Although this has a happy ending, as you can see, war is not just the
capturing of someone who may or may not have been a threat to us. We
have, because of our war mongering, put this little boy through
nothing short of pure hell. If this story doesn't sadden you, then you
are no better than Saddam himself:

Saleh Khalaf, the 9-year-old Iraqi boy gravely wounded in a blast on
his Nasiriya schoolyard, walked out of Children's Hospital Oakland on
Tuesday to the high-fives of surgeons who six weeks ago worried
whether he would survive.

On his way to the main lobby for his media debut, Saleh asked his
father, Raheem Khalaf, to brush his hair. Decked out in a red
Quicksilver T-shirt and mirrored sunglasses, he wanted to look good
for the cameras.

He also wanted to cover up his left eye, which was destroyed in
October when he picked up an explosive that he thought was a toy ball.
Saleh has become shy about his appearance, his father said.

Saleh also lost his right hand, and all but a thumb and a partial
digit on his left -- injuries that will take several more months of
reconstructive work to repair. In the meantime, Saleh and his father
will live around the corner in the hospital's Family House.

His most dangerous injury was to his abdomen, which was torn open by
the blast, exposing his intestines. His older brother, Diya, 16, died
in the explosion, the origins of which are unknown.

At the insistence of his father, Saleh was transferred from the
war-torn and understaffed Saddam Hussein Hospital after two weeks to
the trauma unit on the U.S. air base.

There, Dr. Jay Johannigman and a team began reconstructive work on
Saleh's hands and closed his abdomen. When the boy surprised everyone
by surviving dozens of life-threatening surgeries, Air Force doctors
began contacting their American medical friends looking for a way to
give Saleh the long-term care he wouldn't be able to receive in Iraq.

Children's Hospital Oakland accepted the unusual request, and on Nov.
10, Saleh was flown in a military plane to California.

'Amazing' boy

"Saleh is an amazing young man," said Dr. James Betts, the hospital's
chief of surgery. "He was in such critical condition when he arrived,
we expected his recovery would take a lot longer."

Saleh was so severely emaciated that he needed calories and
antibiotics before his body could undergo any surgeries. Betts and a
team grafted skin from Saleh's thigh to close his abdominal wound.

During his hospital stay, Saleh's story touched the community. Well-
wishers sent presents and visited daily, and local Arabs brought food
and invited Raheem to mosques for prayer.

His nurses and therapists gathered around him Tuesday, clapping and
singing a goodbye song: "Goodbye Saleh, goodbye Saleh, we're sad to
see you go! "

After he left the hospital, Saleh moved into the nearby apartment the
hospital is providing in its Family House for Raheem.

Saleh will need several more months of physical therapy and cosmetic
surgery before he's ready to return to Iraq, Betts said.

He needs a new left eyelid and a prosthetic eye. Dr. Robert Haining
will outfit Saleh with a prosthetic hook on his right hand.

"We have to give him the most basic prosthetic because he's going to
be in a country where those kinds of things are hard to come by and
hard to maintain," Haining said.

Shouting for joy

Saleh said he is so happy to be getting out of the hospital that he
would give a high-pitched yell, the kind Iraqi women shriek at
weddings, to celebrate.

"I love my mom and the only thing I want when I leave is to hear her
voice," he said.

Raheem is overjoyed that his son is thriving. He thanked the American
doctors many times, and hugged all of Saleh's therapists, nurses and
surgeons.

"I talked to my family in Iraq yesterday to let them know Saleh is out
of the hospital," Raheem said. "They can't wait to see him."