Healing	Iraq    An interview with    Dr. Salam Ismael    Conducted by    Dr. Maureen McCue    March 17, 2006    Oxford, UK
Following is a literal transcript of a 16 minute video prepared for the March 25, 2006 Conference in Iowa City, IA:  Medical Consequences of War:  Health Challenges Beyond the Battlefield. Dr. Ismael was in the UK for less than two weeks of rest before returning to Iraq.
Falluja was the action that changed all my life.  I entered.  I saw misery.  I saw death, violation basic human rights, basic Geneva Convention, basic humanitarian, you know....basic everything.
Maybe one of the major things I remember is how they prevent us from going to the hospital.  Because this is the way of the American troops.  Whenever they raid a city, especially Falluja, they go and they cut the bridge, isolate everyone from the hospital, and prevent everyone to go to the hospital itself.  I was crossing the bridge to go to the hospital.  When I entered immediately to the, inside the city, and an American soldier was behind me, two doctors with me from the same area I'm in, and patients.
	One just said, I remember, he said to me….I just  told him I am doctor, and this is my ID, and he just said to me:  “fuck off.”  And I had to turn back and we turned back.  We start to establish field clinics inside the city itself.   So we used the primary health clinic to be field clinics.
And I was working in the main field clinics in Falluja city in the first siege.  But more what I witnessed inside is….it’s a crime.  It's a crime I cannot forget.  And also I am trying to sue who made that a crime.  Because this is our duty, we have to stand as doctors for our belief in the justice of our patients.
In the third day of the siege, they used the cluster bomb preparing to the marines to strike the area.  And In that day we didn’t work as doctors, we just collecting the heads of children and women.  Heads and limbs and I remember our duty is just to find the appropriate limb with the appropriate body and head so we can put in one bag so we can prepare it for being buried out.
That night was six hours. It was so long, six hours.   And I have....it was one of the famous pictures on Al Jazeera, of child, his brains opened, it was all his brains [motions to back of the head].  It was famous picture.  I’ve carried that child with my hands….is part of eight, four children and four women….all of them are just pieces. I think it’s seventh day of the siege or something like that and they called us and they told us that the family there had been trapped inside the house.  So everyone was afraid of taking the ambulance.  So I took the ambulance with me.  A friend of mine who encouraged me told me that we had to go.  He took the ambulance.  I was with him.  I don’t say was afraid; I was completely scared.  And because this area is call the sniping area or the ghost area, because this area is controlled by American snipers and the American snipers when you go there they don’t care whether it’s ambulance, an ambulance and they shoot anything on earth……And I was remembering that my heart is beating so strong that could any beat is a bullet in my head.  And we entered that dark quarter with all scenes and sounds, sounds and lights of ambulance.
	We tried to reach the car, a car that was shot recently in the middle of the street in front of house.  And I just saw that upper part is newly burned, upper part of man burning inside the front seat of car [demonstrates holding a steering wheel].  I saw a child.  He is on front bonnet of the car.  He smashed, I think, smashed the front window and [was] on the front bonnet and that child I now remember is burning, the fire on him, and he was just moving like this [demonstrates slow crawling motion with arms] on front bonnet of car.  And there was two women, I don’t recognize them as women but just they are from shouting, the sound of shouting and because of the missile hit near by the car, block all of the doors.  They are burning also inside….inside the car.  I remember that so well as yesterday.  We were about, only about 40 meters, something like that, from 40 [or] 30, meters from the car, and then start shooting on us, on the ambulance, and we stopped the ambulance.  We tried to get out.  Whenever put one step outside the ambulance, they shoot us again, as warning.  And went inside, inside the ambulance and closed the ambulance doors.  And we….actually I, I was crying until they became charcoal.  And that is also thing I never forget.…I never forget.
We have only two ambulances in the whole medical city, two ambulances.  One of them was working, and the driver was [Majid Akhmed.]  He’s a poor person.  He is looking after his family.  He is only one mother and his wife and his son, is his family to look after.  He went to take a patient to his home…and in the road.  He didn’t come back.
And he spend six months in prison Abu Ghraib because he stopped in a checkpoint.  The dog, he went inside the ambulance to sniff the ambulance.  He sniffed….TNT smell.  But after that they search everything.  After that six months they say to him we are apologize because the dog snuff wrongly.  Six months spent in the prison because the mistake of a dog that snuff the ambulance because he used a new deodorant on the dashboard and then this dog snuff it and he spent six month in the prison in Abu Ghraib.  And he’s the ambulance driver, and they hold the ambulance with him. And there is a road bomb, here….explode.  They will go the nearest city or town nearby the road bomb and they will siege it.  Prevent food from getting inside, getting outside.  They cut the utility, and this is happening in Falluja itself.  I remember so well, we were taking into this ghost area, there were snipers everywhere in it.  We were opening the side door of the ambulance and carrying bread and throw it as if there are refugees inside their houses in that area because the sniping everywhere.  So we are throwing the bread inside the houses.  They cut the electricity, electricity and water from that district.  They cut it for several, several weeks in that district.  And they know there is families inside and whenever we take a container of plastic, of water, and put outside the houses, the sniper directly shoot that container.  Until now, I remember this, these moments.  And this is, you can say to me, this is upholding of human right?  This is a way of upholding human right?  This is crime against human right, actually.
	I take all the examples of medical type of breaches is happen in Iraq.  All of it.  Medical units have been attacked.  Inside Falluja siege four field clinics have been bombed, four field clinics in the two sieges, four field clinics have been bombed.  [Hadid] Hospital had been attacked.  We count about 40 attack in 2004; 40 attack against medical units in Iraq.  Medical personnels?  [Sigh] That’s…..you can’t find the list, it's so big.  Medical persons have been detained because they have been accused of treating of
insurgents.  I know for me, and this was my….the effort of some of my doctors now to work on to find the names and numbers of doctors who have been now inside the prison.  And the list is big!  Because of what?  Because they have been accused of treating insurgents.  According to medical neutrality, the right to health, all the humanitarian law which is in the Geneva convention….as a doctor, according to medical ethics, we have the right, the obligation that we have to treat everyone regardless of his background….Regardless.  And how do we know this person who comes is an insurgent?  He’s in civilian clothes.  And even, we know, we have to treat him because he is injured.  When I get out from Falluja there is nothing called Geneva Conventions,  I didn’t believe in it.  But what happened inside is totally against Geneva Conventions.
Targeting the medical units, targeting the medical personnel, targeting medical convoys.  We have also the refugees, the rights of refugees.  Because according to Geneva Conventions and all types of refugees according to UN regulations, you have to provide them with shelter.  When you ask the city to be evacuated, it is your responsibility to provide them with a shelter for the refugees.  That is not happen in the two sieges of Falluja.  And they left the people to face their own destiny.   Random arresting.  Detain people; nobody knows where they are. We lost one of our colleagues, one of the brilliant, he is ranked number one on the all Arab Council of Internal Medicine.  We lost him in one bullet.  If that bullet knows what it’s killing inside Iraq,  those scientific people, figures, if these bullets knows that, I’m sure these bullets will not enter in the bodies of these people…. I’m sure. There are many, many hospitals have been bombed in Iraq.  And after the bombing, the looting finishes what bombing started.  From 18 hospitals in Baghdad, 11 have been looted.   From, about I think, number is two main water sanitation, water stations, have been bombed. Now the corruption is widespread.  The UN put Iraq in their report is one of the top countries in corruption, the rate of corruption.  And the corruption is not only limited to the Iraqis, it is also the American Company is participating with that. They are now painting the walls, and they are changing the marble of front yard of the hospitals.  [Filling] laptops, the department with laptops but if you go to the pharmacy there is not enough medication, or [supply] of medication for two months in the pharmacy.
		I entered rooms of patients.  Inside there is guns.  Inside the rooms of patients.  One of the doctors is being threatened by putting the guns in his head and they told him:  “If my patient will die you will die after him.”
	And the other one, they took him by gun to the theatre room to make the operation.
So that’s why we are saying how there is insecurity, no security, for the health system workers or health professionals, for doctors and health staff.  How can they work effectively when they have been threatened in this way?  So we would like to find the real government can come on and take over and be the law of the government and not the militia or the law of who is carrying the gun.
I believe it’s a….I know it’s a….a big task….And peace can never be enforced by violence.  This is a statement; I believe in it, really.  It’s a big task, but…..also I believe that individuals can make a change.  There’s the bad and the good everywhere in the world and it’s not just me.…….So we have to bring the bridges first.  And I think the best way is by this communication and helping.  The help is one of the bridges that can be built.  How we can help?  This is the question:  How we can help?  We can help by maybe I think to bring this, highlighting the problems.  Speak about it.  Carrying this message out.  This is before anything else. Because it is for our solidarity all us that we are facing these challenges and fighting for the same purpose which is the right to health.  For this is our purpose as doctors and health professionals.  It is part of our medical ethics and part of our oath that we make
toward ourselves, toward our God, and toward our patients.
Dr. Salam Ismael is Director of Continuous Medical Education, Doctors for Iraq Society. www.doctorsforiraq.org Production Coordination:  Dr. Judith Cook and Marion Birch of Medact. www.medact.org Content Adviser/Interviewer:  Dr. Maureen McCue, Coordinator Iowa PSR www.iowa-psr.org Still Photos:  Dr. Salam Ismael Video Editor:  Kevin Kelley