By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 4, 2000

BASRA, Iraq -- By Jan. 25, 1999, the Persian Gulf War had long since ended.

Why then, Saeidh Hassan wonders, did a U.S.. missile kill her three little girls that quiet morning?

It was just 9 a.m. but the day was already well under way in Basra, a shabby port city 230 miles south of
Baghdad. Mrs. Hassan put the baby, 6-month-old Zeinab, back in her crib and began tidying their
apartment.

 
Noor, 9, had just returned from school and was playing with friends in the dusty street. Her mother shouted
at her to come inside and change her clothes. Noor grudgingly obeyed, bringing her 2-year-old sister,
Thuha, with her.

The noise was so loud people could hear it from miles away. The missile had hit an entire block of
flat-roofed apartment buildings, instantly reducing them to rubble.

Clothes torn, back in pain, Mrs. Hassan tried to move only to realize she was trapped between hunks of
concrete and mangled pieces of steel.

And, with growing dread, she realized that three of her children didn't answer when called.

A "misfiring" is how U.S. officials described the missile strike, one of scores since 1992 in what Iraqis
claim is a continuing, undeclared war against their country. In the past 18 months alone, they say, nearly
300 civilians have been killed by allied missiles and bombs.

"The Americans and British say, "We are protecting you with our airplanes' but at the same time they are
killing us on the ground," says Dr. Jawa Kadhim Al-Ali, a Basra physician.

 
After the Gulf War, the United States, Britain and France created "no-fly" zones over northern and southern
Iraq to keep Saddam Hussein's forces from bombing rebellious groups in those areas.

The goal in the south, around Basra, was to protect Shiite Muslims, whose uprising after the war prompted
fears of revenge by Hussein.

Since December, 1998, U.S. officials say, allied jets patrolling the no-fly zones have been threatened 470
times by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles or anti-aircraft fire. In retaliation, U.S. and British planes have
repeatedly struck Iraqi military targets, most recently last week.

"We do not target civilian populations or civilian infrastructure," says Lt. Col. Rick Thomas of U.S. Central
Command at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base. "Every way we can, we seek to avoid civilian injuries but
one of the things we've got to be able to do is protect those pilots enforcing the no-fly zones."

Thomas says the allies use only "precision-guided weapons." How then, asks Mrs. Hassan's husband, can
a missile go so off course as to hit a residential area with nothing but homes and apartments as far as the
eye can see?

"What is behind this action?" he says. "This is civilian housing, not a military installation."

Mr. Hassan, an employee of Basra's electric company, was at work when he got the phone call. He hurried
home and fainted at what he saw -- his apartment destroyed, three of his daughters buried under tons of
rubble. All had been killed instantly; it took three hours to get Noor's body out.

The errant missile had other victims.

A 6-year-old boy also died, and more than 60 people were injured, some critically. Mrs. Hassan, three
months pregnant, had a miscarriage. Her only surviving daughter spent a week in the hospital. A young
cousin still has a deep scar in her forehead from where a chunk of concrete hit her.

For months, the family lived with relatives until the government helped them get another apartment a block
away. By Basra's standards, it is spacious and well-furnished.

It is also a melancholy place.

"A woman loses three girls -- she becomes like a crazy woman," Hassan says of his wife, sitting listlessly
in a darkened room. "She thinks about them, she doesn't sleep during the night. She stays sad all day --
this is her life."

Mrs. Hassan, whose son drowned in 1994, is so depressed she rarely goes out. Seeing children on their
way home from school reminds her of Noor and how she hated to come in that day. If she hadn't obeyed,
would she and Thuha still be alive? The thought is tormenting.

Seven weeks ago, the Hassans had a baby girl. They named her Zeinab, after the baby who died. Her
mother lines her eyes in black -- "to make her more beautiful" -- and pins her blanket with a single staring
eye, an Iraqi symbol of good luck.

Even a new baby, though, brings Mrs. Hassan little joy.

"I want Clinton to see this," she says, slapping her hand across her breast. "I want him to know how he put
a hole in my heart. There's not a minute I forget."