Director Luay Qasha of the Mansour hospital in Baghdad is, like so many Iraqis after 20 years of war, a fatalist. He smokes heavily, loves rich foods and is preparing his hospital for an attack by the United States.
Qasha, a pathologist who trained in London, has a naturally cheerful disposition. An Anglophile, as are most of his generation of Iraqis, he is happiest talking about Manchester United soccer club, British shops and, best of all, British food.
He turned reluctantly to the US threat, his mood instantly sombre. ”We are stockpiling medicines for war,” he said. ”It is sensible. We are keeping aside bandages, fluids, antibiotics. We are getting the operating wards ready. These are the most important things in time of war.”
Qasha (48) is in charge of a 300-bed hospital. ”If there is war, we will be here 24 hours every day. I will be, and the nurses: all the staff. We will have resting stations in the hospital. We have a generator in the basement.”
Iraqis have a strong sense of pride and patriotism, whatever their personal feelings about their President, Saddam Hussein. Qasha is no different: ”We will cope. It is not the first attack by the States.”
The general population has been getting ready too. ”Everyone has extra food, water, oil, candles, bicycles. You should have these things because of the threat,” he said.
The Iraqis cite as one of the reasons for their concern the sudden influx of journalists into Baghdad: 250, according to the Ministry of Information. ”We are not stupid. We know why you have come,” one resident said. ”Journalists come when there is war.”
But they also have other, more realistic, indications. They listen frequently to radio and television news updates, and know that the US is not satisfied with the offer to let the United Nations weapons inspectors return.
There was no sign on Wednesday that the Canal hotel, the headquarters of the inspectors until they left in 1998, was being readied for their arrival. The UN flag was flying over the heavily guarded compound but there appeared to be no one other than Iraqi sentries around. One guard said: ”I hope they are not going to come back. We will have nothing but trouble.”
The inspectors were unpopular with the government, who claimed they made unreasonable demands. There was an attack on the compound in January 1998 when a rocket grenade was fired from the street. Any such problems this time round could see a swift move by the US to war.
The population of Baghdad is bracing itself for two wars: the US bombing, expected to be followed by invasion; and the civil war, followed by Saddam’s downfall. The latter is the one the people of Baghdad fear most. The Iraqis have a long list of grievances against their president and there are a lot of scores to be settled.
Those around Saddam, especially in his Ba’ath party, know what to expect and will not give up power easily. They remember the slaughter of Ba’ath members in the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991 when the Shia Muslim population rose up against Saddam.
A Western diplomat said it was difficult to predict the reaction of the population to a US invasion. ”The country is extraordinarily tied down. It is a regime that has lots of security agencies. People are being watched or assume they are being watched. There are whole sections of society that are excluded by the government but, from survival instinct, they will do nothing. But if they thought he was going, they would move. They will not die in a ditch for him. They might wait until the US troops were 50 miles from Baghdad.”
He expected the US to go ”to extraordinary lengths to minimise civilian casualties. Although there are no guarantees with smart weapons, they are better than during the Gulf War.”
There are few visible signs round Baghdad of the gearing up for war. There are hardly any anti-aircraft batteries to be seen, no tanks at important junctions and relatively few soldiers.
The diplomat cautioned against writing off the Iraqi military: ”We do not know what the state of preparedness is but it would be a mistake to think they are an enfeebled force. They have had a chance to replenish since the Gulf War and if it comes to military action, it is different from ’91. They would be defending their homeland.”
There is bafflement in a country, in which so many of the middle-classes were educated in Britain, that Prime Minister Tony Blair should be involved too. At times this bafflement turns to anger: assurances to British journalists that nothing is held against them personally are punctuated with increasing explosions of outrage at the British government.
Qasha is not prone to such outbursts. His main concern, apart from the prospect of war, is his patients, especially those in the cancer wards.
It is almost obligatory for any visitor to Iraq to be shown round cancer wards by doctors. These doctors routinely denounce US imperialism and blame an increase in cancer cases on UN sanctions imposed after the Gulf War and the impact of depleted uranium shells from that war.
Sanctions have been lifted on most goods but vital medical supplies and equipment remain banned. The UN body that decides what items can and cannot go to Iraq vetoes radiotherapy equipment and the drugs to carry out bone marrow transplants. The equipment is labelled ”dual use”: the UN, under pressure from the US, said it has potential military as well as medical applications and fears Iraq could use it to make a ”dirty bomb”.
Qasha, without rancour, dismissed this as scientifically impossible. ”Who has ever heard of a nuclear bomb being made with cobalt? They are made from plutonium or uranium.”
In one of the wards, Swama Yassin (4) dangled his legs over his bed. Qasha said the child needed a bone marrow transplant and that was not possible in Iraq. What were his chances? ”GOK,” Qasha said, ”God only knows.” He added: ”With a transplant, he has a 70% chance of success. Without it, his chances are not very good.”
And now there was the prospect of war; he considered that hardest of all to take. ”Do you love war?” Qasha said at the end of the ward tour. He was not really expecting an answer. ”I do not love war,” he said. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002