US
Raid On Mosque Leads To Massacre In Baghdad
By Bill Van Auken
13 April, 2007
World
Socialist Web
Scores
of people were left killed or wounded and bodies littered the streets
of two crowded urban neighborhoods in central Baghdad following a major
battle between US occupation forces and city residents Tuesday.
The fighting erupted in the
predominantly Sunni Fadhil and Sheikh Omar neighborhoods after what
appeared to be deliberate provocation by US-backed Iraqi troops.
According to residents of
the area reached by the New York Times, the battle erupted early Tuesday
morning after the US and Iraqi puppet forces cordoned off an area and
began house-to-houses searches.
“The Iraqi Army raided
a mosque and killed two men in front of other worshipers at the early
morning prayers,” the Times reported. It quoted Qais Ahhmed, a
laborer who lives close to the mosque, as saying that one of those executed
was the muezzin, the person chosen to lead the call to prayer.
“Then the locals took
their guns and went out to fight the Iraqi Army and the police in reaction
to these executions,” Ahmed added.
It was at that point that
US troops joined the battle, calling in helicopter gunships to launch
air strikes on the neighborhood.
The episode, which has all
the earmarks of a deliberate provocation aimed at drawing out opponents
of the American occupation in order to slaughter them, provides a revealing
glimpse into the reality of the so-called “surge” ordered
by the Bush administration. Touted by the White House and the Pentagon
as an effort to provide “security” for the residents of
Baghdad, the escalation of some 30,000 more troops is, in reality, a
last-ditch effort to drown the growing popular resistance to US domination
in blood.
The Sunni-dominated Muslim
Scholars Association issued a statement condemning the killing of civilians—including
women and children—in the operation. “The association condemns
this horrible crime carried out by occupiers and the government,”
the statement said. It continued, “The civilians of this district
call for the free world and human rights organizations to stop this
massacre that does not differentiate between men and women and children.
They call for relief and for help with their injuries.”
According to various reports,
the number of civilians killed in the operation numbered in the dozens,
with many more wounded. US-Iraqi military forces prevented ambulances
from entering the area, leaving those injured without care. It was also
reported that an elementary school was struck during the fighting, with
a rocket killing a six-year-old child.
As details of the carnage
in Baghdad emerged, a British newspaper published an account of documents
spelling out the Pentagon’s plans for a draconian counterinsurgency
crackdown that would turn much of the Iraqi capital into a virtual prison.
The Independent’s veteran
Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reported Wednesday that the “operation
will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighborhoods
behind barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards
to enter.”
As Fisk points out, this
strategy has a long and inauspicious history in the attempts to suppress
anti-colonial struggles from Algeria to Vietnam. In Vietnam, the US
military attempted something similar with its ill-fated “strategic
hamlet” program.
Fisk reports that the strategy
was developed by the new US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus,
during a six-month course at the Army’s command and general staff
college in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Among those involved in drawing
up the plans were reportedly “at least four senior Israeli officers.”
The strategy calls for mass
arrests of men of military age, Fisk reports. Indeed, part of the US
troop surge is made up of 2,200 military policemen sent to Iraq to guard
the burgeoning population of detainees.
After neighborhoods have
been cleansed of potential resistance fighters, they are to be walled
off and “gated,” with only occupants bearing American-issued
ID cards allowed in an out. Meanwhile, US and Iraqi puppet troops will
establish fortified “support bases” inside these sealed
off areas, conducting regular patrols. “Civilians may find themselves
inside a ‘controlled population’ prison,” Fisk writes.
He goes on, however, to quote
an unnamed former senior US officer’s “pessimistic conclusions”
about the strategy:
“Once the additional
troops are in place the insurrectionists will cut the lines of communication
from Kuwait to the greatest extent they are able. They will do the same
inside Baghdad, forcing more use of helicopters. The helicopters will
be vulnerable coming into the patrol bases, and the enemy will destroy
as many as they can. The second part of their plan will be to attempt
to destroy one of the patrol bases ... The American reaction will be
to use massive fire power, which will destroy the neighborhood that
is being ‘protected.’”
In other words, the so-called
surge will produce a massive escalation in bloodshed, claiming the lives
of countless Iraqis and many, many more US soldiers.
International Red Cross: suffering of Iraqis “unbearable”
The horrific conditions inflicted
upon the Iraqi people by the US war and occupation found fresh confirmation
in a stinging report issued Wednesday by the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), which effectively dismissed the Bush administration’s
hollow claims about “progress” in Iraq.
“The suffering that
Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable,”
ICRC director of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl told the media in releasing
the report. “Their lives and dignity are continuously under threat.”
He added, in relation to
the US military operations, “We’re certainly not seeing
an immediate effect in terms of stabilization for civilians currently.
That is not our reading.”
“The conflict in Iraq
is inflicting immense suffering on the entire population,” the
ICRC report states. “Civilians bear the brunt of the relentless
violence and the extremely poor security conditions that are disrupting
the lives and livelihoods of millions. Every day, dozens of people are
killed and many more wounded. The plight of Iraqi civilians is a daily
reminder of the fact that there has long been a failure to respect their
lives and dignity.”
In addition to the daily
slaughter that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands, while turning
millions more into refugees, the ICRC report cites the destruction of
the country’s health care system and basic infrastructure, creating
a humanitarian disaster.
“Health-care facilities
are stretched to the limit as they struggle to cope with mass casualties
day-in, day-out,” the report states, adding, “Many sick
and injured people do not go to hospital because it’s too dangerous
...” The ICRC reports that fully half the country’s doctors
have already fled into exile.
The Red Cross report cites
growing food shortages and an increase in malnutrition. It warns that
the country’s “vastly inadequate water, sewage and electricity
infrastructure is presenting a risk to public health ... Water is often
contaminated owing to the poor repair of sewage and water-supply networks
and the discharge of untreated sewage into rivers, which are the main
source of drinking water.”
The report also confirms
that the US occupation is resulting in the massive detention of Iraqis
without charges. “Tens of thousands of people are currently being
detained by the Iraqi authorities and the multinational forces in Iraq.
Many families remain without news of relatives who went missing ...”
The ICRC estimates that the number of Iraqis arrested and interned by
the US occupation forces has increased by 40 percent since early 2006.
Meanwhile, the desperation
of the White House and the Pentagon as they seek to reverse the debacle
that the war of aggression in Iraq has produced for US imperialism is
becoming increasingly apparent.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates appeared at a hastily organized Pentagon press conference
to announce that the tours of duty for all regular Army units deployed
in Iraq and Afghanistan are being extended from 12 months to 15 months,
effective immediately. The announcement was one more indication of the
immense strain that the two deployments are placing on the all-volunteer
Army, which some former senior officers are already describing as “broken.”
The public announcement, before any of the troops presently deployed
in Iraq were informed that they will spend three more months in combat,
will undoubtedly further erode already plummeting morale.
Also on Wednesday, the Washington
Post reported that White House has been unable to convince anyone to
fill a new position overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
coordinating the operations of the Pentagon, the State Department and
other agencies.
The newspaper cited at least
three retired four-star generals who rejected the appointment as so-called
“war czar,” apparently out of disagreement with the administration’s
policy or belief that the Iraq war is unwinnable.
“The very fundamental
issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,”
retired Marine Gen. Jack Sheehan, a former NATO commander, told the
newspaper. “There’s the residue of the Cheney view—‘We’re
gong to win, Al Qaeda’s there’—that justifies anything
we did,” he added. “And there’s the pragmatist view—how
the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people
with the former view are still in the positions of most influence.”
Summing up his decision to
refuse the appointment, Sheehan concluded, “So rather than go
over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No
thanks.’”
Click
here to comment
on this article