After reading Baghdad Burning, I decided to look more into the Amiriyah shelter (Riverbend, 46-48). The shelter was mentioned in the reading to act as a comparison to the tragedy that our country experienced on September 11th. Civilians used the Amiriyah shelter as an air-raid shelter during the Iraq-Iran war as well as the Gulf War. “It was destroyed by USAF two laser-guided “smart bombs” on 13 February 1991 during the Gulf War, killing more then 408 civilians”(Wikipedia, Amiriyah shelter). The United States says that their reasoning for bombing the shelter was because they thought that the shelter was a military command site. Riverbend's description of what happened on February 13th, 1991 would make anyone sit back and feel saddened. Although we mourn for all the lives we lost on September 11th, and for good reason, Riverbend points out that we are not the only ones in this war who are continually losing lives. Her example of the Amiriyah shelter is perfect, she explains that the people who were occupying the shelter at the time of the bombing were women and children, not military or higher intelligence, women and children. She goes on to describe the horrible scene that happened after the bombing, the frantic families trying to find their child in the mist of the burned faces of all those who died, the bodies that hardly resembled a body anymore being dragged out in hopes that someone would recognize them. Riverbend so truly states, “ all faces look the same when they are witnessing the death of loved ones”(Riverbend, page 48).
Works Cited
1. Wikipedia. 11 May 2007. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 8, 2007.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter>
2. Riverbend. Baghdad Burning, Girl Blog from Iraq. City University of New York, New York. The Feminist Press, 2005.
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