Grieving Iraq family sees no end to “rivers of blood”

By Omar al-Ibadi

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Adel Abed Hammed was a skinny
31-year-old so withdrawn he sometimes went days without talking
to anybody and would let only his mother touch him.

Mentally ill since childhood, he used to wander the streets
of Baghdad alone. One day he chanced on some American soldiers
who shot him dead after he took fright at a bullet fired over
his head.

“I wouldn’t feel such misery if he wasn’t so sick but that
makes it double for me,” said his mother. “He was like a
child.”

The 62-year-old Baghdad housewife is one of many thousands
of Iraqis who are mourning sons and daughters killed in a
conflict that has also claimed the lives of 2,000 U.S. troops.
Many Iraqis, like Adel, have been killed by American soldiers.

Iraq Body Count, a peace group which counts casualties
based on media reports, says on average 38 Iraqis a day die
violently. It says at least 26,600 have died since the invasion
but the true figure may be higher because many deaths go
unreported.

The U.S. military says it does not target civilians or
count their deaths. Rebels often attack U.S. checkpoints and
patrols. Soldiers are authorized to use lethal force in
self-defense.

A report by Iraq Body Count in July said nearly 37 percent
of the Iraqi deaths it had recorded were caused by U.S.-led
forces, with the rest caused by insurgents and criminal gangs.

According to icasualties.org, a web site run by a
non-governmental group that tallies U.S. and Iraqi casualties,
more than 3,400 Iraqi police and soldiers have been killed in
postwar Iraq, including more than 2,100 this year alone.

Behind every statistic is a grieving family.

“He always used to go walking for hours,” Adel’s mother
said, sitting with her husband and two more sons in the living
room of the family house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood.

“When he came home he used to tell me about what he saw on
the road. I used to take him to the bathroom and wash him.”

Adel’s father, Abed Hammed Abbas, 73, says his son left the
house mid-morning, wearing jeans and a shirt, and when he did
not come back by nightfall, they began to fear for him.

“I stayed up all night crying, waiting for him outside the
house,” Adel’s mother said, speaking through tears. “I pictured
him dead, with blood coming from his face.”

The following day a neighbor told them he had seen Adel
shot on a highway near their home.

The neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said he
was walking home when he saw the U.S. patrol in Humvee armored
vehicles and tanks, stationed on both sides of the road.

“I saw Adel coming walking slowly toward the Americans from
the other side. They fired a warning shot over his head. Adel
panicked and ran to the other side of the highway.

“He’d just started running when they shot him with a couple
of bullets. Then he fell to the ground. Four soldiers
approached his body and checked him, then they carried his body
to a Humvee and put him inside and took him away.”

Adel’s father Abed went to the police, who directed him to
a hospital. “They told us the Americans brought a person there
that was killed and we could find the body in the morgue. We
checked it and it was my son, Adel,” Abed said.

‘SHOT FROM BEHIND’

“We found he was shot from behind, right through the
kidneys. The other bullet wound was near the hip,” he said.

The Americans had left a “claims card” with details of the
incident and how the family could seek compensation. Adel’s
family has not decided whether to press a claim.

Adel met his death as the eyes of the world were focused on
a constitutional referendum and on the trial of Saddam Hussein.

As these events unfolded, Adel’s mother received condolence
visits from friends and relatives in a mourning ritual that has
been repeated day after day in countless homes around Iraq.

Adel’s cousin Abdullah Hussain, a doctor, said it should
have been clear that Adel was mentally ill. “He was very
innocent. Anyone could tell he was ill from the first moment.”

“The Americans are spreading terror in Iraq because they
are terrified,” he added. “These are not the qualities of
liberators but criminals.”

Adel’s older brother Ali said the Americans should leave
Iraq. “These rivers of blood should be stopped,” he said.