Official announcements of plans to bombard Iraq usually contain a phrase or two about "regrettable civilian casualties." The regret, in reality, is usually felt by the civilians, as a conversation with a survivor of the last US "surgical strike" on Bagdad makes clear. PNS correspondent Dennis Bernstein is a producer for Pacifica Radio and an award winning investigative reporter.  

With all that wall space in the White House, perhaps the president can find some room for a painting by Laila al-Attar. They may not remember her, but they should -- she was the Iraqi artist who was blown to bits by the bombers sent to punish Saddam Hussein in 1993. So was her husband. 

 Their only daughter, Rema, survived, blinded in one eye. Rema -- "little deer" in Arabic -- left Baghdad soon after the bombing. She has had five operations on her face in Los Angeles and Canada, and is still in pain. 

 She was twenty-four when "the bombs changed everything." In 1995, she married and moved to the San Francisco Bay area where her husband has a business. Trained as a draft designer, she took courses at a community college until their baby Laila was born four months ago. Rema is anxious to complete her courses in interior design as soon as possible. "I can still do this work with my one good eye," she says. 

 The Clintons might call on Rema on their way to visit their daughter Chelsea at Stanford, which is only a few minutes away. She might shed some light on the consequences of the impending decision to bomb Bagdad again. 

 It is possible Clinton remembers Laila al-Attar. Surely, the president was thoroughly briefed on the air raid. It was June 27, 1993, in the first months of his presidency. As commander in chief, he announced, he was acting to foil a plot to assassinate former president George Bush during a victorious visit to Kuwait. The plot turned out to be a ruse. 

 Rema was not only terrorized by the bombing, but confused. "It had nothing to do with us. My father was a successful businessman. My mother was an artist. I used to work as a display designer in a museum. We had nothing to do with politics. It was two years after the war had ended." 

 It was 2 a.m. when the bombs started falling. The family was sound asleep. "There was no warning. We heard an explosion and felt the walls shake. We tried to get out but we couldn't do it. The whole house collapsed on top of us." 

 Rema has never received an apology from the government that stole her parents away from her "in the prime of their lives," leaving her for dead under the broken stone and rubble that was once her home. She was buried alive for five hours. "I was very deep under and no one could hear me. I was dying by the time they got through. They didn't get to my parents for another two hours. It was two hours too late." 

 Laila al-Attar was Director of the Iraqi National Art Museum, and a powerful force in gaining recognition for woman artists in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. She was also, her daughter remembers, "very beautiful, very well respected and very kind." 

 Rema does not speak of anger and revenge, but of sorrow and fear. "I get scared so easily now, I can't do anything. I always wear dark glasses." And she has one major concern -- her brother, who miraculously escaped serious injury when "smart bombs" turned his parents, his home and his entire way of life into a bit of acceptable collateral damage. "I'm very worried about my brother," she says. "He is still in Iraq and they are getting ready to bomb."