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** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

February 02, 2005

Casualties of Polling

He writhes in pain, moaning with every other breath. The Iraqi police
colonel’s chest is covered in bandages, his legs from the knees down
nearly completely hidden from view due to thick bandages
holding what is left of his shins together.

“We gave him first aid and requested a transfer because we don’t have
any specialists left,” Dr. Aisha tells me, her name changed as requested
since doctors are now technically forbidden to talk to the media or
allow them to take photos in Iraqi hospitals unless granted permission
from the Ministry of Health and its US-advisor.

And even then we are only allowed to talk with “spokespeople” at select
hospitals.

Yarmouk would certainly not be on the top of their list of hospitals for
the press to visit, as being one of Baghdad’s larger and busiest
hospitals and located in the middle of the capital city the majority of
casualties are brought here.

The colonel’s face is scrunched up as his pain is constant. Involuntary
whimpers are audible as he squeezes his eyes closed from time to time,
dreaming of relief.

“We sent him to a neurological hospital which couldn’t treat him because
all of their specialists have left the country,” Dr. Aisha continues.
Her frustration is expressed in her precisely spoken words, hammering
out the details like a veteran on the front lines.

So the colonel was returned to Yarmouk untreated. He’d been guarding a
polling station when a suicide bomber detonated nearby. The shrapnel
turned his legs into hamburger and left his chest split open.

“I asked him not to leave the house, not to obey the Americans,” his
wife who is standing nearby with their little boy and girl tells me,
“But he said that he had to go or the Americans would cut his salary.
And also because he said it was his duty.”

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