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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Doctors drain fluid from Noor’s back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Doctors admitted Noor al-Zahra of Iraq to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Wednesday morning to drain fluid from the baby’s back.
Surgeons performed a life-changing operation on the Iraqi infant last week, a month after soldiers with the Georgia National Guard encountered her while raiding a house near Baghdad. Doctors removed a mass of skin from Noor’s back and repaired a damaged portion of her spinal cord.
A follow-up appointment Tuesday revealed fluid on Baby Noor’s back, the hospital said in a statement. In Wednesday’s procedure, doctors hope to determine whether her spinal cord is leaking fluid or whether the fluid is the result of post-surgery swelling.
Doctors continue to monitor Noor for signs of a fluid build-up in her brain, a finding that would trigger a second surgery to insert a shunt.
Brothers in war, they help to liberate Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Capt. Anthony Fournier of Augusta heads a unit that once patrolled the Abu Ghraib region.
Baghdad, Iraq — The two men come from opposite worlds, but the Georgia schoolteacher called the soldier sitting next to him his brother — his Iraqi brother.
On a misty January evening, Capt. Anthony Fournier invited Hassaneen, an Iraqi army company commander, to dinner at Camp Liberty’s Cafe de Fleury dining hall.
Between eating chunks of chicken tenders, watermelon and a salad, Hassaneen showed equal respect for Fournier, commander of the Gainesville-based Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment of the Georgia National Guard.
“The American soldiers have been very good to us,” said Hassaneen. The Iraqi soldier’s full name and rank have been withheld to protect his identity.
At first, it seems a strange alliance — the tall and burly former member of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards, who was taught to hate America, and the soft-spoken social sciences teacher from Augusta, who left his family behind to fight in a foreign land.
Fournier’s soldiers have been patrolling the Abu Ghraib area near Baghdad since the Georgia Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team arrived in Iraq last June.
Fournier passed the torch to Hassaneen this month. The Iraqi army has taken over parts of Abu Ghraib that Fournier’s men kept watch over —areas known as White Gold, 1 March and the Soviet-style flats at Al Ban.
They are impoverished and filthy neighborhoods where friend is hard to distinguish from foe.
Dressed in an old chocolate-chip and khaki army battle uniform that U.S. soldiers donned during the Persian Gulf War, Hassaneen joined Fournier and his officers for an after-dinner smoke outside Charlie Company headquarters.
He made himself comfortable on a wooden bench to answer a barrage of questions from the Georgians. And to ask questions of his own.>
Hassaneen was curious about the new sage green army uniforms.
“Are they designed for the jungle? he asked.
“Tell him they are for everywhere,” Fournier said to an interpreter.
“It is a nice color,” Hassaneen said. “But I think mine is better for Iraq.”
Uniform differences are only a sliver of what separates American and Iraqi soldiers fighting the violent insurgency.
Hassaneen’s men are young new recruits who have little military experience. The challenges of training them from scratch while attempting to stave off bloodshed have been great.
The White House regularly announces progress on that front, but U.S. soldiers working with the Iraqis on the ground know that the road ahead is an arduous one. They know that much will depend on the leadership skills of officers such as Hassaneen.
“He’s doing a great job in Abu Ghraib,” said Fournier, who began working with Hassaneen after the Oct. 15 referendum on the Iraqi constitution.
Fournier said he and Hassaneen approach missions differently. In sweeps through the Al Ban apartments, for instance, Hassaneen insists on entering every home himself to question residents about suspicious activities. It is customary in Iraq for the commander to conduct the interviews, Fournier said. That makes it impossible to enter every apartment in a short amount of time. Fournier’s men usually split up by squad in order to cover more ground.
Hassaneen said that in this war in which gathering of intelligence is imperative, the Americans often have better luck.
“Sometimes the local people lie to us,” he said. “They are more scared of the American soldiers.”
Only 30, Hassaneen served for eight years in the elite Hammurabi Division of Saddam’s Republican Guards, named after the great Babylonian king. Hassaneen was stationed at Taji in 2003, when the United States and coalition forces invaded Iraq, and he was part of the forces that fought Fort Stewart-based soldiers, then the 24th Infantry Division, which in 2003 as the 3rd Infantry Division led the charge into Baghdad.
“The Iraqi army was a very strong one. Very brave,” Hassaneen said, at once proud of his service and fiercely critical of the Saddam dictatorship. “I am very happy the Americans destroyed Saddam Hussein.”
Hassaneen also recognized that the new Iraqi army has a long way to go. He predicted that the Iraqis will need another two years before they could stand on their own.
“We need lots of equipment, helicopters,” Hassaneen said.
“Do you need any Bradleys?” Fournier joked about his own inventory of the armored fighting vehicles that Charlie Company soldiers use for patrols.
Fournier said he has a standing invitation for dinner at Hassaneen’s house in Babylon, about an hour south of Baghdad. At the moment, traveling that distance without a military convoy is too dangerous. But one day, perhaps, the schoolteacher from Augusta hopes he will be able meet his friend in a peaceful Iraq.
And, they will once again break bread together.
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