US
Air Strikes Kill 34 Iraqis
By Naomi Spencer
15 October, 2007
WSWS.org
On October 11, US forces killed
34 Iraqis during air strikes on a home northwest of Baghdad. The military
has acknowledged that at least 15 among the dead were civilians, including
nine children, making the civilian toll one of the largest admitted
by US forces since the 2003 invasion.
The US military has not released
specific details of the incident. According to a Washington Post report
published Friday, troops raided a residence during a “suspected
leadership meeting of al-Qaida in Iraq,” a Sunni insurgent group,
near Samarra in western Iraq.
The latest death toll is
the product of a campaign of aggressive US raids throughout the country
aimed at smashing armed resistance. In the week before the air strikes,
US forces killed at least 52 other “suspected insurgents”
and detained 47 more, according to military accounts.
The military says troops
called in an air strike on the home after they were fired upon. In the
first air attack, the military said, “four terrorists” were
killed. Troops then tracked fleeing survivors and called in further
air strikes. Among the dead in subsequent strikes, the military listed
15 more “terrorists,” six women, and nine children. Another
three children, one woman, and two men were wounded, according to the
military.
While pledging a full investigation,
US officials have barely bothered to conceal their indifference to the
atrocity. In public statements, the military has blamed the death toll
on “terrorists” and characterized the use of air attacks
as appropriate force.
“We regret that civilians
are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism,”
military spokesman Major Brad Leighton told the Associated Press after
the incident. “These terrorists chose to deliberately place innocent
Iraqi women and children in danger by their actions and presence.”
Similarly, Rear Admiral Greg
Smith told the New York Times Friday, “We do not target civilians....
But when our forces are fired upon, as they are routinely, then they
have no option but to return fire.” He added, “The enemy
has a vote here, and when he chooses to surround himself with civilians
and then fire upon US forces, our forces have no choice but to return
a commensurate amount of fire.”
That indiscriminate air attacks
can be defended as “commensurate” force reveals much about
the thinking of US military planners and the brutality of the occupation.
“Where can anybody be safe from Bush’s democracy?”
one surviving relative, whose pregnant cousin was killed, told the Washington
Post. “Whenever we want to open a new chapter with the Americans,
to forget the past and try all over again, they drag us into violence,
weapons and fighting again. And to sympathize with al-Qaida against
them. All because of their inconsideration for our blood.”
A United Nations Assistance
Mission to Iraq report (see UN Assistance Mission for Iraq full pdf
report) released the same day described the situation in Iraq as an
“ever-deepening humanitarian crisis.” The report, which
spanned the three-month period ending June 30, documented more than
100 civilian deaths from US air strikes and raids.
In a May 8 incident, seven
children were killed when helicopters attacked an elementary school.
A military spokesman at the time denied media reports that the incident
had occurred, and claimed the helicopter had fired on insurgents planting
roadside bombs. Although the military subsequently announced an investigation,
according to the UN, “the findings of such investigations are
not systematically publicized.”
Stonewalling and whitewashing
of this sort, which epitomizes the whole criminal venture in Iraq, is
typical of the US military and administration leaders.
The draft of the UN report
had been slated for release in August, but according to a confidential
admission by a senior UN official to the Washington Post, the UN delayed
its publication for more than a month following a request by Ryan Crocker,
the US ambassador to Iraq. Crocker did not want the reality portrayed
in the document to overshadow his own testimony, along with that of
General David Petraeus, before Congress in early September, presenting
the situation in Iraq as one of measurable progress resulting from increased
troop levels.
The reality is quite the
opposite. The US occupation has thrown Iraq into chaos and led to the
mass dislocation of Iraqis both within the country and to neighboring
states. The most recent estimate of the violent death toll in Iraq since
the 2003 invasion stands at well over 1.2 million. The UN report estimated
that 2.2 million Iraqis had fled the country as of June, most into Syria
and Jordan. Another 1 million were estimated to be internally displaced,
in addition to the 1.2 million who were displaced before 2006.
The UN notes that these figures
are underestimates because they include only those refugees who have
registered with government and aid agencies. “Having been forced
to abandon their homes,” the report states, “many are living
in dire conditions without access to adequate food supplies and basic
services, with children being particularly vulnerable to disease.”
More than 42,000 detainees
are held in overcrowded, squalid, and inhumane conditions. The UN noted
ongoing “torture and ill-treatment of detainees” at pre-trial
facilities run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, where prisoners
are subjected to electric shocks, breaking of limbs, rape, severe burns,
and other “routine” abuse. Detainees are denied legal counsel
or family contact for several months at a time, and denied representation,
access to evidence and due process during judicial reviews, the UN reported.
The US has continually denied human rights monitors entrance to detention
facilities run by the occupying forces, where more than half of all
detainees are held.
According to the UN, raids
and arrest sweeps such as those that US forces have undertaken in the
past week, “are often less targeted than is typically portrayed
by the authorities, and that a significant number of suspects are apprehended
because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time following a security
incident.” The UN found that detainees rounded up in raids were
typically “forced to sign or fingerprint statements before the
investigating officer while blindfolded (and sometimes while handcuffed),
and on which they were subsequently questioned by the investigative
judge.”
US forces encounter an increasingly
hostile insurgency in Iraq. In the week ending October 12, 15 US troops
were killed in Iraq. Since 2003, 3,827 US troops have died, and the
number of wounded stands at more than 27,750. On October 13, 2 US soldiers
were killed and 40 others were wounded in a series of rocket attacks
on Camp Victory, a heavily fortified headquarters outside of Baghdad.
According to military statements,
rockets were fired at the base from a nearby abandoned school. While
US bases regularly face “indirect fire” in the form of mortars
or rockets, the high number of casualties is quite extraordinary. The
military has yet to release details of the attack, but the number injured
suggests a more direct hit.
Violence throughout the country
continues to inflict large numbers of civilian casualties, contrary
to positive reports from the US military. On Thursday, 35 Iraqis were
killed or found dead. In Kirkuk, 9 died in a truck bomb attack that
wounded 50 others at a market. Another car bomb struck an Internet café
in Baghdad, killing 5 civilians and injuring 25. Five bodies were found
separately in Baghdad.
On Friday, 2 children were
killed and 17 others were wounded by a bomb hidden in a cart of toys
at a northern Iraq playground. Four civilians died and 15 others were
injured in another bombing in Baghdad, and 4 other bodies were discovered
around the city.
Over the weekend, more bomb
attacks in Baghdad and Samarra killed at least 31 people and wounded
at least 40 more.
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