CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq - Adrift in the torrent of war, misplaced amid the urgent exertions of the troops, armored vehicles and military aircraft on this sprawling U.S. Army base, is a little girl in a wheelchair.
Her name is Ma''rwa Ahteemi. She is 12 years old. She has chestnut hair, brown eyes and high, fine cheekbones that stand out all the more in a face drawn by pain and malnutrition.
Mighty armies, when conquering foreign lands, invariably leave a trail of mangled innocents like Ma''rwa. It''s a cost of war. Collateral damage.
She was in her home that November day when an errant U.S. mortar shell fell from the sky and immutably wrecked her childhood. Five members of her family were killed; more than a dozen were injured.
Americans come here with the noblest of goals: to bring freedom to an oppressed people. Statesmen in Washington may speak of geopolitical strategies, the vital prize of Middle East oil or the doctrine of pre-emptive war. But the troops see themselves as liberators. And within the inevitable savagery of war, they try to care.
Yet armies are by nature clumsy, violent things. They tear up streets and farms, trade artillery salvos with their foes, hold motorists at gunpoint at checkpoints on the highways, frighten communities with nighttime raids. They bring freedom and funerals. It''s no wonder the Iraqis want them gone.
"What her father said is that he is upset that his family is not safe. To me it sounded like he was blaming both the insurgents and our forces," says Maj. Mary Adams, a physical therapist at the hospital.
Ma''rwa and her brothers Issam, 16, and Ahmit, 11, and little sister Rajaa, 5, were taken by remorseful U.S. troops to Camp Anaconda, to the warren of tents that serves as the base hospital. Here the children are treated, under the watchful eye of an uncle, in a curtained section of the intensive- care ward, alongside wounded U.S. soldiers and Iraqi prisoners of war.
Ma''rwa''s family has been "very forgiving," Adams says. Her parents have received financial compensation from the Americans. Her father''s main concern is that Ma''rwa will return to the family as a burden. "I need for her to work," he said.
The children take their meals in the dining hall with the medical staff and a few ambulatory patients. Ma''rwa''s brothers and sister have fractured legs, and none can yet walk without assistance. Their recovery is slowed by poor nutrition.
Ma''rwa is the worst off. She is paralyzed from the waist down and has an ulcerous sore on her back and hip from lying on the spartan Army cot. In her impoverished tribal community, paraplegics face a future that is uncertain, at best.
"Is she going to be able to work in the fields? No. Take care of the cattle? No," Adams says.
Americans have responded with characteristic generosity. The hospital personnel spread the news of her plight via e-mail to the folks back home.
Money was raised by a church group for a special kind of pediatric wheelchair. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and the National Spinal Cord Injury Association got involved, and a bed has been found for Ma''rwa in a hospital near Washington.
There, she may learn to control her bowels and bladder, to dress and bathe herself, perhaps to walk with crutches and leg braces.
"We''re not really set up to do pediatrics here," Adams says. All the gear and equipment come in adult sizes. Ma''rwa "is going to need a lot, and there is very little of that kind of care available in this country right now."
Like so much else about America''s intervention in Iraq, Ma''rwa''s story does not lend itself to tidy, soothing simplifications. It is rich, instead, with the ache of ambiguity, conflict and complication.
The nation that maimed her will now try to help her cope.
"I ... USA," Ma''rwa says, and makes a walking motion with her fingers through the air. And then, out of darkness, comes the wonder of her smile.