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In Iraq, even charity is complex

Apr- 3-2005 » Filed Under: Homefront

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BY DIONNE SEARCEY, NEWSDAY

Malcolm Mead was dashing through Kennedy Airport a few weeks ago when he glanced at a television showing yet another grim scene from the war in Iraq.

The images were photos of six children riding in the back seat of their parents' car in Tal Afar when U.S. soldiers opened fire on the vehicle for failing to heed warnings to stop. The mother and father, Hussein and Kamila Hassan, in the front seat were instantly killed. The children, mostly unharmed, were covered in their parents' blood.

The Hassan family was innocent; it was a terrible case of mistaken identity in a war where suicide car bombings are all too common.

Mead, who runs a computer consulting firm in Seattle, tried to put the images out of his mind. But the photos taken by Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros kept popping up in his memory.

One of the children, 12-year-old Rakan Hassan, was shot in the stomach, the bullet exiting through his spine, damaging vertebrae. Doctors have told him that only medical care outside Iraq can help him walk again.

Mead, 37, researched the photos and learned that the unit involved in the shooting, the 25th Infantry Division, was stationed at Ft. Lewis, Wash., not far from his home in Kingston. He contacted the unit's chaplain, Col. Henri Fischer, and the civil affairs officer in charge of community-based missions in Tal Afar to say he wanted to set up a fund to help that exceeded the Army's standard death compensation payment of a few thousand dollars. He offered $7,500 to kick off his efforts.

But Mead quickly learned that charity work in war-ravaged parts of Iraq is far from a simple undertaking. For starters, banks aren't operating in Tal Afar, so a wire transfer of money was impossible. The region has been deemed too dangerous for non-governmental groups, so they couldn't act as a conduit.

And the situation was politically touchy. Soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing for the incident, but the photos that circulated around the world brought them increased scrutiny.

Read the full story.


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