Location: Al-Sadr hospital, Sadr City, Baghdad.
Date: Sat May 3, 2008.
Time: Approximately 10 am local time (0700 GMT).
A US rocket attack blasts its way down and destroys a shack just outside the hospital, taking even the hospital in its grip and wounding at least 28 people. The US military furnishes a valid reason for these fireworks by saying that it destroyed a ‘criminal element command and control centre’, and justifies this attack by presenting the tally of militants killed, not to mention the usual recital which goes something like this,

Intelligence reports indicate the command and control centre was used by criminal elements to plan and coordinate attacks against Iraqi security and coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens.

Well, this is the story what the US military has to tell about the incident, and which will eventually make its place in the timeline as the official entry. But, if we turn the leaf and use our senses (both physical as well as common sense), we get to see the other true side of the picture.

The hospital staff has a totally different story to tell about this ‘rocket attack’ which came as a horrendous surprise to them. Within a blink of an eye, the hospital was left with shattered windows, collapsed partitions and damaged medical/electrical equipment. The hospital corridors were filled with glass & metal fragments and a mess of electrical wires. Moreover, the huge concrete blocks that were placed to form a blast wall against explosions had collapsed on the parked vehicles, damaging up to 17 ambulances and practically disabling the emergency response teams.

According to Dr Ali Bistan, the head of Baghdad’s health department, who arrived on the scene to assess the damage, this was nothing but a plan to prevent the doctors and medicine from reaching the hospital. The reason? Because the hospital happens to be in the same area where the Moqtada al-Sadr loyals were giving the Americans a tough time and proving to be a pain in their bums.

And, even if the US military tries to justify this act by singing the old tune that ‘damage to civilian property and lives cannot be totally overruled in military operations,’ its very purpose of this particular ‘military action’ is under the shades of doubt. According to local residents, the shack which the US military had termed as a ‘criminal element command and control centre’ was nothing more than a transit point for Muslim pilgrims.

The story of Iraq’s future and the presence of US military can be easily summed up in Dr Ali Bistan’s honest words;

They (the Americans) will say it was a weapons cache that was hit, but in fact they want to destroy the infrastructure of the country.