Death squads roam Baghdad's hospitals

[sabra]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2483899,00.html

Death squads roam Baghdad's hospitals

EVERYONE seems to be desperate for money to cope with the insecurities of life in Baghdad these days, so Dr Salim Jawad was not surprised when a hospital porter took him to one side and asked whether he would be interested in making some cash.

Jawad, a busy surgeon and a Sunni, thought he was going to be urged to smuggle drugs out of the building so that they could be sold on the street. But the brutal proposition from the porter Ali, a Shi’ite from the Sadr City suburb of the capital, was far more shocking.

For every patient the doctor identified from the predominantly Sunni provinces of Diyala and Anbar and from the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad, he was told, he would be paid $300 (£151).

Jawad realised that he was being invited to pass death sentences on patients at the Medical City hospital in return for swift and surreptitious payments.

[0rganism]

1. Really? score another "victory for democracy" in the bush column, then

State-sponsored killers turn hospitals into morgues. Mission Accomplished.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. "Let freedom reign!"

[Crunchy Frog]

3. I wonder how many people are dying

just because they're afraid to even set foot in a hospital. What an unbelievably fucked up situation.:(

[EFerrari]

4. Nice, Negroponte. You are, I guess, sponsoring the same thing

in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Good going.

[IndyOp]

9. Negroponte is the only man I can compare to Cheney & Bolton --

in terms of overall "evilness" and/or "evil effect"...

All three are just as evil as the Nazis --

Mengele


Goering


Himmler

[EFerrari]

11. All those Iran Contra bastards. When they were shooting

kindergarten teachers in Oaxaca, they put armed guards around the hospital so nobody could get treatment.

[flyarm]

5. and where the hell is the security we are supposed to be providing?

remember we broke it..we were supposed to provide security and rebuild..so where the fuck is our security ..and who are they providing security for?? for the green zone??

wtf..our kids are getting their legs and arms blown off and dying for what?? we are providing no security , not for the very basics , hospitals and schools, and universities, wtf is going on..when do we as a people take the the streets and say "enough!!!!!!"

i feel like this is the killing fields again..only in a desert instead of a jungle!
this is disgusting beyond words!

fly

[Judi Lynn]

6. We can never forget who has made this possible. n/t

[formercia]

7. Where are the Shia getting that kind of money?

$300 is a lot of cash in Sadr City.

[drm604]

10. That's a good question.

Why is someone willing to pay $600 for the death of a paraplegic? What possible threat is a paraplegic to anyone? Why single out hospital patients? The only reason I can see for it is to increase tensions between Shia and Sunni by making it look like Shia are committing despicable acts.

How do we know this is even true? Remember the Kuwaiti incubator stories? Someone could be manufacturing these stories to increase tensions between Shia and Sunni. Some of this story seems too convenient and some doesn't even make sense.

For example, the story about the family hiding the patient and refusing to hand him over. Who were they refusing to hand him over to on the first day? It doesn't say. And if the intent is simply to kill Sunnis then why didn't they take the family? And how was it that the very next day "army members" were able to find him and take him away "to another hospital". Where was the family this time? Did they hand him over under threat of force? Surely if there was some kind of violent confrontation the story would mention that, wouldn't it? Sure the story is possible, but it doesn't quite ring true to me. If you're trying to pass off a lie, you provide as few details as possible to lessen the chance of exposure. This story leaves out important details.

What about the story about the paramedic showing the phial of medicine to the doctor and confessing that he couldn't go through with the crime? Sure it's possible, but doesn't it sound like something from a bad Hollywood movie?

And all of this is being provided by people with protected names via emails sent through intermediaries. Those are reasonable precautions and could be true, but they also conveniently remove any verifiability.

I keep thinking of the non-existent Kuwaiti babies being removed from the non-existent incubators.

[Gatchaman]

8. I'm so glad these people are safe from the tyranny of Sadaam!

I can't believe sometimes what a sick, sad world we live in.

And to top it all off, this doctor is probably on the death list now if he isn't cooperating with these thugs.