Posted on 04/05/2003 7:37:12 PM PST by 11th_VA
BAGHDAD — Omar Al Hadithi is beyond tough. He keeps struggling to rise from his hospital bed and return to join elite Iraqi forces for one last battle against advancing US troops who have taken control of Baghdad’s main airport.
The 23-year-old lies on his bed, staring at bloodstains on the floor of his room at the Al Yarmuk Educational Hospital while holding the bandage covering a wound just under his heart.
Then, he suddenly lifts his upper body, rests on his palms and slowly utters in a voice revealing tremendous pain: “I am ready to go back to the front.”
“I want to get up, and go back to the fight. I will fight again, and again and again. I will fight for Iraq till I become a martyr,” he said.
The crowd of relatives, friends, journalists and nurses gathered around his bed freezes in silence.
Omar says he is a “proud” member of the special forces of Iraq’s elite Republican Guards, headed by Saddam’s son and heir apparent Qusay, and who have been behind the resistance to the US occupation of the airport.
Since late Thursday, Iraqi elite troops have been engaged with US troops who announced yesterday afternoon they had seized control of Saddam International Airport, just 20km from the city centre.
But Omar does not share this opinion.
“They are liars, the airport is still in our hands,” he proclaims, before falling back from fatigue.
“Let George Bush hear this: We will never give up Iraq or Saddam Hussein. And Bush knows exactly who the Republican Guards are and who their special forces are,” he said, as if addressing the US president in person.
Omar explains that Iraqi elite troops “kicked out the enemy troops from the airport last night, but they returned this morning.”
“I was there when they tried to land their helicopters on the tarmac, but we opened fire and prevented them from doing so. Then their warplanes came to the rescue by bombarding the area and parachuting soldiers,” he said.
“But we hunted them down, we resisted fiercely, and we killed them all,” he said, adding: “It is true that they hit us hard, that we lost martyrs and suffered wounded soldiers, but this is an honour for us.”
The airport battle may be one of the most crucial phases so far in the US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein, but has received little coverage here.
US forces declare their complete control over the facility, a claim rejected by Iraqi authorities. No definitive figures on casualties have been disclosed either.
Officials at the Al Yarmuk hospital, and even the relatives of the casualties, do not confirm that the wounded young men are soldiers, saying only that “they were wounded in the evil American bombings.”
But the nurses are handling a never-ending flow of small civilian buses carrying well-built young men, with gaping gunshot wounds and wrapped in wool blankets, who are loaded on to dozens of stretchers.
Bloodstains on the floor are the easiest way to find the emergency room of the hospital, where clearly overwhelmed doctors were operating in rather poor sanitary conditions.
The young men are then moved to wards from where no moans or cries are heard.
“They are soldiers, they are tough” explains a nurse before rushing to scold a group of people surrounding a young man.
“Move, let him breathe. This is a soldier, our nation needs him,” she said firmly, drawing an immediate response to such a patriotic statement.
Omar, whose story summarises the state of mind of the wounded soldiers around him, is asked by his cousins if he had killed any US troops. He answers: “Until I fell wounded.” — Reuters
WAR-HIT: Wounded Iraqi soldiers being treated in the emergency room of a hospital in Baghdad yesterday. — AFP
Just wait a day or two - the front will be delivered to you free of charge!
“I want to get up, and go back to the fight. I will fight again, and again and again. I will fight for Iraq till I become a martyr,” he said.
Reality check! In Saddam's mind he's not much use a solider. Sounds like he's terrified of being executed and used as media propaganda as a civilian victim of the coalition.
Yes, he knows they are dead.
He wants to go back to the front so he can surrender and get real medical help...
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