Horrific Scenes
From
The Ashes Of Fallujah
By James Cogan
18 November 2004
World
Socialist Website
Fallujah
has been laid waste. It is a hell on earth of shattered bodies, shattered
buildings and the stench of death. The city will enter history as the
place where US imperialism carried out a crime of immense proportions
in November 2004.
The US military
has no idea how many Iraqiscombatants and noncombatantshave
been killed by the thousands of tons of explosives and bullets it has
unleashed on the city. Mortuary teams have only just began collecting
the dead in the city, while no attempt has been made yet to clear and
search the rubble and debris, beneath which hundreds of bodies may be
buried.
When questioned
on the scale of Iraqi casualties, US marine spokesman Colonel Mike Regner
told a press conference on Monday, I dont know. The
estimate that somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqi fighters are dead
is nothing more than a guess.
The testimony of
Fallujans who fled the city during the onslaught has led Amnesty International
to conclude the toll of civilian casualties is high. Out
of a population of some 300,000, the International Committee of the
Red Cross believes as many as 50,000 women, children, sick and elderly
were in Fallujah when the assault began on November 7. Some 5,000 are
known to have escaped during the fighting. Reports are beginning to
appear of American troops uncovering groups of civilians, desperately
short of food and water, sheltering in buildings that survived the bombardment
relatively unscathed.
For the vast majority
of people around the world, the 10-day offensive against the population
of Fallujah is known only by the sound-bites and video rolls on television,
or the descriptions and selected photos contained in the printed press.
Even that has been enough to instill horror and revulsion among tens
of millions.
Iraqi journalist
Fadhil Badrani, reporting in the city for the BBC and Reuters, relayed
on Tuesday: I have seen some strange things recently, such as
stray dogs snatching bites out of bodies lying on the streets. Meanwhile,
people forage in their gardens looking for something to eat. Those that
have survived this far are looking gaunt. The opposite is happening
to the deadleft where they fell, they are now bloated and rotting...
We keep hearing
that aid has arrived at the hospital on the outskirts of the city, which
is now in the hands of the Americans. But most people in this area are
too weak or too scared to make the journey, or even to leave their homes...
Looking at Fallujah now, the only comparisons I can think of are cities
like Beirut and Sarajevo.
A small glimpse
of the horror the assault has meant for the people of the city, and
for hundreds of American soldiers, can be found at http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/.
The site contains a collection of images taken by photojournalists working
for agencies such as Getty Images, World Picture News and Agence France
Presse, who accompanied the US military into Fallujah. In most cases,
the images have not been used in the mass media as they are deemed too
graphic.
The sites
creator explains: I created this site because I was angry at my
country and couldnt understand how we could let this happen...
I have learned that most Americans have never seen what is being done
in their name. We should face the realities of this war before we give
it our support.
The images include
scenes of the devastated landscape of the city; the bloodied and fly-covered
corpses of young Iraqi men lying in the streets or stacked in rows amidst
the rubble; a headless body; women and children fleeing with the few
possessions they have left; mortuary teams collecting the dead; wounded
American soldiers being treated for shattered limbs; and Fallujah infants
being treated for horrific injuries in Baghdad hospitals. The site also
features headshots of the American troops who have been killed thus
far in the fighting this month.
US general John
Sattler declared on Sunday: We have liberated the city of Fallujah.
The assault on Fallujah
is Nazi-style collective punishment, not liberation. The city has been
reduced to rubble because its political, religious and tribal leaders,
motivated by Iraqi nationalism and opposition to the presence of foreign
troops in their country, organised a guerilla resistance to the US invasion.
In April, the city withstood an assault by US marines and became a focus
of broader resistance, particularly in the Sunni Muslim regions of central
and northern Iraq. In June, Fallujahs leaders refused to accept
the legitimacy of the US-installed puppet interim government headed
by prime minister Iyad Allawi.
The aim of the US
assault is to make Fallujah an example to the rest of Iraq of what will
happen to those who oppose the transformation of their country into
a US client state. It is the spearhead of an orgy of killing intended
to crush and drive underground every voice of opposition and ensure
that elections next year result in a venal, pro-US regime. The American
military is planning similar attacks on as many as 21 other cities and
towns in Iraq.
Comments by American
soldiers testify to the fact they view the entire population of Fallujah
as their enemy and their mission as punishing the city. An officer overseeing
the collection of Iraqi bodies, Captain P.J. Batty, told Associated
Press (AP) following the discovery of two Iraqi men and two women buried
in a shallow grave outside a house: This exemplifies the horrors
of war. We dont wish this upon anyone, but everyone needs to understand
there are consequences for not following the Iraqi government.
Hundreds of Iraqis
are still resisting in various parts of Fallujah and being portrayed
by the US military as irrational fanatics. Military spokesman Colonel
Regner told journalists they are fighting to the death.
The men of Fallujah
were given no alternative but to fight, as the American military prevented
any males between 15 and 55 leaving the city. The indiscriminate US
bombing and the execution of wounded Iraqis have provided further incentive
to fight to the death or prepare suicide attacks. US marines have described
coming up against, and killing, an armed 12-year-old boy. Partisans
in occupied Europe fought no differently when trapped in hopeless situations
by the forces of the Nazis.
The propaganda continuing
to be told to the American people to justify the assaultand still
being repeated ad nausem in the American and international mediais
that Fallujah was being held hostage by foreign terrorists
led by Jordanian extremist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi.
This is as much
of a lie as the claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The US military has now admitted that of the 1,052 men it has taken
prisoner in Fallujah, at least 1,030 are Iraqis, mainly from the city
itself. Embedded journalists have noted that most of the corpses appear
to be those of Iraqi teenagers or young men in their 20s. Only 24 bodies
of non-Iraqi citizens have been reported among the hundreds of dead.
Fallujahs
leaders consistently denied they had any knowledge of Zarqawis
whereabouts or even his existence. On numerous occasions, they denounced
the US claims for what they werea pretext to attack the cityand
alleged the Bush administration had invented Zarqawi.
Without any attempt
to refute the charges, the US military now claims that Zarqawi left
Fallujah before their attack. A new US intelligence report, predictably
taken as good coin by the American press, has declared he has most
likely moved to Mosul, where another bloody assault by occupation
forces is underway.
The triumphal gloating
taking place in US political and media circles that the victory
in Fallujah has shattered the Iraqi will to fight is self-delusion.
The fighting that
has erupted over the past 10 daysfrom Mosul in the north to the
suburbs of Baghdad, and across the Sunni Muslim regions of Iraqdemonstrates
that the assault on Fallujah will not result in a lessening of the armed
struggle against the US occupation. It has served to reinforce the view
among millions of Iraqisa view derived from decades of experience
with colonial oppressionthat they will only be able to determine
their own future when the last American and foreign soldiers are driven
out.
An unnamed US special
forces officer now working as a security consultant in Baghdad, summed
up his assessment in the November 17 Washington Post: We are without
allies among the Iraqi populace, including those who have benefited
from the ouster of Saddam. Across Baghdad, Latifiyah, Mahmudiyah, Salman
Park, Baqubah, Balad, Taji, Bajii, Ramadi, and just about everywhere
else you can name, the people absolutely hate us... The Iraqi people
have not bought into what the Americans are selling, and no amount of
military activity is going to change this fact.
The responsibility
of opponents of militarism the world-over is to defend the Iraqi masses
and demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupation
forces.