BASRA, Iraq, 9 April 2003 — They came early to the abandoned Office of Public Safety Monday, an imposing high-rise in the Mazlaq neighborhood that was Basra’s most notorious political prison. Some came looking for clues to the fate of the missing. Others came looking for revenge.
Wamid Kadem arrived early, he said, because he wanted information on his torturer. Hani Sukany said he came to look for two cousins, even though he already knows they are dead. A 31-year-old man in black — he would not give his name — pedaled up on his rusted blue bicycle, saying he was looking for any documents that might shed light on the brother he has not seen in 11 years.
The day after Baath Party leaders fled Basra in the face of a British armored advance, scores of Iraqis swarmed onto the site, once synonymous with fear. Many said they came to look for photographs of missing loved ones. And amid the rubble of overturned filing cabinets and upended desks, they found some. One man brandished a photo of a relative who appeared bloody and lifeless, proof, he said, that the man had been tortured after he disappeared into the compound.
The cells were in the back of the building, small, airless enclosures made of cement with metal bars and doors painted bright red. Some were completely enclosed. A few had small slots at the top that might let in a sliver of light. One cell had a small window that had been sealed with brick, making the enclosure completely dark and airless when the door was closed. The cells were on the perimeter of a U-shaped courtyard. In the center stood what appeared to be a large open holding pen, a cage also in red.
The prison stands a few blocks from the main police headquarters, which is now occupied by British troops of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. A small crowd also gathered at the gates of the police compound, imploring British soldiers to help them search the prison and various other sites believed to still hold prisoners. Most spoke no English, but they held up their hands to simulate their wrists bound together and pointed in the direction of buildings they wanted to search.
“They say there are prisoners locked up,’’ Capt. Mike Taylor said. “There are a lot of buildings around here, and we’re already getting intelligence from the locals saying there are prisoners locked up in the basements, political prisoners.’’ The search for answers about the missing was one small part — although perhaps the most poignant — of the sweeping mosaic of what many Basra residents saw as their day of liberation from three decades of Baath Party rule.
For some, it was a day to hand flowers to British soldiers stationed in armored vehicles at a traffic circle or to gawk at British troops patrolling the city on foot beside their armored vehicles. For others, it was a day to vent rage at icons of the former authority. The state oil company was looted and set afire, and a bank was set ablaze, too.
For many, it was simply a day to continue the looting that began Sunday, expanding the target list to the museum, the Central Bank, Basra University administrative offices, military compounds — even the Sheraton Hotel. But the day came with a heavy price. Hospitals were filled with civilians — many of them women and children — who said they were injured by British artillery shells or US bombardment of the city during a siege that lasted more than two weeks.
A 5-year-old girl named Iman Hassan lay in the public hospital with two mangled legs. Her father, Faqir, said their house was bombed, killing his wife and three other children, aged 6, 7 and 9.
In the same hospital, Saad Mansur, 26, lay on his stomach, his exposed back horrifically burned and his legs lacerated, as his mother, clad in black, waved a hand fan over him. An Iraqi tank stood next to their house, said his mother, and Mansur was standing in the doorway when a warplane dropped a bomb that destroyed it and, at the same time, damaged their home and killed two people in addition to wounding Saad.
Doctors described scores of similar casualties from the near-nightly shelling and air attacks on Baath Party and Saddam’s Fedayeen militia positions. Many were still in the hospital Monday with amputated limbs or lacerations from shrapnel.
“More than 500 at least, children and old men,’’ said Jasim Maliky, an assistant doctor at the hospital. “I don’t speak about soldiers. This is a civilian hospital.’’ “It’s a disaster,’’ said another doctor.
