MER: Falluja War Crime

2005-03-21

Richard Moore

From this kind of report we can understand why Guiliana, the Italian 
journalist, was targeted.

rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Falluja War Crime
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:26:41 -0500
X-Source-Dir:

<http://www.MiddleEast.Org> 
News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the Corporate
Media Don't Want You To Know

MER - <mailto:•••@••.•••>•••@••.••• - (202) 362-5266 - Fax (815)
366-0800

  21 March 2005  - 

Falluja War Crime


Journalists tell of US Falluja killings

Journalists accuse US soldiers of targeting children

AlJazeera, 17 March 2005     All is quiet in Falluja, or at
least that is how it seems, given that the mainstream media
has largely forgotten about the Iraqi city. But independent
journalists are risking life and limb to bring out a very
different story.

The picture they are painting is of US soldiers killing
whole families, including children, attacks on hospitals and
doctors, the use of napalm-like weapons and sections of the
city destroyed.

One of the few reporters who has reached Falluja is American
Dahr Jamail of the Inter Press Service. He interviewed a
doctor who had filmed the testimony of a 16-year-old girl.

"She stayed for three days with the bodies of her family who
were killed in their home. When the soldiers entered she was
in her home with her father, mother, 12 year-old brother and
two sisters.

She watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and father
directly, without saying anything. They beat her two sisters,
then shot them in the head. After this her brother was enraged
and ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they shot
him dead," Jamail relates.

Disturbing reports

Another report comes from an aid convoy headed up by Dr Salem
Ismael. He was in Falluja last month. As well as delivering
aid he photographed the dead, including children, and
interviewed remaining residents.

Again his story does not tally with the indifference shown by
the main media networks.

"The accounts I heard ... will live with me forever. You may
think you know what happened in Falluja, but the truth is
worse than you could possibly have imagined"

Dr Salem Ismael, 
aid convoy leader

"The accounts I heard ... will live with me forever. You may
think you know what happened in Falluja, but the truth is
worse than you could possibly have imagined," he says.

He relates the story of Hudda Fawzi Salam Issawi from the
Julan district of Falluja: "Five of us, including a
55-year-old neighbour, were trapped together in our house in
Falluja when the siege began. On 9 November American marines
came to our house.

'My father and the neighbour went to the door to meet them. We
were not fighters. We thought we had nothing to fear. I ran
into the kitchen to put on my veil, since men were going to
enter our house and it would be wrong for them to see me with
my hair uncovered.

"This saved my life. As my father and neighbour approached the
door, the Americans opened fire on them. They died instantly.

"Me and my 13-year-old brother hid in the kitchen behind the
fridge. The soldiers came into the house and caught my older
sister. They beat her. Then they shot her. But they did not
see me. Soon they left, but not before they had destroyed our
furniture and stolen the money from my father's pocket."

Targeting media

Journalist and writer Naomi Klein has also come under attack
for insisting that US forces are eliminating those who dare to
count casualties.

No less than the US ambassador to the UK David Johnson wrote a
letter to British newspaper The Guardian that published
Klein's work, demanding evidence, which she then provided.

The first piece of evidence Klein sent to Johnson was that the
hospital in Falluja was raided to stop any reporting of
casualties, a tactic that was later repeated in Mosul.

"The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers
was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and
placing the facility under military control. 

 
US troops have reportedly used
napalm-like weapons

"The New York Times reported that 'the hospital was selected
as an early target because the American military believed that
it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties', noting
that 'this time around, the American military intends to fight
its own information war, countering or squelching what has
been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons'.

The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the
soldiers 'stole the mobile phones' at the hospital -
preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world."

As Dahr Jamail reports from his
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/>online diary "doctors are
now technically forbidden to talk to the media or allow them
to take photos in Iraqi hospitals unless granted permission
from the Ministry of Health and its US-adviser".

Napalm-like weapons

Allied to this are various reports of the US using napalm and
napalm-like weaponry in Falluja. 

 
US troops are accused of
threatening Falluja hospital staff 

Jamail recounts: "Last November, another Falluja refugee from
the Julan area, Abu Sabah, told me: 'They (US military) used
these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud.
Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke
behind them.'

"He explained that pieces of these bombs exploded into large
fires that burned peoples' skin even when water was dumped on
their bodies, which is the effect of phosphorous weapons, as
well as napalm."

The reports of the use of napalm in civilian areas are
widespread, as are many other frightening allegations.

The attacks on the hospitals and medical facilities in Falluja
are also in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions.

But as Richard Perle, a senior adviser to US President George
Bush said at the start of the Iraq war: "The greatest triumph
of the Iraq war is the destruction of the evil of
international law."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6890A8DA-AF79-45AD-BB4F-42C060978A07.htm

If you don't get MER, you just don't get it!

MID-EAST REALITIES  -  www.MiddleEast.Org
Phone: (202) 362-5266     Fax: (815) 366-0800      Email: 
<mailto:•••@••.•••>•••@••.•••
Copyright © 2005 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved

<http://www.middleeast.org/subscribe>  
-- 

============================================================
If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website
(http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email 
list by sending a message to:
      •••@••.•••

You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website,
provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and
this disclaimer.

Richard Moore (rkm)
Wexford, Ireland

"Escaping The Matrix - 
Global Transformation: 
WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", somewhat current draft:
    http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html
_____________________________
    "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the
      suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the
      Reichstag fire."  
      - Srdja Trifkovic

    There is not a problem with the system.
    The system is the problem.

    Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs.
_____________________________
cj list archives:
    http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj

newslog list archives:
    http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog
_____________________________
Informative links:
    http://www.indymedia.org/
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/
    http://www.MiddleEast.org
    http://www.rachel.org
    http://www.truthout.org
    http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/
    http://www.zmag.org
    http://www.co-intelligence.org
============================================================

Share: