Massacre Looms
In Fallujah
By James Cogan
05 November 2004
World
Socialist Website
The
reelection of the Bush administration is expected to be followed in
short order by a massive US military push into the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
The attack will be the spearhead of a broader offensive to bring 22
rebellious Iraqi cities and townsincluding Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra,
Baquaba, Kut and the densely populated Shiite suburb of Sadr City in
Baghdadunder US control by the end of the year. The aim is to
drown in blood the mass opposition among the Iraqi people to the occupation
and clear the way for sham elections in January in which only pro-US
parties will be permitted to participate.
Fallujah is the
prime target. Both within Iraq and internationally, the city has become
a symbol of the Iraqi peoples defiance of the greatest military
power on the planet. Resistance groups in Iraqs western Anbar
province have waged a constant guerilla war since Iraq was invaded,
and effectively took control of Fallujah at the end of 2003. In April,
the city withstood a three-week siege by US marines. The puppet Iraqi
interim government has no authority or support in Fallujah and the surrounding
area.
In perhaps the clearest
indication that a ground assault is imminent, US-installed Iraqi interim
prime minister Iyad Allawiwho ostensibly will give the final orderannounced
overnight the formation of a government to take over Fallujah
following its conquest by the American military.
For weeks now, American
jets and artillery have been softening up the Iraqi defences
of the city with daily bombardments. The intensity is increasing as
the ground offensive looms. On Wednesday, AC-130s, aircraft fitted out
with large-calibre machine guns and cannons, circled over the city for
an hour, raining bullets into buildings and streets. On Thursday, a
sustained artillery barrage was unleashed on resistance positions in
the outer suburbs. Sniping and skirmishing is taking place on the city
outskirts.
US marines have
been rehearsing for intense urban warfare, training to clear buildings
that have been reduced to rubble. Abrams M-1A1 tanks will be used to
spearhead the assault. The Los Angeles Times reported on November 3:
The 67-ton metal giants, with their imposing 120mm cannons and
arsenal of other weapons, are expected to rumble through the streets
wreaking destruction.
The streets they
will be destroying are home to 250,000 civilians, including 60,000 who
are still in the city and living in desperate conditions without electricity,
sanitation or medical services. Tens of thousands of Fallujah residents
have fled to Baghdad and other cities, wondering what will remain for
them to come back to.
The stage has been
set for mass killings of both Iraqi fighters and civilians. The American
troops massed on the edges of the city have been whipped into a fever-pitch
of blood-lust by US claims that the city is the headquarters of a terrorist
network headed by Al Qaeda-aligned Jordanian extremist Musaab al-Zarqawi.
A 19-year-old marine told the Los Angeles Times: Guys are just
itching to go. This is what we have been hoping for since we got to
Iraq. This is why I joined the marines. Another declared: The
marines are motivated. The enemy has been asking for us, and were
ready to give them what they asked for.
Part of the bravado
among the young soldiers may also be that substantial American casualties
are expected. The council leaders who govern Fallujah have repeatedly
denied the allegation that the fighters in the city are foreign terrorists.
Instead, they have stressed the resistance is popular and legitimate
opposition to a foreign invaderUS imperialismand that they
will defend their homes.
A November 2 report
in the Boston Globe from Fallujah provided an insight into the six-months
of preparations that have been taken to hold off the US forces. The
city council declared that at least 15,000 fighters were ready to defend
the city. Among their weaponry are surface-to-surface and surface-to-air
missiles and artillery pieces. According to the report, fighters are
rigging narrow alleys with mines and remote-controlled bombs
and have dug tunnels to enable them to move out of the sight of US aircraft.
The reaction in
American political and military circles to Fallujahs refusal to
bow down to the occupation can only be described as psychopathic.
One of the more
homicidal examples is a column by Ralph Peters, a retired military officer
and right-wing novelist/author. Peters is representative of many of
the ideologues in and around the Bush administration who portray the
eruption of US colonial aggression as a life-and-death clash of civilizations.
In the November
4 New York Post, Peters wrote: We need to demonstrate that the
US military cannot be deterred or defeated. If that means widespread
destruction, we must accept the price. Most of Fallujahs residentsthose
who wish to live in peacehave already fled. Those who remain have
made their choice. We need to pursue the terrorists remorselessly...
That means
killing. While we strive to obey the internationally recognised laws
of war (though our enemies do not), our goal should be to target the
terrorists and insurgents so forcefully that few survive to raise their
hands in surrender. We dont need more complaints about our treatment
of prisoners from the global forces of appeasement. We need terrorists
dead in the dust. And the world needs to see their corpses...
Even if Fallujah
has to go the way of Carthage, reduced to shards, the price will be
worth it. We need to demonstrate our strength of will to the world,
to show that there is only one possible result when madmen take on America.
Underlying the rage
against the people of Fallujah is the fact the Iraq war has become a
military catastrophe for US imperialism.
The projection of
the Defense Department before the March 2003 invasion was that no more
than 60,000 US troops would be needed to enforce US rule of Iraq. Ignoring
the long history of anti-colonial struggle in the Middle East, American
planners predicted that, following the overthrow of Saddam Husseins
Baathist regime, there would only be minimal opposition to the takeover
of the country by US imperialism. Eighteen months later, the scale of
popular Iraqi resistance has forced the American military to once again
increase troop numbers, to over 142,000.
The US military
and CIA now assess the resistance as a complex array of well-organised
groups, with at least 8,000 to 12,000 core fighters, and a periphery
of 50,000 sympathisers and part-time guerillas. The resistance
has access to vast quantities of explosives and other munitions. Between
80 and 100 attacks per day continually disrupt US operations and supply
lines.
Throughout the first
year of the occupation, a feature of US military briefings were the
declarations that American front-line fighting and overall troop numbers
could be reduced due to the recruitment and training of tens of thousands
of Iraqi police, National Guard and Army personnel. This perspective
has disintegrated.
During the nation-wide
Iraqi uprising this April, thousands of police openly sided with the
Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni Muslim
fighters in Fallujah and other areas, handing over their US-supplied
weapons and vehicles to the resistance. In the months since, the Iraqi
interim government has been compelled to purge more than half the US-recruited
police force. Police numbers have reportedly fallen from 91,000 in May
to just 40,000.
American soldiers
regularly tell journalists that they believe many of the Iraqi National
Guard (ING) troops are infiltrators working with the resistance. At
a position in Anbar province, which includes the cities of Fallujah
and Ramadi, a marine told the British Telegraph: We know when
this place is about to come under mortar attack because the ING suddenly
disappear. We are supposed to be fighting together, instead we are sleeping
with the enemy.
An interim government
official told Newsweek: The infiltration is all over, from the
top to the bottom, from decision-making to the lower levels. In
September, the commander of an entire ING brigade was arrested for
having associations with known insurgents.
The answer of the
Bush administration and the US military to the quagmire is stepped-up
violence and repressionabove all in Fallujah. The consequences
are likely to be a tremendous upsurge in attacks on the occupation.
Coalition troops
in other parts of Iraq are already girding themselves for intensified
fighting. According to the British Observer, British troops who have
taken up positions south of Baghdad have been warned that they may suffer
35 percent casualties if they are targeted for retaliation attacks.
Three British soldiers were killed and eight wounded on Thursday by
a suicide bomberthe largest single-day loss of British lives since
April.