Nasiriyah

We spent the next few days doing what we were there to do. Jason spent his time evaluating the water and sanitation supply, or what was left of it. I visited the local clinics and hospitals and looked at the existing health system and its capacity, and the population in general, to determine the health needs here.

Many of the clinics and hospitals here had been looted of anything that was not nailed down. Even nailed-down items were eventually pried up and carried off. Some facilities had actually been protected by staff who had stayed behind in their hospital or clinics to prevent looting and vandalism. At great risk to themselves, they had blocked doorways with sturdy lengths of wood, and saved their equipment and medicine so that they could continue to provide care.

I spent some time trying to track down the head of the health department, but this was a town still in chaos, and to be identified as a government official now meant admitting connections with Saddam, and no one was willing to do that quite yet. One by one, they shook their heads. “I do not know who was in charge,” they answered when I asked, sending me back to the drawing board to figure out what was needed here.

The lack of electricity had disrupted the cold chain—the refrigeration required to keep vaccines fresh—and countless doses had to be destroyed. UNICEF was busy ordering large and sufficient quantities of vaccines to reestablish the immunization system once the cold chain was available. Medicines, really a lack of them, were also a big problem; there just weren’t enough and we had no idea when that situation would improve. We had plenty of emergency medicines—antibiotics, pain medicines, intravenous fluids—in our supply kits, but there was a critical shortage of medicine for chronic problems like hypertension, heart disease, and TB. USAID had acquired some of these drugs and would be distributing them among hospitals, clinics, and NGOs.

Chemotherapy drugs, necessary for cancer treatment, were essentially nonexistent. What little had been available had been looted or damaged or had simply expired. People who had been undergoing chemotherapy now faced the unimaginably frightening prospect of permanent interruption of their treatment.

Late one morning, while I was evaluating a clinic on the outskirts of the city, a tearful man, beads of sweat clinging to his shirt, approached me. In halting English, his words interrupted by sobs, he asked me to help his son. “He has leukemia,” he said, pronouncing the word solemnly. “He needs his medicine. Without it he will . . .” His shoulders shook with a sudden burst of fresh tears. “Please,” he whispered.

My heart broke for this desperate father, but there was nothing I could offer. “Baghdad will be able to help soon,” I said. He was the first of many in those first days to come forward. A young woman in a smaller village, her hijab slipping carelessly from her head, begged me to get help for her sister with breast cancer. “She hasn’t started her treatment yet. You are a woman. You must understand. What can we do?”

I could only swallow the hard lump in my throat. “I am so sorry. We don’t have any of those meds.”

A middle-aged man with skin cancer asked for medicine, not for himself but for his son, who was suffering from cancer as well. “I am old,” he said, pounding his bony chest. “But my boy is young. You understand?”

I did understand, but USAID had already informed us that the only chemotherapy available for the foreseeable future would be found in Baghdad. When I tried to relay that news, the families balked. “I have no money. How can we get there? You must help.”

I had no easy answers for them, yet I hoped that somehow, we could help them find transportation to Baghdad, though that was a long shot. “I’ll let them know in Kuwait. I can only promise you that.”

I would pass the information on, but that was all I could do. It was all a grim reminder of the many victims of war.

Aside from the disruption in cancer treatment and other chronic diseases, we were very concerned that the coming summer months would surely see outbreaks of typhoid and cholera if the water and sewer problems were not cleared up. This had been a fairly sophisticated infrastructure here with electricity, running water, and flush toilets. That was all gone now and people managed the best they could, but the potential for a public health catastrophe was certain if vital services weren’t restored quickly.

When we tested the quality of the drinking water in a small village just outside Nasiriyah, it was, as expected, brimming with bacteria and would require boiling before consuming. As we stood in the midst of a group of villagers and tried to relay that vital information, a thirtyish-year-old woman with dancing eyes and a quick smile pushed her way through the crowd surrounding us and stuck out her hand. “I am Fatima,” she said, crossing her thick arms. “Come,” she said, beckoning me to follow. I did, and so did many of the crowd, the men muttering angrily at the boldness of this woman.

She stopped and pointed to a bucket overflowing with the murky, foul-smelling water that she’d drawn from broken pipes in the street. “This,” she said, “is all we have.”

“And you’re boiling it, yes?” I asked, expecting a nod of her head. “No,” she said softly in perfect English. “Not always.”

“But . . .”

“There is not enough fuel. How can I boil it for everyone every day? Understand?” Her eyes flashed with a sudden show of anger.

“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked. “You’ll get sick. This is dangerous water.”

Tucking a stray hair under her hijab, she smiled coyly and spoke to me in a whisper so that the watchful crowd of locals wouldn’t hear her words. “I boil it for my daughter, and when she has had her fill, I take what is left. My husband,” she whispered, “is an old man and I am his second wife. My life is miserable, filled with sorrow.” Her chocolate brown eyes scanned the horizon, as if searching for something that was just out of sight. “I want to escape this place, and God willing, the dirty water will be the end of him.”

I took her hand. “Be careful,” I cautioned.

She gripped my hand and smiled. For Fatima, there was possibility in that dirty water. But there was also danger, especially for a woman with the pluck to see opportunity where others saw only misery.

On the way out of Nasiriyah, we drove through “Snipers’ Alley,” the lonely strip of road where the US soldiers, including Jessica Lynch, had been ambushed only weeks earlier. The US soldiers who had been taken prisoner and had been shown on television were even then missing, their fates unknown. It was chilling to be there and even more chilling to see the debris, the tanks and charred metal that still littered the road, another reminder that this was indeed a dangerous place.

Some of the team had heard that liquor was available here in Nasiriyah for the right price. There had been no alcohol available in Kuwait, so many expats were hoping to get a supply in Iraq. As always, my preferred drink was wine, which wasn’t available, so I wasn’t interested. One of the team made a connection and bought a bottle of gin and another of scotch. They drank the gin that last night, and we planned to smuggle the scotch back into Kuwait, an act that would make all of us instant heroes and celebrities among the expat community. We left for Kuwait late the following morning with the bottle hidden away under the driver’s seat. My own bags and equipment were also under the seat, providing, we hoped, cover and protection for our contraband. We got through the first of several checkpoints without a search and were already congratulating ourselves. But the checkpoints had yet to be finished.

At the final checkpoint, the Kuwaiti soldiers ordered us all to exit our little red Mustang.

“Even me?” I asked meekly, hoping they would allow me, as the only woman, to remain inside, where I could protect the precious cargo.

The soldier frowned and motioned me out with his rifle. I stood with Salim and Phil as Jason was whisked away to check our papers. We three stood nervously as the soldiers opened the trunk and pulled everything out. Our backpacks, our camping gear, everything wound up in the dirt. Still, as thorough as they were, they seemed to be leaving the back seat alone. I felt the tension in my neck ease. Suddenly, I noticed a soldier lean in and start pulling at my stuff on the floor of the back seat. If he pulled too hard, the bottle would surely roll out.

I strolled over to him in hopes of breaking his concentration and halting the search. “It’s really hot, huh?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my brow as if to emphasize the heat. He grunted and continued his search. Damn! Why couldn’t I have said something clever? His hands fumbled under the front seat, and he pulled out the bottle. “Is this yours?” he asked me gruffly.

“Not ours,” I said, “This is a rental car.”

He marched to the back of the car and asked Phil the same. “Not ours,” he said.

The soldier disappeared into a small office, and Phil and I, the only witnesses and the only ones asked about the whiskey, looked at each other. In Kuwait, this could mean real trouble—jail, expulsion, anything was possible. The soldier marched back out, looked at us sternly, and poured the whiskey into the sand.

We were not questioned further, and we were allowed to drive into Kuwait. Jason, who hadn’t witnessed our close call, pulled back onto the road and turned to us.

“At least they didn’t find the whiskey, huh?”