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Crimes in Iraq

Will Fallujah Be Leveled?

By Firas Al-Atraqchi
Freelance Columnist
06/04/2004

US forces seal off Fallujah, Monday, April 5, in preparation for a major
operation.

The men of the restive city of Fallujah are not afraid. Speaking to reporters,
they egg the US soldiers on. "Come into our city and we will show them what we
are made of," they say. "They have tanks and planes but are cowards, we will
fight till there are none of us left," others say.

The people of Fallujah are expecting the worst. They know the US military will
not allow itself to be humiliated in the manner of last week's mutilation and
hanging of four killed US mercenaries working for the private security firm
Blackwater. They know the US military will not allow the daily attacks on
convoys to go unpunished. A few hours before the horrific mutilations and
lynching, five US soldiers died when a powerful improvised explosive device
ripped their armored personnel carrier apart.

And the US military is edging for a fight. On Monday morning, US forces closed
off the Iraq-Amman highway which leads through Fallujah. Reporters attempting to
enter the city have told this writer that they were told by US officers that the
area surrounding Fallujah - and the city itself - is off-limits to reporters, a
restrictive zone, expected to be closed down for anywhere between two to 10
days.

Iraq analysts fear that the US is about to commit a war-crime by laying siege to
Fallujah and punishing its citizens by disallowing shipments of food and water.

With no independent reports from Fallujah, Iraq analysts warn the world could be
kept in the dark about scores of civilians likely to be caught in military
confrontation between US forces and Iraqi resistance.

Coalition authorities have promised a swift and precise response to last week's
mutilations of four contract servicemen who were ambushed in central Fallujah.
However, in media reports filed before the city was cordoned off, angry Iraqis
claimed that it was US policy in the area that fueled their anger. Among their
complaints:

Mounting of the foot over the neck of Iraqis - an affront in Iraqi society

The detaining of Iraqi women and teenage girls

The house searches well into the dead of night, using shock bombs, threats, and
verbal abuse

The returning of detained women, often barely clothed

The killing of civilians by US forces with no assumption of responsibility or
guilt

Iraq is entering a perilous phase as Iraqis begin to realize that the freedom
they were promised was a thinly-veiled farce aimed at extorting the country of
its mineral and oil wealth. There is open revolt in the south of Iraq where the
young cleric Muqtada Sadr has declared that negotiating and/or exercising
democratic tools like protests and demonstrations has not worked with the
Coalition. His Mahdi Army has seized several police stations throughout the
south of Iraq. US forces retaliated by seizing a Sadr office in Kirkuk.

As the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad arrives, the fall of Iraq into
absolute anarchy seems imminent.


A Year in Numbers
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<http://www.islamonline.net/english/media/2004/03/yearlater/index.shtml>



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