Another
U.S. Military Operation,
More Unrest
By Ali al-Fadhily
22 August,2007
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Aug 22 (IPS)
- New U.S. military operations across Iraq appear to be worsening
the situation.
On Aug. 13 about 16,000 U.S.
and Iraqi troops began a massive new military operation north of Baghdad.
According to the U.S. military, the goal of the operation, named Lightning
Hammer, is to "target insurgents who have fled a crackdown in the
restive city of Baquba."
The operation is part of
a larger military offensive, Operation Phantom Strike, whose goal is
"to disrupt al-Qaeda in Iraq and Shia extremist operations in Iraq."
Both operations have included
extensive use of air strikes. Many residents speak with bitterness about
the operations and the language used to describe tem.
"This is not the first
time that we have heard nice words about military operations that they
say aim for our security and prosperity," 50-year-old teacher Kassim
Hussein told IPS in Baghdad. "Yet every time it was more killing,
sieges and poverty. It is a war that we did not have to fight, but we
are the biggest losers every time it is ignited by the Americans."
According to a press release
on the official website of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq dated Aug.
13, Operation Phantom Strike "consists of simultaneous operations
throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq)
terrorists and Iranian-supported extremist elements."
The MNF press release claimed
that the operation had "liberated large segments of the Iraqi population
from AQI" and that the operations were "appreciably improving
the lives of the Iraqi people."
But many Iraqis recall U.S.
military offensives in Fallujah (60 km west of Baghdad), al-Qa'im (400
km northwest of Baghdad), Haditha (240 km northwest of Baghdad) and
other cities practically destroyed under the flag of fighting terror.
"I have no house now
because of another phantom operation in my city," Hamid Salman,
a retired government worker from Fallujah told IPS in Baghdad. "I
have to live with my brother in his small house here in Baghdad, and
tens of thousands of Fallujah people are suffering the same situation.
That was all the American ghosts and furies did for us."
According to an Aug. 19 air
power summary from the U.S. Air Force, a B-1 bomber destroyed three
buildings in Baghdad, and F-16 fighter jets dropped guided munitions
and fired cannon rounds in Baghdad and Iskandariyah (40 km south of
Baghdad). A total of 68 air support missions were flown in Iraq that
day alone.
"Death walks with the
military," former Iraqi army Brigadier General Mustafa Hashim told
IPS in Baghdad. "There is never a clean military operation, and
so more civilians are expected to be killed, injured or evicted from
their homes."
According to the group Just
Foreign Policy, an independent organisation "dedicated to reforming
U.S. foreign policy to serve the interests and reflect the values of
the broad majority of Americans," more than one million Iraqis
have died as a direct result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
The group's number is based
primarily on data extrapolated from a scientific study published in
the Lancet medical journal in Britain Oct. 11, 2006.
"The method the U.S.
army follows when attacking a city is to intensify fire regardless of
the possibility of civilians' existence in the targeted place,"
said Hashim. "In fact, they would shoot even when they are certain
of civilians' existence. Their culture is to achieve victory no matter
what."
While the U.S. military has
issued many reports about the recent operations, Iraqis continue to
doubt the claims of success.
"It is all about the
media, politics, elections, and conflict inside the U.S. Congress and
such business," Waleed al-Ubaydi, a political analyst at Baghdad
University told IPS. "They know in advance that their offensives
are not going to achieve much, but they have to show their people and
the world that they are active on the ground.
"Al-Qaeda and other
fighters have put their cells to sleep for the time being, concentrating
on taking the U.S. army by surprise here and there. This is an endless
story unless a miracle takes place in a time when miracles do not take
place any more."
Many Iraqis say the U.S.
occupation leaders should consider what matters to civilians, since
most Iraqis are now living under the worst conditions possible. They
say it is the responsibility of the occupation forces to provide people
with decent living conditions, rather than fight Bush's war on Iraqi
ground and at Iraqi peoples' expense.
"Bush has nothing to
lose here except his reputation which he has already lost," Hamdan
Salih, an unemployed lawyer in Baghdad told IPS. "He is pushing
Iraqis to fight each other and meanwhile attacking our cities in search
of his own enemies, who most of the time happen to be our sons and brothers.
He is sacrificing Iraqi pawns for the American oil king."
(Ali, our correspondent in
Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based
specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
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