Lara Marlowe witnessed chaos at a Baghdad hospital after Thursday's battle for the airport
Three young men in dirty black uniforms staggered into a ward at Yarmook Hospital yesterday morning. Two struggled to shoulder the wounded man in the middle, balancing the weight of his writhing body with their assault rifles.
One carried a pouch filled with ammunition cartridges on his chest. The other helper's sleeve was rolled up, revealing a blood-soaked bandage on his arm.
All three were "Saddam Fedayeen", the volunteer "commando" group led by the President's eldest son Uday, and they had come from the village of Radwaniyeh, near Saddam Hussein International Airport.
"Our unit was fighting there all night," the soldier with the ammunition cartridges said. "We tried to take them food and supplies this morning, and we got caught in the gun battle. There were a lot of US helicopters."
Before the day was over, the Americans would rename their conquest "Baghdad Airport".
The men heaved their wounded comrade onto a hospital bed, then began pulling off his boots as a nurse opened his blood-soaked shirt. In the same ward, two doctors leaned over the chest of another fighter, who wore the green uniform of the army or militia.
A wounded man in pyjamas attempted to stand, but swayed and reeled, unable to keep his balance, as a fellow soldier attempted to change his clothing.
Yarmook is not a military hospital, but most of the wounded I saw there yesterday had been brought from the battle for Baghdad airport. Were there not medics with the units? Does Baghdad not have a military hospital? The only sign of a battlefield medic was the bandaged arm of the less wounded member of the Saddam Fedayeen.
A man from the Republican Guard - recognisable by the red braid hanging from his epaulette - was wheeled down the corridor, one trouser leg cut off so doctors could tend to his leg wound. A senior officer in camouflage and dark red beret strolled past with an intent look on his face.
Patients admitted two, three or four days earlier were all civilians, but new arrivals were almost all wounded soldiers, or unhurt soldiers looking after the wounded.
In other hospital visits since the war started, I had not encountered such chaos and confusion. In every direction there were moaning bodies, open, untreated wounds. "We have many victims from the airport and nearby," said the Health Minister, Dr Omid Midhat, whom I passed in the hospital lobby. "Most of them are hurt by cluster bombs, so the wounds are terrible."
He said the hospital had admitted 36 wounded and received four dead men yesterday morning. Dr Midhat didn't know what casualties were like in the city's 37 other hospitals.
Western media were reporting that the US controlled "much" of the airport. Was it true? "I don't have any idea," Dr Midhat admitted. "What we are seeing is the Americans come in by helicopter and then leave. Does that mean they 'control' it?"
US briefers have said their strategy in Baghdad will be to stage "probe" raids into the city, withdrawing when resistance is too strong. The same pattern of helicopter-borne troops, skirmishes and withdrawal, has been reported all over the country by the Iraqis.
Despite the prevalence of military in yesterday's casualties, there were nonetheless civilian victims. Ali Sabah (22), a street vendor, trembled violently on a hospital bed, his hands and legs bleeding.
An hour and a half earlier, he had been wounded in a missile attack on the Hay al Amel district near the hospital. A neighbour found him lying in the street and now sat behind Mr Sabah on the bed, looping his arms under the wounded man's armpits, to steady his convulsions.
Rahim Matif Salman (37), a taxi driver, had gone to fetch groceries for his family when he heard a US jet and saw cluster bombs falling "like small stones" over the southern Baghdad district of Daura, around 9.30 a.m. "The Americans are cowards," Mr Salman muttered. His wounds ran down the whole left side of the body - the side most exposed as he sat at the wheel of his car - leaving an outline of his torso and leg in blood on the hospital mattress.
In the early afternoon, I found an open take-away restaurant in one of Baghdad's more affluent districts. Eight smart young soldiers, hair and moustaches neatly trimmed, trousers tucked into their black boots and the red braid of the Republican Guard on their shoulders, sat laughing and talking while they ate chicken and knocked back Pepsi-cola.
The US says the Baghdad and Medina divisions of the Guard - allegedly Iraq's finest fighting force - have "disappeared". But I suspect most of the "missing" 25,000 are, like the eight I saw in the restaurant, waiting for the Americans inside the city.
Another half dozen young men with a similar look and manner, but wearing civilian clothing, seemed to be with the same group; one wore black boots like the uniformed soldiers.
Driving back to my hotel, I saw more red braid: a soldier sitting cross-legged beneath a tree, reading. If these Iraqis fight, surrounded by civilians, the battle for Baghdad could easily end in a bloodbath.