Accounts
Of Atrocities Emerge
From The Rubble Of Falluja
By Dahr Jamail
12 May, 2004
The New Standard
Fallujah
-- Dr. Abdul Jabbar, an Orthopedic Surgeon, said that it was difficult
to keep track of the number of people they treated, as well as the number
of dead, due to the lack of documentation. This was caused, primarily,
by the fact that the main hospital, which is located on the opposite
side of the Euphrates as the city, was sealed off by U.S. Marines for
the majority of April.
Another Orthopedic
Surgeon, Dr. Rashid, said that during the first 10 days of fighting,
the U.S. military did not allow any evacuations at all. He said, Even
transferring patients in the city was impossible, you can see our ambulances
outside. They also shot into the main doors with snipers of one of our
centers.
In the parking lot
of the hospital several ambulances are parked. Two of them have bullet
holes in the windshields; one of these is riddled with bullet holes,
and the tires had been shot out as well.
Both doctors said they had not been contacted by the U.S. military,
nor was any aid delivered to them from the military. Dr. Rashid said,
They send only bombs, not medicine.
Mr. Jabur Khani
Raad was sitting in a waiting room in the hospital with a splint device
on his arm. He told a horrid story of how he and his two brothers were
shot by US Marines on April 11th. He said, We were in the military
quarter going to visit some relatives near the Al-Hassan mosque, and
they opened fire on us from the rooftops of the houses they occupied.
His 44 year-old
brother who was driving, Jabul Nezzar Raad, was killed. Jabur and his
other brother were detained and taken to a U.S. base outside the city.
His downcast eyes spoke of terror while he said, They didnt
treat me as bad as the others since I was wounded. With the others,
they dug holes in the ground and kept them there. I heard their screaming
whenever they were being interrogated.
He told of an old
man who was unable to walk after being tortured, and added, Please
publish this. People need to know how the Americans are treating Iraqi
prisoners. We were starved, given very little food. The soldiers took
the better food out of the bags, and gave us what little was left. Then
they burned the good food in front of us.
He said hed
had a bag over his head much of the time. Wearily he recounted, Sometimes
I couldnt breathe because of the bag over my head. Even when I
was in their hospital they left the bag on.
We went to see the
car near his home which is riddled with so many bullets it is apparently
a miracle any of them survived the attack.
Then over at where
the attack occurred, a man who witnessed the incident said that the
body of Jaburs brother was left in the street for a week. He said,
After several days dogs began eating off of it. Then on the 7th
day, the soldiers dumped fuel on it and burned it. We were trapped in
our house, or we would have tried to bury it; but anyone leaving their
homes was shot by them. They knew these men were civilians, because
after they had shot up their car, they began stopping other cars that
tried to come to the area.
He added that an
ambulance had attempted to collect the body on the 5th day, but was
shot at by the snipers who occupied the rooftops.
One of the neighbors,
seeing that I was a journalist, came out to tell yet another horrific
tale.
His brother, Hussein
Mohammad Jergi, was a 43 year-old man who had a mental disability. He
wandered out of his home on the same day the car was shot up, only to
be shot and injured by the snipers himself.
With tears in his
eyes, his brother angrily told the rest of the story. He was shot
and ran into the house. They followed him into our home, took out a
big knife and chopped off his feet. Then they shot him in the head.
After destroying much of our furniture, and putting shit around my house,
they left. This is how they behaved all over Fallujah. We buried my
brothers feet with his body.
As I walked back
to the car, another man tugged my arm and yelled, The Americans
are cowboys; this is their history! Look at what they did to the Indians!
Vietnam! Afghanistan! And now Iraq! This does not surprise us.
Along with the daily
publication of photos documenting the atrocities occuring in Abu Ghraib,
stories like these underscore what most people in Iraq now believe --
that the liberators have become no more than brutal imperialist occupiers
of their country.
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Dahr Jamail is Baghdad
correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering
the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his
crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to
donate to Dahr, visit The NewStandard.
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