Nota: mentre il numero dei morti iracheni, più di un milione e mezzo, il 15% della popolazione locale [il 25% dei 6 milioni di ebrei sterminati nei campi di concentramento nazisti] i veterani americani vanno in Iraq per aiutare i sopravvissuti...

   The last time Keith Boylan was in Iraq, he sat in the back of a truck crunching data on the location of enemy troops and tanks, and telling the artillery where -- and what -- to fire.

   Boylan, then 20, learned firsthand the devastation of war, as he crossed the desert in the wake of U.S. tank attacks during the Persian Gulf War.

   Almost 10 years have passed since Boylan, who grew up in Richmond, served in the gulf. Now, he is heading back to Iraq on Tuesday, along with 16 other U.S. veterans.

   Their mission: to help repair a water treatment plant in a valley in southeastern Iraq.

   The project is the brainchild of Veterans for Peace, a nonprofit educational and humanitarian group that has "adopted" four damaged water treatment plants in Iraq.

   The delegation is working with Life for Relief and Development, a Michigan group that has permission from the U.S. and Iraqi governments to conduct relief projects.

   Boylan, now 30, said the Iraq Water Project represents the chance for healing and reconciliation with people he once considered the enemy.

   "I want to be able to come back and say: We helped people while we were there," he said during a recent interview at a coffeehouse near Swords to Plowshares, the San Francisco veterans' advocacy group where Boylan now works.

   Fredy Champagne, a Vietnam veteran and co-chair of the Iraq Water Project, said the valley where the plants are located had been hit hard by two wars: the 1980-1988 war Iraq fought with neighboring Iran, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

   He said the region also is suffering from the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations in 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the event that led to the Gulf War. The sanctions have been amended, but are still in force.

   The sanctions prohibit trade with Iraq, except for medical supplies, food and other humanitarian items. The United States maintains its own sanctions against Iraq.

   Champagne said the sanctions -- and the continued bombings of Iraq by the United States as it enforces the no-fly zone -- hamper the country's ability to rebuild essential plants damaged or destroyed by the war.

WATER KEY TO HUMAN HEALTH

   The delegation decided to focus its efforts on water treatment plants because clean water is key to human health.

   "Iraqi children are dying from waterborne diseases that can be stopped with proper water treatment," he said. "We can help save lives."

   In a 1998 report, the United Nations Children's Fund -- UNICEF -- said water treatment plants in Iraq lack spare parts, equipment, treatment chemicals, proper maintenance and adequate, trained staff. Extended power failures limit efficiency. Some plants pump water, but do not treat it, because of the high demand for water.

   "People often have no choice but to obtain their water directly from the river, already contaminated by effluent," resulting in major increases in waterborne, communicable diseases, including typhoid, cholera and diarrhea, the UNICEF report said.

   Those diseases are the principal causes of malnutrition, illness, malaise and death in young children, the report said.

   A top U.N. official, who resigned his post as chief relief coordinator for Iraq in protest of the sanctions, said in 1998 that 5,000 Iraqi children are dying every month as a result of the embargo.

   U.S. officials have denied any responsibility for the human toll of sanctions, saying the Iraqi government is responsible for the suffering of its people.

VETERANS FOR PEACE

   Veterans for Peace is one of more than 100 groups that have declared their opposition to sanctions.

   Champagne, 54, said the group has raised $35,000 to help pay for repair work on the first water treatment plant. The group plans to raise $80,000 more to repairthree other plants.

   Champagne, who lives in Napa County and works as a full-time peace activist, said the veterans are paying their own expenses, so that all of the money donated to the project goes into rebuilding the plants.

   The physical work they will perform during their 10-day stay in Iraq will be largely symbolic, he said.

   "We intend to show up every morning at the work site and do as much as we can," he said. "Given the fact that most of us are middle aged and not trained as construction workers, we will be there to mostly show solidarity and support for ordinary, working-class people."

TOO SOON TO RETURN

   Only two members of the delegation are Gulf War veterans.

   Champagne said it may be too soon -- emotionally -- for many Gulf War veterans to return to Iraq.

   "It was 22 years before I had the courage to go back to Vietnam and face the people," he said. "For young Gulf War veterans with less than nine years out of combat, it's a very profound thing to do."

   Champagne hopes the trip will inspire Gulf War veterans to join the next Iraq Water Project delegation in 2001.

   Gulf War veteran Boylan, who joined the Army to get funding for a college education, never expected to go to war.

   In fact, Boylan had received orders to return to the United States from a base in Germany when the Army changed its mind and sent him to the gulf instead.

   Boylan, who earned a degree in screenwriting and filmmaking from S.F. State in 1998, will take a video camera to Iraq. He will document the group's work on the water treatment plant, and shoot footage for a video project he began as a student, about war and its consequences.

Swords to Plowshares:
http://www.swords-to-plowshares.org

Veterans for Peace:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org

Iraq Water Project:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/iraq.htm