Posted on 04/15/2003 4:20:10 PM PDT by jjm2111
CRIPPLED Iraqi youngster Ali Ismaeel Abbas tonight left his Baghdad hospital for lifesaving surgery in Kuwait.
The 12-year-old boy, who lost both arms and suffered 60 per cent burns to his body when his home was bombed, was airlifted out of Iraq.
America gave the go-ahead yesterday after Tony Blair ordered all the stops pulled out in a bid to save Ali's life.
The PM's pledge - made as the Daily Mirror Ali appeal fund topped £140,000 - followed a letter published in the Mirror from Ali's nurse Fatin Sharhah pleading with President Bush and Britain.
Fatin explained how he would die unless he was given specialist care.
"Please send one of your helicopters or planes," she begged. 'You have all this technology to bomb us, to make the missile that burned Ali's house.
"But you cannot spare one aircraft for one day to save a life."
Today a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Kuwait confirmed Ali would be treated in one of the country's hospitals.
Dr Ahmad Al Shatti said: "We're expecting him any time. We're just waiting to receive him through the right channels. We're waiting for the Alliance.
"I just received instruction from the Minister of Health that during the governmental cabinet meeting they decided to fly Ali here.
"We have been told to make everything possible to bring the child in. This is a direct response to the media news about this child Ali. It's worth noting that Ali will be the ninth Iraqi kid to receive specialist treatment in Kuwait since the start of the war.
"I'm very optimistic. If he arrives in the right time, he will survive."
The airlift to ferry the 12-year-old gives a lifeline to the desperately ill youngster.
Staying in hospital at Baghdad, where conditions are chaotic and specialist care lacking, would have spelled death.
Now Ali, who lost his arms and has third degree burns to 60 per cent of his body, will be assessed by doctors at a burns and plastic surgery clinic.
Their expertise might stave off possibly fatal blood poisoning stemming from Ali's severe injuries.
The breakthrough - amid mounting pressure for Britain and America to aid the war's innocent victims - followed a day of frenzied negotiations between US military officials, Iraqi doctors, Ali's family and journalists.
The Pentagon also came under pressure from Downing Street after heart-rending photographs of Ali, lying helpless in Saddam City general hospital, went round the world.
Yesterday Tony Blair ordered aides and the British military to make every effort to save Ali's life, fearful that the boy's plight would undermine the coalition's stance on concern for injured civilians.
He told MPs in the Commons: "We are in touch with the authorities in respect of cases such as this, which are not in our zone of control.
"We will do whatever we can to help him (Ali) and to help others, because there are others in a similar position.
"In the last 24 hours two Iraqi children have been flown to the UK for treatment. We are working with US forces to see what we can do."
Baghdad's hospitals, wrecked by looters after the collapse of Saddam's regime, are unable to cope.
Initially there was concern that Ali might be too ill to move, after a stray missile shattered his family home 13 miles from Baghdad - leaving him an orphan.
One option was to fly a team of skilled surgeons into Baghdad once the US army had declared the area around the hospital safe.
But Ali's worsening condition made that idea unworkable, and last night brought about a sudden change of plan.
The last-ditch mission is still fraught with difficulties. Medical experts warn that he may not survive the journey south into Kuwait.
Final details were agreed by doctors, Ali's relatives and US military officials at dawn today.
Last week, Ali had told reporters from his hospital bed: "Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?"
With an improvised metal cage over his chest to stop his burns touching the sheets, he described how his father, his brother and mother - who was five months pregnant - died in the missile blast.
Ali's face - astonishingly unmarked - came to symbolise the suffering of the innocent during the conflict.
Yesterday another Iraqi boy, aged 14 and with severe burns, was being treated in a hospital in Birmingham.
The youngster, who arrived on a military aircraft, had been brought unconscious to a field hospital where medics made the decision to send him to Britain.
It is not yet known whether his injuries were a direct result of the war.
Six-month-old Mareyam Ailan, who was badly burned in a domestic house fire in Basra, was also given life-saving aid in Britain at the end of March.
The British military arranged the flight to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool after the child's parents saw soldiers in the field.
Aid agencies yesterday joined the outcry at the Government's decision to withdraw a field hospital and medical ship from the Gulf, while Iraqi facilities are in chaos.
Richard Lloyd, director of Landmine Action, said the pullout was "appalling".
He said it showed "callous disregard" for Iraqi civilians.
Christian Aid said: "When we are still waiting to see much promised humanitarian action, it seems incredibly insensitive."
Care International, which has 60 staff working in Iraq, said: "All resources should be used for treating the wounded."
Arab and other Third World countries should note that only the West would pull out the stops to save enemy lives while they massacre women and children; torture and rape indescrimately. This is the difference between us and them.
We should pray for our troops. But we should also pray for those caught in the way; who through no fault of their own and not of their own choosing make great sacrifices.
Note: I realize the Mirror is doing quite a bit of editorializng here, and from all accounts we are putting lots of medical equipment on the ground in Iraq. The pictures, however, struck me.
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And BTW, where did they take this young man to get real help? And who is it that will see that he gets the best care?
Some, and I don't remember their screen handles, sometimes treat our ordnance like big boys toys. I've seen comments like "MOAB, MOAB, MOAB" and stuff like that. Yeah, it's fun riding (and driving) an M1A2, shooting an M2, etc. (I can only imagine what flying a fighter jet is like). I realize the us vs. them aspect of war, but I've seen some gleeful comments.
And BTW, where did they take this young man to get real help? And who is it that will see that he gets the best care?
BTW, did you read my comments?
"BUT TELL ME SOMETHING... if we didn't use the incredible arsenal that we have to stop the "leaders" of this country who were torturing the people of this country in ways we will never see pictures of, what future would this boy have had? "
He still doesn't have arms. It's a small comfort to him that he is no longer living under a brutal tortocracy.
How long did it take you to find one sad case that you could whine about? I would expect that in every war from the beginning of time, there have been extremely sad cases. Yet, if we took no action because of these sad cases, we would have Hitler killing the entire Jewish population, overtaking the world and installing his ovens in areas to kill even more.
We would have Saddam sending chemicals or biologicals on any of his enemies standing in the way of his dictator goals. We would have him providing WMD to terrorists all over the world and you would then have thousands, thousands, thousands of these sad cases. All of your whining would fall on deaf ears with Saddam as he even viewed video tapes of the horrors and tortures he caused.
You know full well why America took action, you know full well America does not wish such happenings on any children, you know full well America is the best hope of any country on earth. Yet, you seek to criticize an action that was necessary for who knows what goals you have in mind.
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