market at the people he treats, he wondered aloud: "Even now, no one really helps Halabja, even though they're learning the history of Saddam Hussein. Every country had an interest in protecting him. Now those interests have changed against him."

[morriswindgate]

Maybe it is time to close this one.

[glc]

Yeah - I think you are right. Time to take this one to Forumclick.