Iraq Civilian Death Toll Rising Fast!

By warcry

warcry@indymedia.org

March 28, 2003

Terrified victims trying to escape, left claw marks on the concrete ceilings of Nazi gas chambers. One can gain much insight into the character of a nation by studying the methods it uses to control a captive population. The United States led invasion of Iraq is now in its ninth day. US General Tommy Franks, has stated that "we don't do body counts" making it difficult to report an accurate civilian death toll. However, “homes, schools and mosques” have been targeted, said Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri, who said there were "thousands of casualties, among whom are many children and elderly."

Baghdad: Population 5 million

The only weapons of mass destruction in sight are raining down on the Iraqi people. “A taxi driver, was blown to pieces," writes veteran war correspondent Robert Fisk, about "the first American raid on Baghdad" in which at least 15 people died. Two cruise missiles struck the heavily populated Abu Taleb Street in Baghdad’s busy Al Shaab shopping district around lunchtime on March 27th. Over 50 civilians were killed, as many were burned alive in their cars, “torn to pieces before they could be liberated,” writes Fisk. “At least 15 cars burst into flames burning many of their occupants to death. Several men tore desperately at the doors of a flame-shrouded car,” he writes, “they were forced to watch helplessly as the woman and her three children inside were cremated alive in front of them.” Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian, UK describes the incident as the “single worst act of carnage …carried out by B-52 bombers, F-17 jet fighters and cruise missiles, at all hours of the day.” Three people were killed in a farmhouse bombed just outside of Baghdad. Jo Wilding reports, “the young wife, Nahda, was missing in the rubble, along with Zahra, an eight year old and her aunt, Hana. …married just one week, a neighbor showed us a flouncy pink invitation to the wedding. Omar, the bridegroom, sat silently crying on the floor in a hospital corridor, leaning on the wall, body bent, head in his hands.” Reporting the bombing of Baghdad, Fisk asks, “How many civilians are dying… anonymously, indeed unrecorded, because there are no reporters to be witness to their suffering?”

Resistance & Casualties at An Najaf/Basra

160 km south of Baghdad, US troops killed as many as 500 Iraqi fighters near the city of Najaf in a 24 hour period following “a furious two-hour battle between American tanks and Iraqis with rocket-propelled grenades,” reported Luke Baker of Reuters. As air strikes killed 26 civilians in Najaf, 77 civilians died in the bombing of Basra. “US led forces attacked a massive column of Iraqi tanks pouring out south of Basra,” writes Justin Huggler of the Independent who described “two charred bodies, horribly disfigured, sitting in the burnt-out shell of their pick-up truck on the road...”

Massacres in Nasiriyah and other cities

Hundreds of Iraqi bodies were scattered along a road to the southern city of Nasiriyah where 500 civilians were wounded when their homes were destroyed by bombings. A US warplane dropped four cluster bombs on a civilian area in Nassiriya killing 10 and wounding 200, according to the Guardian, UK. 34 peasants were killed when missiles hit a small village in northeast Iraq reported Democracy Now. Kurds in northern Iraq witnessed at least 150 people killed by US bombs last weekend. Casualties are yet unknown in Mosul, a city of 2 million, bombed a few days ago. A US missile hit a passenger bus carrying workers and students on the Syria Iraq border, killing 5 and injuring 10. During the 1991 Gulf war "smart" bombs or guided missiles which supposedly never missed their “military” targets and minimized "collateral damage,” made up only 7% of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped on Iraq. The rest were “dumb” bombs known to miss targets three times out of four.

In the crowded children’s ward of Baghdad’s Al Kindi hospital, Nada Adnan, a 14-year old school girl suffers multiple fractures and cuts from the shrapnel of a “dumb” bomb. Iraq’s sanction battered medical system often cannot provide anesthesia during treatment. Peering at the western photographer with her remaining eye, her blood scarred face is desperate with pain. Nada whispers, "Why? why did Bush do this to us… to me?" Do we tell her that it’s nothing personal, that we just need her country’s oil for our shiny SUV’s?