http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/15/MN10714.DTL

Basra, Iraq -- The view from the Basra Sheraton would be downright romantic
if it weren't for the statues of dead Iraqi pilots pointing accusingly
across the bay at Iran.

The latticed windows reveal a scene of ships and fishermen, palm trees and
sea promenades that could easily convince one that this ruined city is still
the beautiful resort town it once was.

But underneath the charming visual surface lie tales that would chill the
bones of any tourist. Iraq's wealthiest and most exotic city before the
Iran- Iraq and Gulf wars, Basra today bears the scars of two decades of
warfare.

With its sewage, water treatment and electrical facilities heavily bombed
during the Gulf War, Basra's canal system is a huge sprawl of raw filth
mixed with muddy rain waters. Those waters spawn diseases that are the prime
factor in the city's high infant mortality rate.

Because of the lack of maintenance and the absence of new investments,
Iraq's drinking water supply systems and sewage evacuation networks have
constantly deteriorated since the end of the Gulf War. In many areas they
have broken down completely.

The Red Cross has made an admirable effort to repair Basra's central Hamdan
sewage treatment facility. But contracts to obtain the needed spare parts
have often been subjected to "holds" under the terms of the United Nations'
"oil for food" humanitarian program, slowing progress to a crawl.

If the water doesn't get you here, the depleted uranium (DU) might. An
estimated 300 tons of the stuff -- a heavy metal used in armor-piercing
munitions that is a less radioactive byproduct of natural uranium -- was
dropped on Iraq during the Gulf War.

No conclusive link has been established between DU exposure and cancer, and
radiation testing equipment needed for recording proper data on DU poisoning
is unavailable in Iraq because of the international sanctions.

But physicians at the Basra Maternity and Pediatrics Hospital have kept
shocking photographic records of what they say are the effects of inhaling
or ingesting DU contaminated dust.

In his sunlight-flooded office, hospital director Amr Issa al-Jabari
graciously offers tea and then pulls out a book of photographs of "monster
babies" -- some born without brains, or with their intestines outside their
bodies, or with their nose where their eyes should be.

"We have experienced seven times the normal number of birth defects and
pediatric cancers since the end of the Gulf War," he said.

Seated beneath a idyllic pre-war photo of Basra's waterfront, al-Jabari
explained the theory of "radiation transference," or how radiation is spread
by wind.

Since DU, also known as Uranium-238, has a half-life estimated at over 4
billion years, the Basra area may be fighting poison virtually until the end
of time. Even the palm trees suffer from mysterious diseases from the
pollution and a sanctions-related lack of pesticides.

"This is not just a local problem," al-Jabari added. "The border areas in
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were also affected by the bombing."

He is convinced that authorities in those countries are deliberately
suppressing DU-related health statistics for political gain. "How would it
look if they point the finger at their ally -- the U.S.?"

His voice rising to an emotional pitch of indignation, al-Jabari added,
"What about all the American servicemen who are suffering from DU
poisoning?"

DU poisoning is often cited as a possible cause of the mysterious malady
known as Gulf War syndrome, which afflicts an estimated 100,000 American
veterans.

Jinan Ghalib, the hospital's specialist in pediatric cancer, arrived to lead
a tour of her wards.

She is a petite woman with a pretty face, but her voice was a low monotone
as she recited in near-automatic fashion a list of the cancer-treating drugs
the hospital lacks. Her clinical tone might have reflected either stringent
training or a kind of moral exhaustion.

"We have fewer drugs available this year than we had last year," Ghalib
said. "But the real problem is that we don't have consistency, so that a
patient may not have a full course of, say, antibiotics or other drugs, and
therefore will not heal properly with an incomplete course."

She blamed the oil-for-food program, which comes up for renewal every six
months and thus shortens the length of medical supply contracts to that
span. A patient with high blood pressure, for example, must switch to a new
medication every half year.

Many families sell their last remaining possessions to pay for medicine that
will only have a limited effect.

Ghalib moved on to a ward where a young mother held her baby -- 42-day-old
Ali, who is swathed in blankets and tubes and hooked up to an oxygen tank.

The doctor said the baby had pneumonia complicated by marasmus (severe
malnutrition). The mother is also suffering from anemia and malnutrition --
health issues in Basra, whose primarily oil-based economy was harder hit
than Baghdad's after the Gulf War and whose rebuilding has lagged behind the
capital because of its provincial location.

The mother gently rocked her tiny boy in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. Her eyes
were hollow as she glanced up at the visitors.

In another ward, a better-fed and slightly older mother comforted her pale
infant son, his head bald from chemotherapy treatment. The woman introduced
herself as Rawdha Kadhim, a 30-year-old mother of three. She seemed to want
to talk.

"My child is suffering from leukemia," she said. "Just a few months ago, he
started to have fever and flu-like symptoms. Then we took him to the
hospital."

The eventual diagnosis was a huge blow. In Basra, cancer usually means
death. The doctor says that the child's chances of survival -- with the
incomplete course of medicine available - are slim.

"We borrowed money from friends to buy medicine on the black market," Rawdha
said, "but we couldn't find all that we needed there."

Her eyes flashing with anger, Rawdha spoke of her family's pre-Gulf War
existence: "We had a good life before. My father was a civil servant who
earned a decent salary.

"My childhood was beautiful. We used to have fun, play games, go on picnics.

The lives my children have now are not the same.

"I blame the Americans. I wish they would just leave us alone. We just want
to be free to live normal lives."

But a normal life in Basra is almost impossible -- even for the small
percentage of sanctions profiteering nouveau riche, whose villas stand out
gaudily among the garbage-strewn streets.

The sounds of Julio Iglesias emanated from an upscale restaurant in the new-
money neighborhood of Bradhiya, where a huge outside generator ensures a
plentiful supply of electricity (normally unavailable except at night).

But the cuisine leaves something to be desired.

A patron complained, "You see, the food has no flavor -- or if it does, it
has a strange kind of aftertaste."

"The rice we get in our monthly rations we just throw out; it tastes like
cardboard," said another diner.

Chewing on her lamb and rice, a foreign reporter pondered the grass that
local sheep eat and the soil that it came from -- and the water used to boil
the tasteless rice and the soil it grew in.

The way back to the Sheraton takes visitors through the central market,
where a huge portrait of President Saddam Hussein presides over a sign
screaming Basra Shopping Centre. The area, a square kilometer or so of shops
selling everything from food to football uniforms, bisected by a filthy
canal of fetid water, was once middle class -- before that class disappeared
in the early '90s.

A distorted, warped-pitch version of the Beatles' "Yesterday" fills the
Sheraton's cavernous lobby. The suites retain a faded grandeur, but the
brown water that flows from the bathroom pipes is cut off at least once a
day.

The television offers a pirated Schwarzenegger film. Arnold -- a big star in
Iraq -- arrives home one day to find that a clone has replaced him and taken
over his life. He must spend the rest of the movie struggling to get back
home, fighting to get his life back.

Basrans still seem stuck in the last bit of the movie, before Arnold defeats
the villains and arrives safely home. And they might never get back.

Canadian journalist Hadani Ditmars recently returned from a monthlong
reporting trip to Iraq.