why the pic?

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As the Americans move street by bloody street towards control of the insurgents' stronghold, aid agencies warn of a humanitarian catastrophe. Kim Sengupta and Raymond Whitaker report

Victory was being declared yesterday in the battle of Fallujah, with 1,000 rebels reported dead, hundreds more in custody and spectacular footage from embedded television crews, showing Marines charging through deserted neighbourhoods.

"It's like those pictures from the advance into Baghdad," said one watcher as the TV showed the view over a tank gunner's shoulder, with fire pouring down an empty street. But that comment unconsciously identified the real problem: more than a year and a half after George Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq at an end, the US military, backed by British and Iraqi forces, is having to fight the war all over again.

Yesterday, as American forces embarked on what were described as "mopping-up" operations in Fallujah - though heavy shelling was still being reported - relief organisations warned that there could be a humanitarian disaster in the city. "Conditions in Fallujah are catastrophic," said Fardous al-Ubaidi of the Iraqi Red Crescent. The Iraqi Health Minister, Alaa Alwan, said ambulances had begun transferring "significant numbers" of civilian wounded to Baghdad hospitals, but did not say how many.

Washington and the Iraqi interim government could argue that civilians in Fallujah had ample warning of what was to come. More than 80 per cent of the population of 200,000 to 300,000 were said to have fled before the assault was launched on Monday. But enough reports trickled out of the besieged city to show that many inhabitants still remained, despite their invisibility in the television footage, and that their plight was severe.

Aamir Haidar Yusouf,a 39-year-old trader, sent his family out of Fallujah, but stayed behind to look after his home, not just during the fighting, but the looting which will invariably follow. "The Americans have been firing at buildings if they see even small movements," he said. "They are also destroying cars, because they think every car has a bomb in it. People have moved from the edges of the city into the centre, and they are staying on the ground floors of buildings.

"There will be nothing left of Fallujah by the time they finish. They have already destroyed so many homes with their bombings from the air, and now we are having this from tanks and big guns."

US commanders insist civilian casualties in Fallujah have been low, but the Pentagon famously claims that it does not keep figures. Escaping residents described incidents in which non-combatants, including women and children, were killed by shrapnel or hit by bombs. In one case earlier in the week, a nine-year-old boy was hit in the stomach by shrapnel. Unable to reach a hospital, he died hours later of blood loss.

"Anyone who gets injured is likely to die, because there's no medicine and they can't get to doctors," said Abdul-Hameed Salim, a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent. "There are snipers everywhere. Go outside and you're going to get shot."

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the main Fallujah hospital who escaped arrest when it was taken, said the city was running out of medical supplies, and only a few clinics remained open. "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah," he said. "We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."

Around 10,000 people took shelter in Habbaniya, 12 miles to the west of the city, and many had tragic stories. "There have been a lot of innocent people killed," said Suleiman Ali Hassan, who lost his brother. "The Americans say they are just aiming their tanks and aircraft at the mujaheddin, but I know of at least eight other people who have died beside my brother."

Samira Sabbah arrived at the refugee centre yesterday with her three children, but her husband stayed behind in Fallujah. "People have been living like animals," she said. "There has been no electricity, no food and no water. We were very afraid to move out because there were so much shooting everywhere. I do not know how we will live now."

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Fallujah on foot with his wife and children. "There's no water," he said. "People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there's no proper food."

Mohammed Younis, a former policeman, said: "The Americans and Allawi [Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim Prime Minister] have been saying that Fallujah is full of foreign fighters. That is not true, they left a long time ago. You will find them in other places, in Baghdad."

The truth of his words were confirmed by no less than Mr Allawi's national security adviser, Qassem Daoud, who said more than 1,000 "Saddamists and terrorists" had been killed in the battle for Fallujah, and 200 captured. Of those 200, however, only 14 are believed to be non-Iraqis, mostly Iranians. What of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Washington's top bogeyman in Iraq, the al-Qa'ida arch-terrorist whose supposed presence in Fallujah was one of the main justifications for the assault? "He has escaped," said Mr Daoud.

This was the first official admission of what virtually everyone else in Iraq had realised long ago: that Zarqawi, even if he had ever been in Fallujah, was not going to stay put to await arrest by the Americans. Every time the interim government demanded of the city's clerical leadership that they hand him over, they insisted they did not have the power to hand over foreign extremists, and did not even know where the Jordanian was.

They repeated this after a final ultimatum last weekend from Mr Allawi himself. The assault went ahead anyway, just as everyone knew it would, even though a senior American officer said as it was beginning that it was likely that most of the "foreign fighters" had already melted away. So who were the Americans fighting? In Mr Daoud's parlance, nearly all appeared to be "Saddamists" - in other words, Iraqis whose main motive is to fight against the occupation, rather than "terrorists", who presumably come from outside to force local people into acts of resistance against their will.

Despite the Iraqi interim government officially having ordered the attack, military strategy is still being driven by a White House obsessed with "smoking terrorists out of their holes". Fallujah has been the victim of this misconception of what is happening in Iraq, but other places will follow - perhaps Mosul, which was reported yesterday to be partly under insurgent control, or Ramadi, where many of the hardliners fled from Fallujah.

The US simply does not have enough forces to pacify the whole of the Sunni centre of Iraq at once, which explains why Britain was asked to send the Black Watch north. "As soon as we press down hard in one place, they pop up somewhere else," complained one officer, and his words were borne out by a rash of small-scale attacks yesterday in places where US troops had been thinned out for the assault on Fallujah.

The city was unquestionably the base for many of the car bombers and fighters who have staged attacks across central Iraq in recent months, but the main reason it became so was the resentment caused by the previous attempt to win hearts and minds by military means - the botched US assault in April. In military terms this operation has been more successful, but politically it will be just as disastrous as its predecessor, which fuelled the present insurgency.

One of the main Sunni populist groups, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has resigned from the Iraqi government in protest against the Fallujah battle. "The American attack on our people in Fallujah has led, and will lead, to more killings and genocide without mercy from the Americans," said its leader, Mohsen Abdel-Hamid.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group of Sunni clerics , is calling for a boycott of January's planned elections, saying they will be held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah and the blood of the wounded".

Even President Bush admits that violence is likely to increase rather than decline as the election approaches. But as American forces contemplate what is left of Fallujah, some might remember the words of a US officer standing amid the ruins of Hue in Vietnam a generation ago. "In order to save the city," he declared without a hint of irony, "we had to destroy it.

> why the pic?

I don't know. To make people react I guess. I just wonder what
these guys been thrue since no one can monitor what is going on
there. I just happen to see that picture and starred at it for
a few minutes. I just wonder why they are treated this way, are
they really linked to Al Quaida the 9/11 attack ? Did they had trial,
how many of them are innocent ? etc. These kind of things.
I can remove though, if it's too chocking, but it's not fiction
it's really happening.

> > why the pic?
>
> I don't know. To make people react I guess. I just wonder what
> these guys been thrue since no one can monitor what is going on
> there. I just happen to see that picture and starred at it for
> a few minutes. I just wonder why they are treated this way, are
> they really linked to Al Quaida the 9/11 attack ? Did they had trial,
> how many of them are innocent ? etc. These kind of things.
> I can remove though, if it's too chocking, but it's not fiction
> it's really happening.
>
>
>
It's not too shocking. I guess they are being treated well as far as
we know. I feel bad about the innocent ones but I am glad the bad ones are
not free to rome. I hope someday all of this crap will end. My son has been to
iraq once so far and is due to go back. My Oldest son was called up and
served on base for a year.

His career suffered and his marriage ended.

Tim

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> It's not too shocking. I guess they are being treated well as far as
> we know. I feel bad about the innocent ones but I am glad the bad ones are
> not free to rome. I hope someday all of this crap will end. My son has been
> to
> iraq once so far and is due to go back. My Oldest son was called up and
> served on base for a year.
>
> His career suffered and his marriage ended.
>
> Tim

I am really sorry to hear that Tim. I can't wait for it to end too.

> > why the pic?
>
> I don't know. To make people react I guess. I just wonder what
> these guys been thrue since no one can monitor what is going on
> there.


An uncensored letter has leaked out
you'll probably need to register with the Telegraph to read it

Also there were a number of British guys released from Guantanamo earlier this year, after years of detention, who had confessed to being in a terrorist video - the reason they were released was that conclusive evidence appeared that showed they couldn't have been in the terrorist video they'd confessed to being in - what's the point in torturing people when they'll just say what you want to hear?

> Also there were a number of British guys released from Guantanamo earlier this
> year, after years of detention, who had confessed to being in a terrorist
> video - the reason they were released was that conclusive evidence appeared
> that showed they couldn't have been in the terrorist video they'd confessed to
> being in - what's the point in torturing people when they'll just say what you
> want to hear?

I could read it fine. Amazing, but I am not surprised. Why would they have
taken them in a "above all the law" prison if it's not to torture them?
Anyway looking at the picture, what is it if it's not some kind of torture ?
What is the public opinion in the UK at moment about Irak ? Any chance of having a new prime minister that will stop licking Bush's ass and bring the boys back home ?

> Carl Cuseo,
>
> Your history is correct but incomplete. The British controlled Palestine
> where both Jews and Arabs lived (not in peace I might add, but better than
> today). When WWII was over, and the British were to leave, they at first
> wanted to leave a Western Style democracy for both the Jews and Arabs, but
> neither side would have it, so the country was divided up--along the lines
> that were to exist on a particular date. Fighting to expand the areas
> controlled by either side went on almost to the date of "independence" leaving
> two countries.
>
> The two countries co-existed in anger and hate, and the Arab neighbors of
> Palestine convinced them that military support would be given to eradicate
> Israel. The first such military action almost succeeded. In subsequent
> actions, the Isralis responded to the attacks and actually took terratory,
> saying it was to be a buffer zone (the Golan Heights, the Sinai, the West
> Bank--actually all of what was Palestine). No one would negotiate a peace
> with the Isralis except Egypt, so the Egyptians are the only Arab country that
> has had it's territory returned.
>
> Why doesn't any one on this thread see that? Negotiate a peace agreement,
> that sticks, and territory being occupied by Israel will be returned.
> Continue to blow up Israli civilians and the occupation will not end. Every
> attack on Palestinian territory by the Israli Army was in response to some
> terrorist attack on Israel.

Tom, you history is incorrect and incomplete. My subject isn´t Palestine´s history, but come on...
(I won´t add anything else due to my earlier declaration)

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"Raggio spezza, amista lunga"

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> Tom, you history is incorrect and incomplete. My subject isn´t Palestine´s
> history, but come on...
> (I won´t add anything else due to my earlier declaration)
>

Apparently, Luca, you think there is something I have missed in my brief outline. And it seems that for you, whatever I missed is important enough that you disagree with what I wrote.

I am not a mindreader; please tell my how I am wrong.

And you may want to look at this site:

Mideast History

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> You think he has given up on his movie career then; that this isn't a
> temporary hiatus?
I believe so. He's getting too old to be making his hardcore action movies. Maybe he can do some mild comedy. Now that he has the money its time to go after the power.

Tom: History is done by persons. This makes them leave a piece of them thoughts in the way they told it and in the facts they took or discard.
I´m only saying that your brief outline is based in jew bibliography and, therefore, impregned of jew´s vision of facts.
Thanks for the site!

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"Raggio spezza, amista lunga"

> I also think, that Israel could never return all the conquered territories. It
> would be extremely foolish of them to return the Golan Heights.
I wondered about the Gaza Strip. Why give up waterfront property?

> Alas, next thing I know, Misfit will hide the link in an innocuous title.
Whatever you say, Dick.

> "Schwarzenegger for President" would be the final nail in the coffin of
> RepugliKKKans destroying America. They will circumvent the will of the
> "Founding Fathers" not only to take rights away from gays
HAHAHAHA! Nice try. Arnold is pro-gay. Care to try again?

> Tom: History is done by persons. This makes them leave a piece of them
> thoughts in the way they told it and in the facts they took or discard.
> I´m only saying that your brief outline is based in jew bibliography and,
> therefore, impregned of jew´s vision of facts.
> Thanks for the site!

Well, I'm not Jewish, but neither do I hate them. I try to separate propaganda from history, which is very hard to do given that every historian has some ingrained point of view. You might look at your own view of history and whether you might have some preconcieved ideas that affect your opinions.

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> *An aside*
>
> To Mr. Koenig:
>
> I am beginning to suspect Mr. Pacioli is of the same type of mind-set as
> WordWeaver - though more educated.
> Do you concur?
>

It has been my experience that in many countries a level of anti-semitism exists that is not recognised, simply because it is so widespread--it is taken for granted as the truth. I think this is the basis for Luca's disbelief in my statements.

We are not without such views in the US. There are groups in America who spout anti-semitic rhetoric, but a great effort has been made by government, courts and many religious organizations to discredit those sentiments as racist. WordWeaver's bias is not so much focused outward (on different religions being wrong), but in a more perversly efficient way, his bias is focused inward (he and his are the only ones who are right). Perhaps the resulting prejudice is the same.

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