A name that lives in infamy;
The destruction of Falluja was an act of barbarism
that ranks alongside My Lai, Guernica and Halabja
Thursday 10 November 2005 By Mike Marqusee - The Guardian - UK
A name that lives in infamy
The destruction of Falluja was an act of barbarism
that ranks alongside My Lai, Guernica and Halabja
One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating
assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary
Brandl
: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're
going to destroy him."
Watch the video :
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/default_02112005.asp
The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops
cut
off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of
the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying
forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war
against
the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled,
many to squatters' camps without basic facilities.
As the siege tightened, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were
kept
out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources
claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city -
which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were
non-combatants.
On November 8, 10,000 US troops, supported by 2,000 Iraqi recruits,
equipped
with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter
gunships, blasted their way into a city the size of Leicester. It took a
week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory
was
claimed.
The city's main hospital was selected as the first target, the New York
Times reported, "because the US military believed it was the source of
rumours about heavy casualties". An AP photographer described US
helicopters
killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. "There were
American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan
Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With
no
medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street
was
a target for the Americans."
The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous.
"Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this
operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay
in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of
the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65
mosques
and shrines.
The US claims that 2,000 died, most of them fighters. Other sources
disagree. When medical teams arrived in January they collected more than
700
bodies in only one third of the city. Iraqi NGOs and medical workers
estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians - a
proportionately
higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz.
The collective punishment inflicted on Falluja - with logistical and
political support from Britain - was largely masked by the US and British
media, which relied on reporters embedded with US troops. The BBC, in
particular, offered a sanitised version of the assault: civilian suffering
was minimised and the ethics and strategic logic of the attack largely
unscrutinised.
Falluja proved to be yet another of the war's phantom turning points.
Violent resistance spread to other cities. In the last two months,
Tal-Afar,
Haditha, Husaybah - all alleged terrorist havens heavily populated by
civilians - have come under the hammer. Falluja is still so heavily
patrolled that visitors have described it as "a giant prison". Only a
fraction of the promised reconstruction and compensation has materialised.
Like Jallianwallah Bagh .................................
Read the rest :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1638829,00.html
Mike Marqusee is a co-founder of Iraq Occupation Focus
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/default_02112005.asp
FIGHT IGNORANCE read www.buzzflash.com
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