Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 21, 1991, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free january 9 War Gulf Canada goes to pumpkin and All by Phillip Day the Canadian press Ottawa some very Unmil itary items have been sharing space on military trans ports since Canadian troops were sent to the persian Bart Simpson shirts for example of and Worth of beeping Nintendo for two portable swimming pools and a prize win 160kilogram pumpkin the list goes on and All were donated by Canadian service groups and individuals who wanted to help with Canadas Effort in the As of the list of items sent through the department of National defence to Canadian soldiers in the Gulf was about 25 pages with 15 or 20 donations noted on every says Steve wills is one of about 10 defence staff now assigned to handle the and a lot of the stuff that going Over we dont know he people get together at work or whatever and ship some stuff to somebody but what they do know the hundreds of thousands of dollars Worth of donations transported by military ship of amounts to a unsolicited Relief wills says the pumpkin started it a Nova Scotia Farmer decided to donate the huge prizewinner in just after Canadian ships left Halifax for the soldiers rolled the massive pumpkin into the Back of a c130 Hercules transport plane and it was flown to the on a giant grinning face was carved on the pump Kinin time for the idea sort of caught fire in the maritime after we started to get people calling and it just donations passed on through the depart ment dont include those enclosed in the pieces of mail sent weekly to Canad an soldiers in the some of the donations have been extremely lip suntan Oil Blister donated cases of their lip Balm and Avon donated 10 boxes of suntan Kodak sent each Soldier a disposable telecoms the National umbrella phone sent them each a gift Good for about 15 minutes chatting with the folks Back wills says some of the people asking about donating have been told about the Lack of recreational activities available to the problems Over there is spare they dont have a lot of it but what they you cant just go out to a bar or disco Over that suggestion led to the Nintendo both handheld and to Baton broadcasting sent Over five five Vars and 10 jumbo video sent 100 video movies and the National film Board sent 30 of their a Calgary veterans group donated that the military used to buy 18 big screen various companies and organizations have sent thousands of music cassette tapes and for Noma sent Over five Christmas Trees and 18 decorating obviously thinking of traditional griping about army donated palate pleasing one food company sent chocolate armies mass outside saudi ghost City the new Brunswick government sent each Soldier from that province a package con Taining canned chocolate and other a Calgary company pledged pounds of Frozen Yogurt and an Ottawa firm donated a shipment of Beaver tails a local delicacy made of Sticky sugary wills says it took some time but the military came up with a refrigerated trans port for the Yogurt and Molson and Labatt offered Beer but were politely the companies sent hats and other weve had to refuse some Well meaning offers of liquor and things like that for fear of offending the islamic principles of our Host says no matter what is wills says the soldiers value the a photo by Chris Hedges times news service saudi Arabia since Allied warplanes began their sorties against Iraq on this virtually abandoned saudi City just a few Hundred metres from the kuwaiti Border has taken the Brunt of the damage done in saudi Arabia by iraqi shelling has shut Down the City of and damaged both the Oil refinery and the desalination which provides the City with its drinking the electric current has been Cut the water tanks Are empty and the telephones do not at the far end of the near the smoke from a smouldering fire in a damaged Oil refinery spi rated slowly upward yesterday into the Grey morning nothing stirred As the propellers of a an ov10 droned Over the deserted the empty cars left in the Middle of the Street and the shuttered and pad locked the slow moving apparently locating a fired a White phosphorous Marker rocket toward iraqi positions one or two Kilometres inside moments later Marine corps harrier jets streaked across the sky and dumped Iron fragmentation bombs near the thin plumes of sending up Grey and Char Coal coloured Clouds that were Fol for those watching from a by a loud guns chattered iraqi antiaircraft guns briefly swung into chattering away at the planes without a saudi Soldier stand ing near the surf that gently rolled into the strip of White Sand along the cites beachfront said it is very peaceful Here it is very the night the War saudi soldiers Manning trenches near the Border retreated from their Posi leaving behind scattered pieces of food and even at Dawn on iraqi Artil Lery opened fire on the hitting a storage tank in the arabian Oil refinery and a few outlying build the smouldering tank has be come a rendezvous Point for Allied pilots who Are heading into the civilian including the police in their patrol cars and the firefighters in their stormed out of the City on the Road heading South shortly after the artillery rounds began to none have in the Seaside restaurant in the Khanji Beach hotel half empty pots of Tea and uneaten breakfast Rolls still rested on the White a Salt Breeze fluttered a curtain near an open screen troops from the Royal saudi Marine camped outside the returned yesterday to set up a Road Block out of yellow Oil Drums and moved around the streets in Toyota pickup trucks with 50calibre machine guns mounted in the several soldiers said they found the empty City eerie and the enemy is not far said the colonel in charge of the who asked to remain we see him and he sees some the sporadic artillery which amounts to a few iraqi salvos a has caused Little although two marines and a Navy Hospi Tal corpsman were lightly wounded thursday the iraqis Are firing their lighter stuff at the said a Marine corps major who is assigned As an adviser to the Royal saudi Marine unit and who asked to remain they fire their Hea vier like their Long Range Rock at the troops massed at the Back of the behind and along the Road leading to the Border from a four hour drive columns of tanks and Bradley fighting part of the army second a Mored moved into Posi either there really bad shots or they have no idea where everything a Marine Jim said of the iraqi but officers said the iraqi armed forces might be Hus banding their the shooting is said the Marine they Are trying to hit area where our troops Are but they Are afraid to shoot too much because they will get pin pointed and get they have got a lot More stuff Back there we Haven dog of War a masked against a possible Gas iraqi scud missiles showered Eastern saudi carries a canine Friend into a bomb shelter last night As Patriot missiles were launched to intercept the iraqi Supply lines general says by Nolan Walters Knight Ridder newspapers Washington Norman Schwarzkopf statement yesterday that Allied forces have broken Supply and communication lines Between Iraq and its troops in Southern Kuwait could signal accomplish ment of a significant part of the allies by isolating Iraq Large army in the allies have hoped to make it lose the will to or at least put up less should american and Allied troops attack across the but Schwarzkopf single com ment that i think weve broken both Supply and communications lines South of Iraq leaves Many officials in and out of government Ive fought against a lot of Guys who have had their Supply lines broken and who have fought on for a Long warned retired John former chairman of the joint chiefs of the Allied forces apparently Hope that a dividend conquer strategy will strand Iraq but less trained popular army in while bombing keeps Saddam Hus skins crack Republican guard bogged Down further Schwarzkopf interview on abcs this week with David Brinkley gave no indication that strategy has american military officials recently estimated that about iraqi troops Are about equally divided Southern Iraq and most of the estimated 000 Republican guard troops Are in Kuwait near the iraqi where Saddam has held them Back As a Quick counter punching officials Are not underestimating the popular army ability to fight a defensive Battle from fortified berms and but american military officials Hope that the popular army will be weakened both physically and psychologically if separated from the Republican the hard Core of Saddam military the popular army has demonstrated a tendency to panic in the face of a serious a War College report for such former top Pentagon manpower official Lawrence Korb said yesterday that word of the popular army possible isolation could be very significant because it lessens the Chance of one of these meat grinder operations against entrenched iraqi but a former assistant Secretary of defence for installations and cautioned that the strategy Success depends on How Well supplied these forces Are Down in and severed communications and Supply lines can be the marshy landscape of parts of Southern Iraq provide the allies with better opportunities for destroying vital roads and Bridges than Ameri can forces had in the Jungles of the War College report Cau the iraqis have excellent engineering capabilities and Exten Sive truck resources and can move big amounts of supplies Schwarzkopf made Clear the favored solution would be for iraqi troops simply to even if the popular army Breaks under the the weapons of modern mass warfare can cause Schwarzkopf said those that have come across and defected have indicated they Are More afraid of their own mine Fields or their own air raids rain terror in Iraq continued from Page 1 support for iraqi president Saddam Hussein confrontation with the their Zeal seemed tempered and they were visibly shaken by their hazardous a Young jordanian Rock ing a Twoy Earold baby in her arms As she stood in the cold desert wind at said her children were Hiyam Naji Rashid said she decided to leave with her children after her neighbourhood was struck repeatedly on the first morning of the Allied air we were at Home in the Baghdad District of there was an air raid every two the planes came three there were no casualties in our but people Are Hiyam no one was expecting this to we have never seen any thing like not in eight years of War with she said As she tried to console her who was crying umm appeared to be the most shaken among yester Days straining to maintain the palestinian Mother of seven said she was on the verge of i r my children screamed All they All piled up on top of my eldest son Mohammed was taken with Iraq popular army to we know what is happening he May never come i guess he went voluntarily with she said with the War against we knew what to now with the it is people Are just abandoning their we have still not recovered from the War with she umm Mohammed said most iraqis she knew would have prefer red a diplomatic solution to the Gulf we want them to Stop this War we also want Iraq to Stop this shelling against because they have but the israelis must get out of our let them Stop from All All mothers think like she to hell with All the but please protect our Young she As tears started rolling Down her the palestinian said Saddam strike against Israel had made him Happy at i first thought that this is a great this is How i Felt about kuwaitis when Iraq but then the iraqis stayed and things got very Chahine said he left behind a preg Nant daughter who was about to and he feared she would go into labor during an air she had a Book on natural he which she presumably would use if she could not make it to a fares Yahya said the suburbs of Baghdad have been people Are trying to pre serve Only a few Gaso line stations Are open and people Are living on hoarded no electricity or he some of the bombing has hit residential areas such As Hayy Al Rashid added that the presidential Palace and a building in Central Baghdad housing much of the cites telecommunications hardware have suffered minor other suggested the presidential Palace has been More extensively the residential neighbourhoods of Qadriyyah and and the Doura Central bus were also according to a group of refugees who reached Here from Baghdad a Church was almost flattened in the Northern City of University student Mahmoud Latif on the first morning after the a bus full of people at Doura was when the planes came in the one Man half a dozen others interviewed separately confirmed the nowhere Are no no trans and each of us knows Only what happens in his said Youssef Boutros last some kind of rocket fell near our Home in the bombing is not he taxi Driver Abdul Wahab Massoud held up a Large round fragment of Green Metal imprinted with English lettering from what he said was a downed american Massoud accompanied Nimr a palestinian who had driven from Kuwait to Baghdad and then to the jordanian Madi said he saw three cars full of bodies and coffins at a Gas station in there Are Man civilian casual ties in Basra and i saw Many coffins in some of them Madi adding that an Oil refinery in Basra had been he described nighttime raids Over Kuwait As very intensive and said heavy antiaircraft fire there turns the sky into a kind of when the planes come to hit a target they also hit Homes around Madi occupation troops in Kuwait government says los Angeles times saudia Arabia iraqi troops occupying Kuwait City Are growing suffering food shortages and a scattered few Are dropping their arms and trying to fade into civilian society according to the kuwaiti government in a government spokesman met with reporters Here late yester Day and said that iraqi troops Are going House to House in Kuwait City in search of trying he to create their own food in some they Are reportedly using Force to obtain the goods to the accounts could not be Veri fied by correspondents Here with the but they offered a tantalizing glimpse of the effects of four Days of air War against the forces of even their elite guards sup ply lines Are not providing them with a decent said Abdul Rahman kuwaiti minister of state for Cabinet what is Clear is that the morale of the soldiers is very Awadi said that he had been in Contact with countrymen inside Kuwait just an hour before speaking with iraqi he Are trying to grab All food available and take it by Force in some he described water shortages in the besieged City As the result of interruptions in electrical Power used by water desalinization in groups of 10 and iraqi sol Diers also Are reported to be drop Ping or hiding their asking for civilian clothes and trying to hide out in private Homes As if they Hope they could blend into the City he they sought out private Homes that were abandoned by kuwaitis in the face of the August he declined to estimate the num Ber of army this account of life in Kuwait followed a briefing one Day ear Lier in which a said that the cites two main 500bed hospitals already were bulging with iraqi they said they coping with the numbers they have a lot of them in the corridmg1 ;