BAGHDAD (CT) - Intelligence analysts have found a video on a secret website that shows members of a renegade group of Iraqi surgeons taking credit for the last week's open-heart surgeries, on an Iraqi civilian and an American contractor working in Iraq.
Army intelligence officer Marco Reynolds told reporters that "we are analyzing this video as we speak, so we can apprehend these doctors and bring them to justice." Army officials asked that the press not use the patients names, "in case they plan to operate on them again," and identified the contractor only as a 54 year old man from Liberty, Missouri, who had a long history of heart trouble. The doctors are believed to be working somewhere in or around Baghdad, as both of the patients disappeared from Iraq's capital not long before the video was released.
The video, which is of surprisingly high-quality, shows five men standing in a well-lit, sanitary-looking room. Each wears hospital whites, head coverings and a false mustache. A man on the right says "We ask, if it is Allah's will, that we may continue saving the Iraqi people from the occupation of the American imperialists... just as we have saved [the patient] from them." One doctor then turns to the contractor, who appears to be resting comfortably on a hospital bed, and asks him to show his posterior, which is covered by a blue silk robe. "The American imperialists use those hospital gowns that would show this man's buttocks! We do not submit to their will! We will take care of the patient."
The prospect of medical doctors kidnapping people off Iraqi streets does not please military analysts. "Today it's heart surgery, tomorrow it's dental checkups," said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Something must be done."
