The official report of U.S. fatalities, widely regarded as under-reporting the real number of war casualities, still reflect the heightened struggle in Iraq following the assault by occupation troops on Falluja.
In November many more Iraqis died--including civilians, resistance fighters, and troops and police collaborating with the occupation. Nevertheless, the resistance to the occupation has grown throughout the country, and fighting continues even in bombed-out Falluja.
The U.S. military finally let the Iraqi Red Crescent Society bring aid into the city on Nov. 24. The organization's spokesperson, Muhammad al-Nuri, said the Red Crescent estimated that more than 6,000 people might have died in Falluja during the U.S. offensive.
"Bodies can be seen everywhere and people were crying when receiving the food parcels. It is very sad, it is a human disaster," Nuri stated.
It's too early to know the full extent of this human disaster. However, individual stories of the U.S. military's war crimes reinforce the large figure put forward by the Red Crescent.
War crimes in Falluja
In an article in the Dec. 13 issue of The Nation, Miles Schuman described how "U.S. armed forces killed scores of patients in an attack on a Falluja health center and have deprived civilians of medical care, food and water."
The article quotes an Iraqi doctor and a reporter who said U.S. bombs completely destroyed the Central Health Center on Nov. 9. "According to Dr. [Sami] al-Jumaili, U.S. warplanes dropped three bombs on the clinic, where approximately 60 patients--many of whom had serious injuries from U.S. aerial bombings and attacks--were being treated." Something like 35 patients, including some young children, and 25 healthcare staff were killed.
The many wounded and ill people in Falluja are unable to get medical care because the U.S. has refused to let Iraqi medical teams open up available local hospitals and clinics. This refusal is itself a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime by any standards.
The Pentagon is treating the Falluja offensive as a great victory. The generals claim they wiped out the base town of the "insurgency"--their word for the Iraqi resistance--and that no uprising took place in Iraq's South as it did last April. They also say that the Iraqi troops fought well alongside the 12,000 U.S. Marines.
This assessment minimizes the political problems the U.S. occupation faces, some of them made worse by the assault on Falluja.
Even more Iraqis firmly moved into the ranks of those who, for the rest of their lives, would hate the U.S. for its attempt to conquer their country.
Postpone elections?
While the resistance may have lost a secure home base, the widespread series of attacks across dozens of cities in Iraq's center and as far north as Mosul shows that it has lost no punch. This heavy military activity against the occupation has led some of the Iraqi parties, including that of former CIA agent and current "premier," Iyad Allawi, to suggest that the upcoming Jan. 30 elections be postponed.
Postponement might seem a wise tactic to U.S. officials, as it appears few people will vote in the populous center of the country and the election will be completely discredited there. But postponement would arouse immediate anger from the leading Shiite clerics in Iraq's South who look to the elections to put their political parties in office in Baghdad. These clerics did nothing this time to spread active resistance in the South during the recent assault on Falluja. They know they will be under heavy pressure from the masses if the current puppet regime stays in place.
Regarding the U.S.-trained Iraqi troops and police, their successes seem to be greatly exaggerated. First of all, hundreds were killed in November across all of central Iraq. The resistance seems to know all the vulnerable points, indicating it has supporters among these forces and perhaps even among their commanders.
An article in the Nov. 30 New York Times described quite frankly the weaknesses of these troops, how much they are despised by the population, and how much the U.S. troops hold their "allies" in contempt. One sentence in this article concisely characterizes these troops. In the provinces where the resistance is strongest, "many are reluctant to show up and do not tell their families where they work; they have yet to receive adequate training or weapons, present a danger to American troops they fight alongside, and are unreliable because of corruption, desertion or infiltration."
In Mosul, the article continued, "almost the entire police force and large parts of several Iraqi National Guard battalions deserted during an insurgent uprising this month."
U.S. injured much higher than reported
As the official GI death count mounted to 1,252 on Nov. 30, some discrepancies appeared in the number of wounded. The Department of Defense claims a total of about 9,000 U.S. troops have been severely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. But on Nov. 24 the pro-military Stars and Stripes, European edition, reported that the Landstuhl, Germany, hospital has treated 20,802 U.S. troops from those two occupied countries.
This is double the official number. While body armor and rapid medical attention may have reduced the number of troops killed, this number of seriously wounded will itself have a big impact on combat strength and morale of the remaining troops--and also at home. In addition, it raises questions as to the truth of any of the Pentagon's figures.
Most corporate media coverage of the war claims GI morale is still high, certainly in comparison to the Iraqi puppet troops. But sometimes another story is told or at least hinted.
An article in the Nov. 25 Los Angeles Times reports that members of "a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training."
They complain of poor equipment and poor training, and that "they were allowed no visitors or travel passes, had scant contact with their families and that morale was terrible." The military admitted to holding the 680 National Guard members in Doņa Ana, N.M., a former World War II prisoner-of-war camp 20 miles west of its large parent base in Ft. Bliss, Texas. The officers claim that this is to assure these troops are trained for battle before they get to Iraq.
This was only one story about the impact of the occupation of Iraq on the U.S. armed forces. And these troops don't really know what they will face when they are shipped to Iraq in January.
Reprinted from the Dec. 9, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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