Posted on 05/26/2004 5:52:25 AM PDT by kristinn
Nazaar Joudi raised his new mechanical right hand Tuesday, recounting the moment he and fellow Iraqis had promised President Bush they would put those appendages to good use: Hammering down the walls of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
"With this hand we will begin to destroy that terrible place," Joudi said after a private meeting with Bush in the Oval Office, where the Iraqis described being arrested on Saddam Hussein's orders and having their healthy hands amputated at Abu Ghraib.
"That place is a symbol of darkness and death to us; we are happy to know it will be destroyed," said his friend, Salah Zinad.
Meeting with Bush was the latest high point in an improbable journey that has taken the seven men from Baghdad to Houston for extensive reconstructive surgery to replace their severed limbs, to a private meeting with the leader of the free world.
The men, along with Texas television personality Marvin Zindler, Houston surgeon Joe Agris and documentary producer Don North--who all played major roles in getting the men fitted with $50,000 mechanical hands--spent about 45 minutes with the president.
The meeting came the day after Bush began a campaign to quell growing anxiety in the United States and Iraq about the course of the war.
Monday, Bush outlined a five-step plan for the Iraq war and promised to level the Abu Ghraib prison, scene of scandalous photographs of Americans humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners. The prison already was notorious as the site of torture and executions of Iraqis by Saddam.
Tuesday's meeting with the Iraqis victimized by Saddam gave the president an opportunity to sound some of the same themes as in his Monday night speech.
"I assured them we have a plan to help Iraq achieve free elections," Bush said. "They were pleased to hear America will stay to help with security. ... There's no doubt in my mind their children will come to America one day and say thank goodness America stood the line and was strong and did not falter in the face of the violence of a few."
The Iraqis said they found the modest dignity of the White House a pleasant surprise from the bloated marble monstrosities erected by Saddam. And they were shocked at what they saw as the folksy demeanor of the president.
When I first walked into the White House, it was like I was surrounded by a halo," said Qassim Kadhim. "Then suddenly we were with the president, and he made us feel we were with a friend, that he understood us. For the most powerful man in the world to be so warm, it was the apex of my life."
Polls taken in Iraq have shown that a clear majority of Iraqis want Americans to leave as soon as possible. Iraqis think the U.S.-led coalition is doing more harm than good and view the American troops as occupiers, according to recent surveys.
But the Iraqis who met with Bush on Tuesday said the president is waging a war that will shape their futures in a positive way.
"This new hand of mine is like Iraq, with the help of generous Americans it gets better day by day," said Bassim Al Fadhly.
Al Fadhly and the others said the images they have seen on television of their country in the seven weeks they have been in America are misleading and incomplete. "Having lived my whole life in Iraq, I can tell you America is not getting the real picture. There are good things happening every day and no one is seeing them. And every bad thing is exaggerated."
Joudi said the past year has been difficult for Iraq but that he believed the painful change will be worth it.
"The previous regime was totally despotic and brutal. We jumped from that to an open democracy. So mistakes were going to take place, but we can fix them," he said.
Nine years ago the seven men were in Abu Ghraib, awaiting the terrifying moment when they'd be placed on a gurney so a surgeon could slice off their limbs while Saddam's secret police videotaped the mutilation.
The men say they were arrested by the regime at a time when the economic embargo of Iraq by the United Nations and Saddam's mismanagement had wrecked the country's economy. They were picked to serve as scapegoats by Saddam, they said. The men, small-business owners in various precincts of Baghdad, were charged with currency manipulation, given a cursory 30-minute trial and thrown intoAbu Ghraib.
On the night before they lost their hands, Joudi wrote to his wife, telling her he was using his right hand a final time to urge her not to despair, but to trust in destiny: "(For me) the price is my right hand. Hopefully, Allah will replace it with an even better one ... "
For several years, it seemed unlikely that prayer would be answered. The men struggled to cope with the daily severe pain and the psychological trauma of the amputations.
Then, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in the spring of 2003, North, who was working as a contractor helping to set up media outlets in post-Saddam Iraq, was shown a video of the men being mutilated.
He became obsessed with finding the men and hearing their stories. Once he had done that, he recorded the story in a documentary film called Remembering Saddam. As he became more involved with the men, he conceived a grander vision -- why not help them recover the use of their hands? "This was part of my dream," North said after the White House meeting.
Through a chain of circumstances that included a chance encounter with a Houston contractor in Baghdad, North got in touch with Zindler and Agris. After months of stops and starts, the Iraqis were flown to Houston on a complimentary flight by Continental Airlines in early April. Their hands were replaced by state-of-the-art "bionic" models earlier this month.
"They are doing very well with the new hands," said Agris, who performed the surgeries. "Some are already expert enough to tie their shoelaces and operate a camera."
Agris and North are pondering a return to Iraq, in part so Agris can do some follow-up treatment and help other Iraqis victimized by Saddam and the war.
"The Ministry of Health has invited us," said Agris. "The question is whether they are ready for a team like I'd put together to go there. It is up to the (coalition authorities)."
The Iraqi men will soon go home, full of tales of the White House and of the warmth and generosity of the people in Houston. They will return to Iraq more physically whole and fuller spiritually as well.
"What had been stolen from us has been returned," Joudi said. "We have traveled a road from the worst possible treatment in our own land to the best treatment we could imagine in this lovely country."
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For seven Iraqis, new limbs once seemed an impossible dream: •The men had their hands cut off at Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam Hussein's regime.
•They had extensive reconstructive surgery to replace their severed limbs in Houston.
•The prosthetic hand detects electric pulses from muscle movements on either side of the forearm, triggering motors to open and close the thumb, middle finger and forefinger.
•Sensors in the fingers can detect an object slipping and increase the grip.
The foreign fighters come in on what is called "the rat line". Definitely up to no good.
Thank you for this post and I'll search your name for your interview report.
Can't wait to read your account kristinn!
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