战争还要持续多久

　　At the same time about as that was going on, here at the Palestine Hotel(巴勒斯坦宾馆)swheresa lot of Marines are based, there was just outside a major gun battle, or at least it seemed that way to us. It went on for several minutes(枪声坚持了几分钟).

　　The Marines unleashed(放枪)their heavy machine guns and what it turned out was, according to the Marines, there were two people with machine guns on the other side of the river firing in this direction(有两个人持枪从河的另一端朝这个方向开火) and the Marines simply unleashed a lot of their heavy machine guns, as I said, and eventually these two guns were silenced(最终枪声停止了). We don't know whether the gunmen were killed or what happened but they did stop shooting.

　　Now, also there have been attempts by the Marines to restore some order(重整秩序)and to try to get the local police to help them do that(或者试着让当地警方协助). We reported yesterday that they were going out trying to find the police force.

　　【注】美军昨天在伊拉克招聘秩序维护员，现场秩序乱成一片，大批的伊拉克人处在水深火热之中。

　　And today, one of the former police commanders, well still a police commander(警察指挥官), came up to the Marines and they apparently started to have talks about how they could institute Iraqi police patrols (伊拉克警察巡逻队)on the streets to calm some of the looting(平息掠夺事件), some of the disorder that's been going on over the last several days.

　　RO: Any reports -- Christiane, any reports on Iraqi casualties?(有没有伊拉克人员伤亡的报道？)

　　AMANPOUR: Well, today we went to some hospitals and, you know, a lot of the hospitals have been looted (很多医院都已经被掠夺一光) but there are a coupleswheresthey're still able to treat people(但是有几家医院现在仍然能进行医治病人的工作) and that have been treating people since the war began, and we found a lot of civilian casualties there.

　　【注】有些时候, casualties是个看起来比较简单，但真正发音发正确却不是那么容易，就像"大规模杀伤性武器"一样，真正脱口而出mass destruction weapons的人一定不多。

　　And, when we asked the doctors what, you know, what they could tell us in terms of numbers(他们告诉我们伤亡的数字), they told us that they had received, certainly at this one hospital, many more casualties than they did during the first Gulf war. They said that they had 500 civilian casualties, ranging from minor to major injuries(大大小小500多例受伤), that they have conducted 170 major operations, and that's a lot, in three weeks of war(自开战三个星期以来，已经实施大手术170例。).

　　They said they had about 60 people dead at that particular hospital (就在那家医院已经有60多人失去生命。)and they said that they didn't really understand why but they had many more casualties this time and much more serious injuries than the Gulf war of 1991(比上次海湾战争伤亡人数多的多。).