Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Here's Tomás Alcoverro's report from Baghdad in today's La Vanguardia (slightly edited for length).

The Americans have big bombs. They dropped them on Baghdad. An American missile blew up an Iraqi antiaircraft cannon. We saw lots of big tanks. They went into one of Saddam's palaces. There were some snipers. The Iraqis failed to blow up a bridge. Lots of Iraqi soldiers ran away. The Iraqi spokesman told some lies. The buses are running and some shops are open. Some civilians have been killed. The Republican Guard held out in the Rashid Hotel. They lost. Victory has been decided though resistance has not ceased. The Iraqi antiaircraft fire has lousy aim. The people are afraid. Everything smells like gunpowder because guys with rifles keep shooting them in the air.

"Together with other journalists, I return to Al Kindi hospital to visit Ali, the boy with the body burned and arms amputated by a coalition "smart" bomb. Ali cries night and day, he moans in pain when a nurse softly rubs his scorched trunk with a lotion. Ali now knows that he is all alone, that his whole family died in the explosion. He moves his head from one side to the other, he moves his bandaged stumps in his desperation. In Baghdad Araji now there are hundreds of children with their lives broken like Ali."

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