Fallujah, November 3rd

The US presidential elections are now only a week away. Many within the anti-war movement have got very excited about the whole charade and are convinced that Kerry is somehow going to be a massive improvement Dubya. Unfortunately the differences between the two are slight to nonexistent in most areas, particularly as regards Iraq. Whoever wins, we can expect to see massive US assaults on cities which they do not currently control, in the aftermath. Fallujah, being but the most prominent among these. Voices UK note,

On 11 Oct the Los Angeles Times reported that, according to US officials, the 'Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November ... mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.' "When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," a senior official involved in strategic planning told the paper. "Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications [of a large-scale offensive]. We're not on hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."

Given that we know that the assault is coming, we have some hope of stopping it. If we fail, the consequences for the populations of Fallujah, Ramadi and perhaps elsewhere, are grim.

A US official told washingtonpost.com on October 16 that, "If we have to fight in Fallujah it’s going to be very bloody and nasty." You only need to look to the last major assault on the city in April for evidence of just how accurate this statement is likely to be. The April assault was nothing short of a massacre, as Voices make clear:

- Hundreds of Iraqis were killed, many of them civilians. On 11 April the director of Fallujah’s general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, estimated – on the basis of figures gathered from four clinics around the city as well as the hospital itself - that more than 600 people had been killed and that ‘the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly’ (Guardian, 12 April).

- Warplanes, fighter bombers, military helicopters, gunships and remotely piloted Predator reconnaissance aircraft were all used in the attack on the city (New York Times, 30 April 2004). Houses - and at least one mosque - were attacked from the air, reportedly killing scores of civilians:

* ‘An airborne assault on a mosque killed at least 40 worshippers attending prayers’ on 7 April and ’16 children and eight women were reported to have been killed when US aircraft hit four houses’ the previous day (Independent, 8 April).

* Menem Latif Hussain told the Guardian how a house at the end of his street suffered from a direct hit from a powerful bomb. “We ran to the house because they were my friends. In the garden I saw three men had been sitting on a bench. They were all dead, they had been cut in half by the bomb’ (Guardian, 24 April).

- There were numerous press reports of US snipers firing on – and killing – unarmed civilians:

* Mohammed Hadi, told the Telegraph that US marines snipers had taken up position in the minarets of a local mosque and shot dead his neighbour (12 April). “He was just on his way to buy tomatoes,” he told the paper. And 17-year-old Hassan Monem, who claimed that two of his friends ‘were shot as they stood in my yard.’

* Likewise, Ali, 28, who had managed to escape with part of his family, related how “one man in an Opel drove his wife and children to the bridge so they would walk over. As he drove back to town, an American sniper killed him” (Guardian, 12 April).

* Abu Mohammed (30) told the Guardian that as he “was about to leave [Fallujah] there were two ladies trying to get out. American snipers shot them dead. Their bodies are still lying out on the street in al-Jumhuriya” (30 April).

One US Marine Major told Time magazine that it was “hard to differentiate between people who are insurgents or civilians. You just have to go with your gut feeling.” (Time, 11 April). A marine corporal explained that “Sometimes a guy will go down and I’ll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies,” a marine corporal explained. “Then I’ll use a second shot” (Daily Oakland Press, 17 April).

A senior UK army officer, told the Sunday Telegraph that “when US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area … They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are’, ‘they view [Iraqis] as untermenschen [the Nazi expression for “sub-humans”]. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful’ (11 April).

- Several reports strongly suggested that US snipers targeted ambulances in Fallujah. The head of mission of a European humanitarian agency with staff in Fallujah told BBC News Online that two of their ambulances had been shot at ‘probably by US snipers’ (BBC, 23 April); and a UK national, Jo Wilding, was present in a clearly marked ambulance that she claims was shot at by US snipers (see www.wildfirejo.org.uk/feature/display/114/index.php).

- The New York Times reported that at least one battalion [in Fallujah] had ‘orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not (14 April). Recounting how he shot dead ‘an Iraqi man … walking down the street in no-man’s land … [who had] his hands suspiciously in his pockets’, Corporal Ryan Long from Alpha Company explained: “I got one of my juniors to fire a warning shot, but the guy kept on walking, so I said: ‘Let me do it’ … Last year I’d have never shot a guy without a weapon’’ (Times, 15 April).

- So many Iraqis were killed that the Fallujah Sports Club was turned into a makeshift cemetery. Times reporter Stephen Farrell counted 32 graves on the pitch and 180 more on the practice park, including the graves of Omar (9, killed 9 April), Wisam Salah (eight months) and Mohammed Khalaf (15 months) (Times, 3 May). ‘The gravediggers said the cemetery was full of women and children’ (New York Times, 27 April).

- ‘The city’s main hospital … was closed by the marines’ and, according to the Iraq emergency co-ordinator for Medicins sans Frontieres – who visited Fallujah during the fighting – “The Americans put a sniper on top of the hospital’s water tower” in violation of the Geneva Convention (Guardian, 24 April).

We cannot stand by and let this happen again.

Voices are encouraging people to write to their MPs expressing their opposition to the planned attacks, reminding them of the horrors of the April assault and calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The Stop the War Coalition are also calling for decentralised actions in the event that a ground assault goes ahead. Nottingham Student Peace Movement are planning to mobilise around the issue and we encourage you to get involved. The world is watching. Fallujah needs you, as does humanity.