U.S. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN IRAQ

Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his home after a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad's Sadr City. The 2-year-old died at a hospital.

Ali Hussein est retiré des ruines de sa maison après une attaque aérienne américaine sur Sadr City. Ce petit garçon âgé de 2 ans est décédé à l'hôpital.

Photo Credit: By Karim Kadim -- Associated Press Photo

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Newspaper Criticized For Publishing Photo

By Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
07/05/08 "Hearst Newspapers" -- --

WASHINGTON -- Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”

Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.

As the saying goes, the picture was worth a thousand words because it showed the true horrors of this war.

Neither side is immune from the killing of Iraqi civilians. But Americans should be aware of their own responsibility for inflicting death and pain on the innocent.

The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, said about 20 readers complained about the photo, while a few readers praised the Post for publishing the stark picture on page one.

Some mothers said they were offended that their children might see the picture, though one wonders whether their youngsters watch television and play with violent videos in a pretend world.

From the start of the unprovoked U.S. “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, the government tried to bar the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of American soldiers returning from Iraq.

A Freedom of Information lawsuit forced the government to release pictures of returning coffins.

Howell said some readers felt the photo of the Iraqi boy was “an anti-war statement; some thought it was in poor taste.” Well, so is war.

Howell said her boss, Executive Editor Len Downie, “is cautious about such photos.”“We have seldom been able to show the human impact of the fighting on Iraqis,” Downie was quoted as saying. “We decided this was a rare instance in which we had a powerful image with which to do so.”It’s unclear to me why this was deemed to be “rare.”

After five years of war, there is finally one photo that is supposed to say it all?

Howell said she checked hundreds of U.S. front pages on the Internet but saw the AP photo nowhere else.

This makes me wonder why the media have shied away from telling the story about Iraqi civilian casualties.

News people and editors were more courageous during the Vietnam War. What are they afraid of now?Who can forget the shocking picture of the little Vietnamese girl running down a road, aflame from a napalm attack? And who can forget the picture of South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan putting a gun to the temple of a young member of the Viet Cong and executing him on a Saigon street?

I don’t remember any American outcry against the press for showing the horror of war when these photographs were published. Were we braver then? Or maybe more conscience stricken?Of course, the Pentagon did not enjoy such images coming out of Saigon in that era. Most Americans found them appalling, as further evidence of our misbegotten venture in Vietnam.

Americans rallied to the streets in protest and eventually persuaded President Lyndon Johnson to give up his dreams of reelection in 1968.

Some Americans believe the media were to blame for the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Nonsense.

Johnson knew the war was unwinnable, especially after the 1968 Tet offensive and the request by Army Gen. William Westmoreland for 200,000 more troops, in addition to the 500,000 already in Vietnam.

The Pentagon made a command decision after the Vietnam War to get better control of the dissemination of information in future wars.

This led then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to create an office of disinformation at the start of the Iraqi war. It was later disbanded after howls from the media.

More recently we have seen the Pentagon’s propaganda efforts take the form of carefully coaching retired generals about how to spin the Iraq war when they appear on television as alleged military experts.

The New York Times’ revelations about these pet generals have cast a pall over their reputations.Too often in this war, the news media seem to have tried to shield the public from the suffering this war has brought to Americans and Iraqis.

It’s not the job of the media to protect the nation from the reality of war. Rather, it is up to the media to tell the people the truth. They can handle it.

Helen Thomas can be reached at hthomas@hearstdc.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19878.htm


Copyright 2008 by Hearst Newspapers
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Iraq hospital 'damaged by US raid'

Aljazeera.net : Women and children were among those injured in the Sadr City raid [AFP]

May 3, 2008

At least 28 people have been wounded after a hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City district, a stronghold of Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, was damaged in what witnesses described as a US air strike.

A medic at the al-Sadr hospital said women and children were among the wounded in the raid, which an Iraqi security official said took place at around 10am local time (0700 GMT) on Saturday.

Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing," a US military spokesman said. Witnesses said the target of the air raid, in which US forces fired several missiles, was a small house adjacent to the al-Sadr hospital and used as a rest area by Shia pilgrims.

The impact of the attack damaged more than a dozen ambulances belonging to the hospital, one of the three main medical facilities in the district, and shattered the windows of the building.

US forces used aircraft and an Abrams battle tank in the attack.

english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/86D6C28E-6E04-4549-BA78-E2C4AFCB24F6.htm

Is Sadr City becoming the next Gaza?

May 2, 2008
Misery Under Siege
Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?
By RANNIE AMIRI

“They have now completely surrounded Sadr City. The media is talking about Gaza, while we now have a second ‘Rafah Crossing’ in Sadr City. The hospitals are jammed with dead bodies...the occupation forces completely ban and open fire at any convoy trying to deliver humanitarian aid. People here suffer from shortage of food supplies. The occupation forces have burnt the city’s market.”

- Sadrist MP Dr. Maha al-Dori

“Do you want a third uprising?”

- Muqtada al-Sadr

The ripples of the March 25th Basra offensive-turned-fiasco initiated by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have been transformed into waves of bloodletting, crashing rhythmically northward onto Sadr City. According to one governmental official, more than 900 people were killed and 2600 wounded in the teeming slum of three million in April.

For the past month, Sadr City has been effectively sealed off from the rest of Baghdad as United States and Iraqi forces attempt to crush Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. In an ostensible effort to quell the launch of rockets from the neighborhood into the Green Zone, recent days have seen an intensification in fighting and causalities.

The largely symbolic Green Zone attacks are the only latest excuse to go after al-Sadr and his militia. His popular appeal among downtrodden Iraqi Shi’ites threatens to unseat the joint dominance of Maliki’s Dawa party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (both of which favor the continued presence of American troops) in upcoming October parliamentary elections. Al-Sadr has always been outspoken in his demand the occupation come to an end. It was no therefore coincidence that Vice President Cheney’s March visit to Iraq shortly preceded the attack on his loyalists in Basra.

It was likewise unsurprising to learn that mortar rounds were being fired from Sadr City into the Green Zone by Mahdi Army members. Despite al-Sadr’s March 30th declaration reaffirming his ceasefire order – now in its eighth month – they continue to be targeted. Of far greater importance though are the ramifications of disproportionate violence and collective punishment being levied on the residents of Sadr City.

In an area only half the size of Manhattan, bombs have been dropped from U.S. warplanes, Predator Hellfire missiles fired and Apache attack helicopters dispatched. Yet the heart of Sadr City remains unpenetrated and only its southern outskirts precariously held. The difficulties of street warfare and a recent sandstorm – considered divine intervention by some – have hampered efforts to make further gains. The U.S. is now in the process of erecting a two-mile concrete wall which will separate the southern quarter’s Thawra and Jamila districts from the rest of the city. Apparently, what cannot be defeated will be imprisoned.

As is custom in conflicts where civilians frequently pay the ultimate price, the U.S. has resorted to the classic Israeli defense of blaming the victims. A Associated Press photo showing two-year-old Ali Hussein being pulled from the rubble of his home after it was destroyed by U.S. missiles (he later died in the hospital) caused military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover to comment, “The sole burden of responsibility lies on the shoulders of the militants who care nothing for the Iraqi people."

Lost in the coverage of this conflict has been the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Sadr City. On April 23rd, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that the fighting has isolated civilians from food and water supplies and caused hospitals to run out of basic necessities such as dressings and anesthesia. They continue to transport 10,000 liters of drinking water daily to the area.

According to the ICRC, as a consequence of the destruction of al-Jamila market – one of the largest and instrumental in providing for the entire community’s needs – “People are now short of food, especially as prices of fresh vegetables have increased considerably.”

Gaza too is under siege. The Israeli strangulation of this tiny strip of land has brought both humanitarian and military catastrophe to its people. It currently suffers from a severe fuel shortage which is hampering the ability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to provide food and other essential aid to the majority of Gaza’s population. On April 28th in the town of Beit Hanoun, a mother and her four children ages one to six were massacred while they ate breakfast as a result of Israeli shelling. Prime Minister Olmert blamed Hamas for their deaths. It is only one story among hundreds.

Sadr City and Gaza are starting to look more and more alike and their inhabitants have much in common with one another. Both live in densely-populated, poverty-stricken areas where food, clean water, fuel and medical supplies get harder to come by as life under siege takes its inevitable toll; both are reeling from Israeli and American military strikes killing scores of civilians in their midst. Al-Sadr’s eight-month ceasefire is in jeopardy of being rescinded while Hamas’ offer for one was quickly rejected.

Of all the unmitigated disasters the occupation of Iraq has wrought and of all the comparisons made to other foreign misadventures, the U.S. siege of Sadr City and its unfortunate similarity to the Israeli siege of Gaza is certainly one of the most damning.


Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on the Arab and Islamic worlds. He may be reached at rbamiri at yahoo.com.

http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri05022008.html

KERKUK: US air strikes kill at least 8 members of a family

Middle East News
Feb 15, 2008

At least eight people of an Iraqi family were killed Friday, when US air strikes hit their house in Kerkuk, some 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, media reports said.

Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency said two US helicopters had opened fire on a house in al-Howeija area, western Kerkuk, claiming eight lives. The dead included a woman and five children, VOI said.

U.S. Boosts Its Use of Airstrikes In Iraq

Strategy Supports Troop Increase
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 17, 2008

The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaeda safe houses, insurgent bombmaking facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power.

Top commanders said that better intelligence-gathering allows them to identify and hit extremist strongholds with bombs and missiles, and they predicted that extensive airstrikes will continue this year as the United States seeks to flush insurgents out of havens in and around Baghdad and to the north in Diyala province.

The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006.

"The core reason why we see the increase in strikes is the offensive strategy taken by General [David H.] Petraeus," said Air Force Col. Gary Crowder, commander of the 609th Combined Air Operations Center in Southwest Asia. Because the United States has sent more troops into areas rife with insurgent activity, he said, "we integrated more airstrikes into those operations."

The greater reliance on air power has raised concerns from human rights groups, which say that 500-pound and 2,000-pound munitions threaten civilians, especially when dropped in residential neighborhoods where insurgents mix with the population. The military assures that the precision attacks are designed to minimize civilian casualties -- particularly as Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy emphasizes moving more troops into local communities and winning over the Iraqi population -- but rights groups say bombings carry an especially high risk.

"The Iraqi population remains at risk of harm during these operations," said Eliane Nabaa, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. "The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area."

UNAMI estimates that more than 200 civilian deaths resulted from U.S. airstrikes in Iraq from the beginning of April to the end of last year, when U.S. forces began to significantly increase the strikes to coordinate with the expansion of ground troops.

The strategy was evident last week, as U.S. forces launched airstrikes across Iraq as part of Operation Phantom Phoenix. On Thursday morning in Arab Jabour, southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military dropped 38 bombs with 40,000 pounds of explosives in 10 minutes, one of the largest strikes since the 2003 invasion. U.S. forces north of Baghdad employed bombs totaling more than 16,500 pounds over just a few days last week, according to officers there.

"The purpose of these particular strikes was to shape the battlefield and take out known threats before our ground troops move in," Army Col. Terry Ferrell, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, said at a news conference in Baghdad last Friday, describing the Arab Jabour attacks. "Our aim was to neutralize any advantage the enemy could claim with the use of IEDs and other weapons," he said, referring to improvised explosive devices.

Counterinsurgency experts said the greater use of airstrikes meshes with U.S. strategy, which calls for coalition troops to clear hostile areas before holding and then rebuilding them. U.S. forces have put the new counterinsurgency efforts into play by using their increased numbers to home in on insurgent strongholds.

Colin Kahl, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University who studies the Iraq war, said airstrikes rose in 2007 because of a combination of increased U.S. operations and a realization that air power can have a strong psychological effect on the enemy.

"Part of this is announcing our presence to the adversary," said Kahl, who recently returned from a trip to the air operations center. "Across this calendar year you will see a reduction in U.S. forces, so there will be fewer troops to support Iraqi forces. One would expect a continued level of airstrikes because of offensive operations, and as U.S. forces begin to draw down you may see even more airstrikes."

Senior Air Force officials said the greater use of airstrikes stems from better intelligence that provides a clearer picture of the battlefield. Commanders said the additional U.S. forces in Iraq over the past year have pushed insurgents out of urban areas and into places that are easier to target.

"You see an increase in the number of kinetic strikes because we have found the enemy, we are finding the enemy's emplacement sites, manufacturing facilities for IEDs and caches of weapons," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, the U.S. Central Air Forces and Combined Forces Air Component commander. "And we're striking them."

The Marine Corps keeps its own statistics for airstrikes in western Iraq but could not provide 2007 data.

In Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO bombings picked up in the middle of 2006, coalition airstrikes reached 3,572 last year, more than double the total for 2006 and more than 20 times the number in 2005. Many of the strikes have targeted the Taliban and other extremists in Helmand province, and military officials said they have been able to use air power to support small Special Forces units that engage the enemy in remote locations.

Human rights groups estimate that Afghan civilian casualties caused by airstrikes tripled to more than 300 in 2007, fueling fears that such aggressive bombardment could be catastrophic for the innocent.

Marc Garlasco, a military analyst at Human Rights Watch who tracks airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the strikes carry unique risks. "My major concern with what's going on in Iraq is massive population density," he said. "You have the potential for very high civilian casualties, so you need really granular intelligence on what you're going to hit. But I don't think they're being careless."

In preparation for last week's major airstrikes near Baghdad, North said, he met two weeks ago with Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and U.S. forces in Baghdad, to walk through the plans.
"What you're seeing in the last few days is a very deliberate process honed by intelligence, targeted and aligned to get the desired effect in a particular area," North said.

Commanders also said they are using air power more creatively, in some cases dropping bombs that explode in the air to detonate insurgent roadside bombs. Other U.S. munitions have cut off small bridges or roads to isolate insurgent movement. As seen in Air Force videos, some attacks have been extremely precise, such as when a Predator unmanned aircraft fired an AGM-114P Hellfire missile to kill three extremists who were setting up a mortar attack on Nov. 7 in Balad.
North said the Air Force has used concrete-filled bombs to detonate IED sites and is using 250-pound GBU-39 small-diameter bombs to make blasts safer for civilians. Commanders also have been using airstrikes on houses suspected to be rigged with explosives, called "house-borne IEDs."

Such a strike occurred Jan. 6, when soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team spotted five suspected insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles apparently rigging a house with explosives near Khan Bani Saad, northeast of Baghdad. Lt. Col. Stuart Pettis, air liaison officer for Multinational Division North, said the unit asked for airstrikes.

"After doing a show of force to get civilians out of the area, they engaged the house and the fighters with a 500-pound bomb," he said of the attack by two British Tornado GR4 jets. "They took the fighters out."