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THE
ROVING EYE
The Iraqi killing
fields
By Pepe Escobar
AMMAN
- "We know we don't target journalists," said the US
Central Command (CentCom) in Qatar. Contrary to
CentCom's assertions, non-embedded journalists know that
they have been targeted.
It was inevitable. When
it finally happened, it was like clockwork. Al-Jazeera's
office in Kabul was incinerated by four missiles in the
2001 ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan. True to
CentCom form, al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad was hit by
a Tomahawk this week in the invasion of Iraq - even
though the Qatari network had offered its global
positioning system (GPS) position to the Pentagon in
late February.
Correspondent-producer Tariq
Ayyoub, 35, Jordanian, father of an infant girl, was
killed and a photographer was wounded. The Abu Dhabi TV
office in Baghdad was hit by an Abrams tank - although
they have been broadcasting from the same building for
three years now. Another Abrams tank fired at the
Palestine Hotel, near Tahir square: even Mesopotamian
desert rats know that this is where virtually all the
Western and Asian journalists in Baghdad stay: A
Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters and a Spanish cameraman
for Telecinco were killed, and four other journalists
were wounded.
France 3 television broadcast
footage of the turret of the Abrams tank, positioned on
the west margin of the Tigris, at least 300 meters away
from the Palestine, moving in the direction of the hotel
and taking its time to aim and shoot. The official
American version - that they were threatened by sniper
fire coming from the hotel - was universally dismissed.
Asia Times Online was among many to confirm that no
journalists who were in the open doing live feeds for TV
reported hearing any sniper fire or rocket launchers
being fired from the hotel. As Sky TV's David Chater put
it, the shell "was aimed directly at this hotel and
directly at journalists. This wasn't an accident, it
seems to be a very accurate shot."
There's a
problem with the absolute majority of the journalists in
Baghdad - surreptitiously betrayed by the rhetoric
emanating from US CentCom in Qatar. They are
non-embedded. "Unilaterals" - non-embedded journalists -
may be mistaken for "legitimate" targets by the
Pentagon: or rather "targets of opportunity". They can
be bombed because of their annoying Thuraya satellite
telephones with GPS. They can be beaten - like a group
of Portuguese journalists in southern Iraq. They can be
humiliated at will, just because they are able to think
independently, or they are also reporting the Iraqi
side, or they are not telling the official, sanitized,
Pentagon-censored story of the carnage in Iraq.
Even diplomatic convoys are not immune.
Alexander Minakov, a reporter for Russian TV who was
involved in Sunday's incident when a Russian convoy with
10 diplomats and 10 journalists was trying to leave
Baghdad towards Damascus, confirmed that they were
targeted by M-16 rifles, standard equipment for American
soldiers and marines. According to the Russian
ambassador, Vladimir Titorenko, speaking to the
Itar-Tass agency, "A column of American armored vehicles
suddenly blocked our way. There were tanks, APCs and
mobile gun mounts. Our convoy led by my car under the
Russian flag stopped but they suddenly opened fire. All
the attempts to leave the cars and explain the situation
were thwarted by bursts from automatic weapons," said
Titorenko. Several grenades were hurled at the cars.
Four people were wounded and the ambassador's driver was
seriously wounded in the stomach. American officials
predictably denied any responsibility.
The
attack on the Palestine hotel has been vehemently
condemned all over the world. The International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ) says that it is a
possible war crime, or at least "a grave and serious
violation of international law". IFJ general secretary
Aidan White stressed that "the bombing of hotels where
journalists are staying and targeting of Arab media are
particularly shocking events in a war which is being
fought in the name of democracy".
While Arab
satellite channels are showing the tragic reality of
war, American corporate media - also available by
satellite all over the Middle East - all but totally
ignores the suffering of the Iraqi people. Torrents of
abuse in America are directed against Arab and European
news outlets that publish and broadcast the real extent
of the carnage and human suffering that is being
inflicted on civilians.
In this context, the
bombing of al-Jazeera could not but please the
neoconservatives in Washington. Carnage it is. The
American advance has been described as the "infernal
column" by Yves Debay, a war correspondent for the
military affairs magazine Raids who observed the US
modus operandi at very close range: "They
organize columns of 40 to 50 armored vehicles. Up front,
M1 Abrams tanks, followed by Bradley fighting vehicles
and Humvees. They roll with two tanks up front,
occupying the whole road. They shoot everything in
sight, everything suspicious. It's 'fire at will'. They
love shooting Saddam portraits with 25 mm cannons. They
have no fire discipline. The initiative is left to the
soldiers, 20-year-old kids. That's the reason why they
also shoot civilians. An European army would never
behave like this. By better controlling its troops, the
British army kills considerably less civilians." Debay's
observations are corroborated by what happened at the
Palestine: crucial tactical decisions are left to
low-level local tank commanders.
On his way to
Baghdad from Mahmudiyah, Debay saw dozens of burning
civilian vehicles, all of their passengers dead. He
volunteers an explanation for the indiscriminate
killing: "They [the Americans] have two problems. They
are still taking revenge for September 11, and there are
no sanctions when a soldier kills a civilian. Their
objective is not to kill civilians, but they behave like
cowboys. They even shoot cows ... I have the impression
it's a way to mask their fear. They are very afraid. And
it gets worse every time they sustain losses."
The American superiority in technology, mobility
and firepower is overwhelming beyond comprehension -
also considering that Iraq's military capability had
been totally smashed in 1991, plus the 12 years of
debilitating United Nations sanctions. The road to
Baghdad for the advancing American troops was cleared by
a devastating combination of B-52 carpet-bombing,
artillery barrages and strafing by Apache helicopters.
Initially, the killing in Baghdad had no military
objective, or was not about taking or holding ground
(CentCom briefing). Even after Monday's spectacular
foray into the National Parade Ground and Saddam's
palaces in Baghdad, the rhetoric remained the same.
Now territory in central Baghdad has indeed been
taken: the Americans control large swaths of the west
bank of the Tigris (echoes of Israel controlling large
areas of the West Bank in Palestine). So the rhetoric
has changed to "targets of opportunity". Like the
bombing of houses of Iraqi Christians (at least eight
civilians dead), or the blitz with four satellite-guided
900-kilogram bombs of the famous al-Sa'a restaurant in
the al-Mansour residential district (at least 14
civilians dead) where Saddam Hussein and his sons
"might" have been - according to a web of 37 American
satellites plus "human intelligence" on the ground. The
satellites and the intelligence failed. Behind the
al-Sa'a there is now a huge crater 10 meters deep and 15
meters wide, and the families of residents Abdel Massyah
and Salman Daoud are buried under the rubble.
Outside the five-star al-Rashid hotel, a Reuters
photographer said that the marines on Monday were firing
indiscriminately on civilians and militias: he has
bullet holes in his car to prove it. "Human
intelligence" on the ground in Baghdad has revealed to
Asia Times Online that the rate of casualties in the
city could be anywhere from 100 to 500 Iraqis to each
American. Even though the resistance is now minimal, the
carnage will go on because although the Americans have
practically encircled Baghdad they don't have enough
troops to control a sprawling city of 5 million-plus
inhabitants.
The military plan is to divide the
city in pockets and secure it pocket by pocket - with
overwhelming support of F/A-18s, A-10 tankbusters and
Apache helicopters, now flying very low because there's
absolutely no air defense left in Baghdad to speak of.
If it looks and sounds like a deadly video game, that's
because it is: even American generals are describing it
as an aerial form of house-to-house fighting. The main
victims are, of course, Iraqi civilians.
Popular
reaction has been graphic. The Bush administration, the
Pentagon and the breathless, embedded cheerleaders of
American corporate media are ecstatic. The whole planet
is horrified. By watching those images of the proud
cradle of human civilization reduced to Fourth World
status, anybody that is not a military expert may
understand that the only thing left for the "poor
bastards" - as the marines call them - absolutely unable
to resist overwhelming military force, is to resort to
guerrilla and suicide attacks. History shows that this
is how occupied lands and peoples have always reacted.
Extraordinary footage by the Capa photo agency shows a
group of ragged teenagers with rocket launchers trying
to retake a bridge from Abrams tanks: the operation
takes a few minutes, and half of the bunch is left
soaking in pools of blood.
All over Baghdad, the
city's five main hospitals simply cannot cope with an
avalanche of civilian casualties. Doctors can't get to
the hospitals because of the bombing. Dr Osama
Saleh-al-Duleimi, at the al-Kindi hospital, confirms the
absolute majority of patients are women and children,
victims of bullets, shrapnel and most of all, fragments
of cluster bombs: "They are all civilians," he says,
"caught in aerial and artillery bombardment."
The International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) is in a state of almost desperation. Its
spokesman, Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, contacted by
satellite telephone, still mentions casualties arriving
at hospitals at a rate of as many as 100 per hour and at
least 100 per day. This correspondent has been to many
Baghdad hospitals: after fighting 12 years of sanctions
and a list of as many as 500-prohibited items, it's a
miracle that they barely remained functional. In a city
now with no regular phones, no electricity and
practically no water, they are all operating on
generators. One of the larger hospitals has no power and
no water at all. Getting clean water for the patients
remains a nightmare. Anaesthetics, antibiotics and
insulin are almost gone. The hospitals are running out
of blood, beds, everything.
The victims of the
blitz are inevitably the young and the poor. How many?
Even the ICRC cannot determine it yet: hospital doctors
talk about hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded. Dr
Sadek al-Mukhtar has seen it all in terms of death and
destruction. He is adamant: "Before the war I did not
regard America as my enemy. Now I do. There are military
and there are civilians. War should be against the
military. America is killing civilians." Fifty percent
of Iraq's population of 24 million is under 15.
Malnutrition is endemic. The majority of families depend
on state food rations - the meager standard package of
flour, rice, tea, cooking oil and soap - and rations
should run out by next month.
A-10 tankbusters
have fired the hungry, terrified Baghdadis with depleted
uranium rounds - the surefire way to win their hearts
and minds. There may be some scenes of jubilation with
the marines coming to town - basically in the huge
Shi'ite Saddam City slum, bursting with more than 2
million people who have been frustrated and oppressed
for so long by the Sunni-dominated Saddam regime.
But these desperately poor and angry masses want
food.They want water. They don't necessarily want to see
marines in tanks for more than a day or two. Eastern
Baghdad is in total anarchy. But there's still fighting.
And people are not only scared - or involved in looting.
They are suffering. One just needs to ask 12-year-old
Ali Ismail Abbas. His father, his five-month-old
pregnant mother, his brother, his aunt, three cousins
and three other relatives were incinerated by a missile
in Diala, eastern Baghdad. He is now an orphan, he is
terribly burned and he has lost both his arms. He wants
to be a doctor. "But how can I? I lost both hands."
George W Bush can always say that at least he has been
"liberated".
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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