Observers who have had the courage to enter Fallujah speak of “wasteland” and “total devastation.” The city is empty and in ruins. Most of the population had to flee before a military blockade, lack of water and food, threats and attacks from air and land. Where’d they go? people are scattered around the center of the country, many of them in makeshift camps where they have sprouted several diseases like typhoid.
Many people died in the rubble. Correspondents report that the hungry dogs and cats eat the corpses in the street.
There are many more bodies buried under the ruins. The army sent flyers distributed Yankee stay home, but located with infrared equipment to those inside of buildings and killed.
Much of the city is impassable. There crushed cars on the streets and junctions; the sewers are broken and sewage flooded the ruins. The electricity lines and telephone are tangled like spaghetti.
Everything is covered in soot and debris. The ruins look old, as if it had been abandoned for many years. But that is due to the smoke from the explosions and fires.
At the beginning of the attack crushed the northern suburbs. Southern industrial areas fell in the fighting of recent days. A single 2,000-pound bomb, earth shaking like an earthquake, destroyed the great northern railway station of the city, a major transportation hub for the entire country.
Fallujah looks like a ghost town. until the artillery and rifles break the silence. Nevertheless, the resistance is
A detailed study published by the British medical journal The Lancet, concluded in October 2004 that at least 100,000 civilians received death since Iraq was invaded in March 2003 by the US-led coalition.
Previously it was unclear the number of Iraqis killed since the 1991 Gulf War due to conflict or sanctions. Already made statements that ranged from increased mortality deny millions of excess deaths. However, in the absence of any study, there are records of the health ministry. Data based on morgue records indicate that the homicide rate in the post-invasion is many times higher than that recorded before the invasion.
Current Table of insecurity and limited availability of health information, researchers led by Dr. Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins University undertook to estimate national mortality during the 14.6 months before the invasion (1 January 2002 to March 18, 2003), for comparison with the period of March 19, 2003, at the time of the investigation, between 8 and September 20, 2004. Iraqi families were informed about the purpose of the study, asegurándoseles that their names would not be recorded, and warned that there would be no benefits or penalties for those who refused or agreed to participate.
The review reveals that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is actually nearly 100,000 people, and can be much higher. Violence has been identified as the major public health problem in Iraq. However, despite the many deaths of Iraqis, inquiry data on households show no evidence of gross misdeeds committed by individual soldiers in the field. 95% of the killings (all attributed to U.S. forces by interviewees) were caused by helicopter missiles, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry.
The study was released on the eve of a presidential election debate focused in part on U.S. policy in Iraq. Many newspapers and news programs on American television ignored him to study or buried the report away from the main titles. ‘What went wrong this time? Perhaps the efforts of researchers and The Lancet to present the study to American voters before the election achieve exactly the opposite result, drowning valuable study in the clamor of the presidential campaign. ” (Lila Guterman, Chronicle of Higher Education).
The study’s findings promptly flooded the media from all over the world except the U.S., where there was little whispers about the job, followed by a rigid silence. The Lancet published the document on 29 October 29, the Friday before the election, when many reporters were busy with political histories. That day, Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune devoted only 400 words to study each and placed the story within its forward section on pages A4 and A11, respectively (The European news media gave far more space to study and several newspapers carried front-page stories on its content).
In a short article about the study on page A8, The New Cork Times noted that Iraqi Body Count, a project to record civilian deaths reported in the news media, had reached its peak of about 17,000 deaths. The article said that the new study “certainly generate intense controversy ‘. But the Times did not publish any article or news about the investigation. The Washington Post, perhaps trying to undermine the seriousness of the study, quoted Marc E. Garlasco, a military analyst reputed human rights, saying, ‘these numbers appear to be inflated’. Garlasco says now that time he had not read the study at the time and describes his discredit in the Post as “really unfortunate.” (Lila Guterman, Chronicle of Higher Education)
Also, none of the U.S. corporate media bothered to use the story to let you know how much our citizens to kill Iraqi citizens coalition troops leading our government. The study was never mentioned on television news, the truth continues to be ignored by those who might need to hear more. The U.S. government did not comment then and continues to maintain silence on the killing of Iraqi civilians. ‘The only thing I did not lose sight are the deaths of U.S. troops and civilians, “he told The Chronicle a spokesman for the Department of Defense.
When the woman CNN anchor Daryn Kagan had the opportunity to interview the editor of Al Jazeera Sheikh Ahmed Publishing Year-on a rare opportunity to obtain independent information about the events in Fallujah, the driver took the opportunity to harass Al-Sheik about whether civilian deaths were really ‘news’ in Fallujah. CNN’s argument was that a story more important than the deaths of civilians was ‘do what they were doing the Iraqi insurgents’ to provoke a defensive response from the U.S.. ‘When reports from the ground are describing hundreds of civilians killed by U.S. forces, CNN should review the images from Al Jazeera to see if corroborate that version and not harass the editor of Al Jazeera about why not abolish those reports ‘. (MediaWatch, Asheville Global Report).
The study investigators concluded that there are several limitations in this study, mainly because the quality of the received data depends on the accuracy of the interviews. However, the interviewers believed that certain essential characteristics of Iraqi culture make unlikely that respondents have made their reports on the deaths. The Geneva Conventions clearly establish the responsibility of the armies of occupation on the civilian population they control. ‘With the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public health perspective, it is clear that any plan implemented was a grievous mistake. The invasion of Iraq, the displacement of a cruel dictator and the intention to impose by force a liberal democracy, by themselves are insufficient to bring peace and security to the civilian population.
The heavy illegal tactics implemented in Iraq by the U.S. military as evidence of the news and feature stories have become what appears to be a standard operating procedure in occupied Iraq. During the November slaughter occurred in Fallujah countless violations of international law and crimes against humanity.
The evidence of mass slaughter of Iraqis and the use of illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, napalm, uranium munitions and chemical weapons used during the siege of Fallujah November, when the entire city was declared a “free zone Fire ‘by military leaders, plus the brutality of the U.S. military has only increased through rejection Iraq drags on occupation.
According to Iraqis inside the city, at least 60% of Fallujah was totally with the site, and eight months after the attack entire city districts were still without electricity and water. In the city settled the Israeli style “checkpoints”, prohibiting entry to anyone who did not live within the locality. Of course non-embedded media in the Army were not admitted to the city.
Update: Since the publication of these stories happening in Iraq have followed countless incidents involving illegal weapons and tactics used by the U.S. military.
During ‘Operation Spear’, of June 17, 2005, US-led forces attacked the small towns and Karabla Al Qa’im near the Syrian border. The U.S. warplanes launched a ton of bombs on residential areas, claiming countless have died after ‘militants’, while neighbors and doctors claimed that only civilians were killed.
As in Fallujah, denied access to the city for residents to obtain medical help, while the left of the city that regularly denounced Iraqi civilians became targets of U.S. snipers.
According to a newspaper report from IRIN, Firdos al-Abadi, the Red Crescent Society Iraq, said 7,000 people camped Karabla in the desert outside the city, suffering shortages of food and medical aid, while 150 households were totally destroyed by the U.S. military.
An Iraqi doctor reported that same day that witnessed the ‘crimes in the area west of the country … U.S. troops destroyed one of our hospitals, they burned the whole store of medication, killed patients in the room …, prevented us to help people in Qa’im ‘.
Also as in Fallujah, a doctor from Al Qaim general hospital indicated that whole families were buried under the rubble of their homes, but the medical staff could not reach them because of the American snipers.
Iraqi civilians in Haditha had similar experiences during the ‘Open Market Operations’. They reported that U.S. snipers shot endlessly about anyone on the streets for days, while U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked the homes and detaining any man found inside.
The mainstream media reported the news of the ‘liberation’ of Fallujah, and gave figures on ‘militant insurgents’ dead citing military sources, but no mention civilian casualties, nor the use of strong-arm tactics or illegal munitions employment, which continues being short or lacking in journalism to date, June 2005.