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April 7, 2003
Media Compilation #128: The End of Suffering is in Sight - Or Is It?
Dear journalist
As the U.S. invasion of Iraq seems to be soon coming to a successful conclusion from the "coalition" standpoint, it remains to be seen when and how the invader will win the peace and patch up it tattered public image worldwide. And that is a battle far from being over!
Perhaps only a complete regime change in Washington as Senator John F. Kerry boldly suggested last April 3 will suffice to appease the world's most legitimate demand for a peaceful, just and non-violent new U.S. foreign policy. But I seriously doubt Kerry could ever deliver of that. The only presidential candidate that, to me, has the vision, dedication and courage to implement such a sweeping change is Dennis Kucinich.
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation128.htm
Check also:
The U.S. Army of Mass Destruction Series #4: Coalition of the Unlawful
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MassDestruction4.htm
The U.S. Army of Mass Destruction Series #5: The Abominable Killing Machine
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MassDestruction5.htm
"Oh Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; ...help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land.... We ask it, in the sprit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love."
- Mark Twain, after viewing a pre-emptive war in the Philippines a century ago. Cited in the March 30, 2003, New York Times magazine.
CONTENTS
1. Iraqi troops massacred from the air as US advances to Baghdad
2. Red Cross: Iraq Wounded Too High to Count
3. Widespread Use of Cluster Bombs Sparks Outrage
4. THE PETRO-DOLLAR AND THE EURO: MONEY IS THE ROOT OF WAR
See also:
Robert Fisk: The Allied grip tightens on Baghdad (April 7)
On the streets, grim evidence of a bloody battle
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=394749
The aftermath of battle was everywhere. Burning trucks and armoured personnel carriers, overturned Iraqi field guns, craters and blackened palm trees and, right in the middle of the motorway, just to the right of a cloverleaf interchange, the unmistakable hulk of an American Abrams M1A1 battle tank, barrel pointing impotently towards the highway, its turret a platform for grinning Iraqi soldiers. ... And one with a heavy price to bepaid in blood and life. By the time I turned up yesterday, the more obviousand terrible detritus of battle - the corpses and the blood and vomit ˆ had been cleared away, but the Iraqi army and the Pentagon did their best to cloak this little killing field with lies. Two thousand Iraqis killed, crowed the Pentagon. Fifty Americans killed, boasted the Iraqis, rather more modestly. Both sides admitted "casualties" and it must be for the reader to judge what these might have been.... But what really happened here? ... but there were two tactical lessons to be learnt from all this. First, the American mission, whatever its original intention, was a failure. Their tank column did not "break into" the city as the Anglo-American headquarters originally stated. Iraqi resistance turned it back. The US response ˆ air assaults on individual Iraqi vehicles ˆ was presumably committed by Apache helicopters, because each smouldering wreck had been hit by a small rocket at close range. The second lesson was one for the Iraqis: they should never have brought their armour and military lorries so close to the front... And even if they did destroy six American tanks as the minister ambitiously claimed, they did so at a cost of more than five-to-one to their own vehicles and guns.
Wailing children, the wounded, the dead: victims of the day cluster bombs rained on Babylon by Robert Fisk (April 3)
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=393458
The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something illegal – something quite outside the Geneva Conventions – occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon. The wailing children, the young women with breast and leg wounds, the 10 patients upon whom doctors had to perform brain surgery to remove metal from their heads, talk of the days and nights when the explosives fell "like grapes" from the sky. Cluster bombs, the doctors say – and the detritus of the air raids around the hamlets of Nadr and Djifil and Akramin and Mahawil and Mohandesin and Hail Askeri shows that they are right.
Rural Casualties Go Uncounted In Iraq (April 4)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393688
Samar Hussein was killed by a bomb that fell on dusty farmland miles outside Baghdad. But, as Kim Sengupta discovers, she is just one of this war's forgotten victims Samar Hussein was in the kitchen helping her aunt Alia Mijbas to make breakfast when the missile landed. The farmhouse where they lived, like most of the homes in the area, is built of a soft, brown stone, and the explosion was close enough for shrapnel to cut through the house's outer walls like butter and slice into Samar's stomach. Alia was struck on both legs by razor-sharp fragments, while her five-year-old son Mahmood, who was drinking a glass of milk, was hit on the chest and shoulders. The blast knocked over the cooker, which burst into flames, severely burning one of Mahmood's brothers, 11-year-old Sahal. All were rushed to hospital, but Samar died before they got there. She was 13 years old. The victims of this particular explosion were in Manaria, a village in Mohammedia district, about 30 miles south of Baghdad. Since the war began, this mostly rural area of dusty brown fields and quiet villages has seen 53 inhabitants injured and 22 killed. These figures don't come from Iraqi government ministers as they tot up the numbers of victims of "American and British aggression" during their daily news conferences in Baghdad. Instead, I learnt of these deaths from a doctor at the local hospital. For it seems that, while vivid atrocities in Baghdad - such as the marketplace bombings at Sha'ad and Shu'ale, which killed 72 people in two days - get huge international publicity, everyone, including Saddam Hussein's regime, is unaware of the steadily rising number of casualties in the rural areas just outside the capital.
Iraq war has UNICEF unprepared for its worst ever crisis (April 2)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=42192609
(...) As it prepared for the war, UNICEF sought $140 million but received just $10million, de Rooy said. "We're totally unprepared.
Britain Admits There May Be No WMD's in Iraq (April 5 by Al Jazeera )
http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703C.shtml
Well into the war that was supposed to rid Iraq of its alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, a senior British official admitted on Saturday that no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction may after all be found. Making the startling confession in a radio interview, British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, added in the same breath that he would in any case rejoice the "fall'' of Saddam Hussein and his regime -- regardless of whether any weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq or not. The confession reconfirms the worst fears of opponents of the war that "weapons of mass destruction'' is only a ruse for the US and the British to go to war against Iraq. At the very least the admission certainly deals a serious blow to the moral legitimacy that the US and the British have been seeking in prosecuting the war. CLIP
On to Damascus?
http://motherjones.com/news/warwatch/2003/14/we_345_04.html
For months, even as Washington's hawks prepared for their long-sought war in Iraq, neoconservatives inside and outside the White House were eagerly speculating about which country would be next on the administration's list. Now, while US and British troops make their painstaking way toward Iraq and an urban battle military leaders want desperately to avoid, war party pundits are eagerly speculating once more. But this time, they are only writing about two countries: Syria and Iran. This week, in a speech to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country's pre-eminent pro-Israel lobby group, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that Washington wanted to see "more responsible behavior" from Damascus. And he didn't stop there. Denouncing the Syrian government's harsh criticism of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Powell declared that Syria now "faces a critical choice." It was strong language reminiscent of the nuanced threats leveled at Iraq last year, and it was greeted by hearty applause from the AIPAC crowd. But is the Bush administration, in a war that few still believe will be quick or simple, actually considering turning its military attention toward Damascus? Neoconservatives dearly hope so.
Evidence Against Syria Is Questioned (April 3)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wosyri033204221apr03,0,4315121.story
Washington - The CIA has no credible evidence that the government of Syria has had a role in the shipment of night-vision goggles and other military equipment to Iraq, according to an administration official familiar with U.S. intelligence in the region.
US warned that oil cannot provide funds
(04 April 2003)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=393764
A senior British official at the United Nations warned the United States yesterday that it should think twice before assuming it can administer post-conflict Iraq on its own terms. Mark Malloch Brown, the director of the UN Development Programme, also said Iraq's crippled oil industry would not finance reconstruction after the war. His candid remarks preface what is shaping to become another mammoth struggle between the powers in the UN Security Council over the role of the UN in running Iraq and helping it back to self-government. He said: "Maybe there are people in Washington who can't see round the next corner in the road and don't know where it goes, but eventually will." There is growing alarm in UN circles at what appears to be plans by Washington to install its own government in Iraq, headed by retired Lieutenant-General Jay Garner. He and a group of carefully selected US officials are in Kuwait waiting for the moment to transfer to Baghdad and take over Iraqi ministries.
Hawkish lawyer to oversee Iraqi ministries, The Pentagon selects group to take power (April 4)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,929378,00.html
A Pentagon lawyer who sought to have US citizens imprisoned indefinitely without charge as part of the war on terrorism will supervise civil administration in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is removed. Michael Mobbs, 54, who will take charge of 11 of the 23 Iraqi ministries, is one of several controversial appointments to the Pentagon-controlled government-in-waiting being assembled in a cluster of seaside villas in Kuwait. Other top-level appointees include James Woolsey, a former CIA director with Israeli connections, who has long pursued a theory that Saddam Hussein, rather than Islamic militants, was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York.
Victory Plan Is Formed by U.S., Surrender Not Thought Essential (April 4)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23898-2003Apr3.html
The Bush administration has devised a strategy to declare victory in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein or key lieutenants remain at large and fighting continues in parts of the country, officials said yesterday.
Turf War Rages in Washington Over Who Will Rule Iraq (April 5)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0405-02.htm
Kerry Says US Needs Its Own 'Regime Change' (April 3)
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/093/nation/Kerry_says_US_needs_its_own_regime_change_+.shtml
Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that President Bush committed a ''breach of trust'' in the eyes of many United Nations members by going to war with Iraq, creating a diplomatic chasm that will not be bridged as long as Bush remains in office.
Anti-American Sentiment Grows Over War in Iraq (April 6)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml%3Bjsessionid%3DJK3RZSKIX4P1SCRBAEZSFEY?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2515180
BERLIN (Reuters) - They were seen as the "good cops" who saved West Berlin, defended Western Europe during the Cold War and put an end to the bloodshed in the Balkans -- but the Iraq war has left that image of the United States in shreds. The erstwhile defenders of freedom and democracy are now more likely to be viewed by their allies around the world as war-mongering imperialists, "bad cops" and "bullies" who lost their way by brushing aside the United Nations and attacking Iraq.
'Liberated' city where looters run wild and death stalks the streets (April 4)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393784
Nasiriyah is a city of suffering. After some of the most intense and bloody fighting yet of this war, the United States has now declared this city of up to 300,000 people in its control - the largest city in Iraq to have been "liberated". Liberation has come at a price of undoubted suffering for the people of this settlement on the Euphrates: doctors claim that up to 250 people were killed by US air strikes or artillery attacks, and that up to 1,000 were injured. This could be the greatest challenge for the Allied forces. They have pushed north quickly, and many of the towns they have passed remain at best unstable. How best to police these cities without appearing as an occupying force appears to be something about which the Americans are unclear.
Near Baghdad, U.S. Troops Encounter a 'Remarkable' Foe (April 5)
http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.marines05apr05,0,3500710.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
(...) They were an enemy who fought with more will than any other fighters the Marines have encountered so far. The "jihad" fighters, as Marines dubbed them yesterday, wore civilian clothes or full-length black robes. They were equipped with brand new ammunition and some of the best sniper rifles and armaments money can buy. They set pools of oil on fire, masking the skies with eye-stinging black smoke. More than anything, however, they showed determination as fighters.
U.S. invasion has landed it in Israeli territory (April 1)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1847350
Our rules of war are based on overwhelming superiority of the force at our disposal compared to that of the enemy. Israel's experience in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories tells that overwhelming force cannot quell fiery nationalism. And history tells that Iraqi nationalism is as fierce as any. The cost of ignoring that will only mount with time. We will turn to the Israeli military, the world's most experienced in combating suicide bombers, and adopt their methods. We'll claim our right to defend ourselves against the retaliation of those we attack. Our presence on their land is what they detest, yet we will see their killing of our soldiers as proof they are the terrorists our presence is needed to wipe out. We'll force cars to stop at a safe distance and make their occupants approach on foot. Then an Iraqi patriot will shuffle up to marines at a roadblock and detonate a concealed explosives belt strapped to his waist. Our counterterrorism experts will advise that we force Iraqis civilians to strip to their waists before they approach our men. The effect, as Israel knows all too well, will be to alienate the indigenous population. Our actions will ratchet up their resentment and intensify their loathing of the foreign military power controlling their lives. The number of Iraqis ready to die to kill anyone sporting a Star-Spangled Banner or a Union Jack will mushroom. We can win the war, but the peace will enervate us. Welcome, America, to a vicious cycle of violence like that Israel is mired in. In time our nation will yearn for freedom from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Israel Tells US: 'Send In the Bulldozers' (April 3 from The Guardian)
http://rense.com/general36/isra.htm
Pentagon Takes Notes on House-to-house Fighting in Jenin - Martin van Creveld's advice to the US marines on what lessons to draw from Israel's bloody urban battle in Jenin was precise: Forget the helicopters, invest in armored bulldozers. For months now, the Pentagon has been taking notes from the Israelis in preparation for what looks increasingly likely to be an arduous house by house, street by street, fight for Baghdad. CLIP
You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966410076/boycotttheusa-20
Already a massive underground best-seller in the US, this extraordinary book acts as a battering ram against the distortions, myths and outright lies put out by the government, corporations, the media and others who want to keep the truth from us.
U.S. issues new rules for 'interfering' Iraqi civilians (April 2) http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5536764.htm
CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - Iraqi civilians who ''interfere with mission accomplishment'' can be detained up to 30 days under new guidelines the U.S. military issued Tuesday. The guidelines represent tougher military attitudes toward Iraqi civilians in the face of continuing attacks by Iraqi loyalist forces. The original rules of engagement issued for Iraq drew a careful line between military targets and civilians, who were to be protected.
Bush approves use of tear gas in battlefield (April 2)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1035780243853
Only to save civilian lives, military says - Weapons experts fear violation of law - President George W. Bush has authorized American military forces to use tear gas in Iraq, the Pentagon says, a development that some weapons experts said could set up a conflict between American and international law. The U.S. Defence Department said that tear gas, which has been issued to American troops but not used by them, would be used only to save civilian lives and in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified by the United States in 1997. Critics say any battlefield use of tear gas would violate the convention, offend crucial allies including Britain, and hand Saddam Hussein a legal basis for using chemical weapons against the United States.
US Drops New High Tech Cluster Bomb In Iraq (April 3)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s823003.htm
US forces have dropped on Iraq "for the first time in combat history" a new version of a cluster bomb that adapts to wind and weather to hit targets more accurately, Central Command said.
Red Cross Horrified by Number of Dead Civilians (April 4)
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1049413227648_10/?hub=SpecialEvent3
To Activists, Real Battles Are on Home Front (April 5)
http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703J.shtml
(...) "We must mobilize ourselves by the tens of millions," said the Rev. James Lawson, who was a prominent figure in the civil rights movement and a King confidante. "The struggle must be for health care, not warfare. It must be a demand for the end of racism, poverty and homelessness." Those who now demand peace in Iraq must also demand justice in the United States, Lawson told the forum, because racism and violence, militarism and greed are "connected to each other."
The Reason Why
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=mcgovern
Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. (...) George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.
Puzzling Questions Arise from Bush's Campaign of Fear (April 3 - By Ralph Nader)
http://CommonDreams.org/views03/0403-12.htm
Oregon Law Would Jail War Protesters as Terrorists (April 3)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030403/ts_nm/life_protests_dc_1
PORTLAND, Oregon - An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years in a thinly veiled effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics say.
1.
From:
From: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/bagh-a04.shtml
Iraqi troops massacred from the air as US advances to Baghdad
By James Conachy
4 April 2003
After a week of massive air attacks, the two-pronged offensive by US army and marine units launched on April 1 quickly pushed through the Iraqi Republican Guard divisions and regular army units defending the southern approaches to Baghdad. According to CNN, MSNBC and Fox television broadcasts throughout Thursday, April 3, US armoured columns have advanced into the outskirts of Iraq’s capital and are engaging Iraqi defenders around the Saddam Hussein International Airport. The city’s power has been cut off and it is under sustained bombardment from US aircraft and artillery.
Amid the shameless celebration by the US media of the American assault, it is necessary to call things by their right name. What is unfolding in Iraq is a slaughter. It is one of history’s most unequal military conflicts. The US and British invasion forces are utilising their unchallenged control of the air and overwhelming technical supremacy to rain down death on Iraqi troops.
Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the US “shock and awe” policy of physically and psychologically crushing any enemy of US imperialism, gloated to the April 3 New York Post: “To appreciate why we’re making such progress, you have to understand the extraordinary advantages our forces have over the Iraqis. It’s a matter of overwhelming might. Our air power is unstoppable. And our ground power has massive capability to destroy the enemy with minimum losses to us.”
US and British bombers and fighters are flying more than 1,000 sorties over Iraq per day. The majority of air strikes over the past week have targeted the defensive positions of Iraqi Republican Guard units south of Baghdad. The US has kept 150 strike jets in the air continuously to enable constant “opportunity” attacks on any attempt by Iraqi soldiers to re-deploy, re-supply or retreat.
As many as 12,000 precision-guided bombs have been dropped since the invasion began, as well as thousands more “dumb” bombs. The Iraqi units that have withstood the aerial attacks have been subjected to massive artillery bombardments and assaults by jet fighters, A-10 tank-buster aircraft and Apache helicopter gunships.
The US and British military are not even giving official estimates of the number of Iraqis killed or wounded. The New York Times reported on April 1 that American officials say a death toll is “not a statistic that interests them.” A British air force officer told the Times: “We don’t do head counts and we certainly don’t publicise them.”
All indications, however, are that the casualty rate among Iraqi troops is horrific.
The Washington Post reported on April 2 that the 12,000-strong Medina Republican Guard Division positioned to the southwest of Baghdad around the town of Karbala had suffered a “relentless pounding in recent days by Air Force planes, including B-52 bombers.” The Post commented: “Scores of blown-up Iraqi vehicles and dozens of bodies lined the roads as the US troops passed by.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that “burned and blasted wreckage of Iraqi military vehicles littered the sides of Route 9 just east of Karbala.” The Associated Press reported on April 3 that the road from Karbala to Baghdad was lined with “hundreds of burning vehicles, both civilian and military” and added “hundreds of dead Iraqis, most in uniform, lay next to the vehicles.”
The British Guardian reported on April 3 that the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard defending the town of Kut and the southeast approaches to the capital had suffered “intense” bombardment over the past week. This included the dropping of two 15,000-pound “daisy cutter” fuel-air bombs on their positions.
Daisy cutters detonate above the ground, engulfing a square mile in a firestorm that sucks out all oxygen, incinerating or asphyxiating everyone in the area. One description of their impact reads: “Those not incinerated are injured by the massive blast or the vacuum. Typical injuries include concussion, blindness, rupture of the eardrums, seared airways and collapsed lungs, multiple internal hemorrhages, displaced and torn internal organs.”
US Marine commanders told the Washington Post that long before their forces reached the lines of the Baghdad Division, 5,000 or more of the Iraqi unit’s 11,000 men had already been killed or wounded from the air, and 75 percent of their equipment destroyed. A Pentagon official told the Guardian: “They’ve been broken up and we’re taking them out one tank at a time. They’re sitting ducks.”
An embedded New York Times journalist with a Marine unit reported, “The bodies of Iraqi soldiers lay about in the wake of the American advance” and there was “a large pile of the Iraqi dead rotting in the morning sun” to the west of the Tigris river crossings.
Reinforcements were also cut off by US air power. The New York Post reported on April 3 that B-52s dropped six new CBU-105 cluster bombs on April 2 on a column of Republican Guard—believed now to be from the Al Nida Division—which was attempting to reinforce Iraqi positions. Dropped from as high as 40,000 feet, the CBU-105 releases 10 bombs above the battlefield, each of which fires four armour-penetrating warheads. Using infrared targeting, the warheads lock onto any vehicles within a 30-acre radius. According to the claims of the US Central Command, the new hardware wiped out an Iraqi force consisting of dozens of tanks and vehicles.
Despite their losses, the Iraqi military and civilians have continued to resist the American invasion. Numerous reports testify that Iraqi soldiers have launched heroic attacks to slow the advance of the US tanks and armoured vehicles, often with nothing more than pick-up trucks, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. Survivors of Iraqi Guard units that have been flanked or bypassed by the US columns are attempting to retreat to Baghdad to join with defenders inside the city proper.
Summing up the military situation, a senior American military officer told the April 3 New York Times: “The enemy is taking what forces he can muster and is ordering them back into the city. He is bringing in the Republican Guard for a last stand. We have been trying to kill anything that is moving toward the city.”
The slaughter accompanying the US advance on Baghdad demonstrates again the character of the Bush administration’s war to “liberate” Iraq. The resistance of the Iraqi people has inevitably seen the invasion degenerate into a campaign to wipe out the vastly outgunned Iraqi armed forces and traumatise and intimidate the population into accepting rule from Washington. A legacy of hatred has been created that will endure for decades to come.
With US forces encircling Baghdad from the south, west and east, the potential is now looming for a bloodbath. Significant sections of the Iraqi army have taken up positions in the capital for a last ditch battle to prevent a US entry into the city. The recklessness and desperation for victory of the Bush administration is such it may well order a street-to-street assault—at immense cost in both military and civilian lives.
2.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
April 6, 2003
Red Cross: Iraq Wounded Too High to Count
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GENEVA -- The number of casualties in Baghdad is so high that hospitals have stopped counting the number of people treated, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday.
"No one is able to keep accurate statistics of the admitted and transferred war wounded any longer as one emergency arrival follows the other in the hospitals of Baghdad," the ICRC said in a statement.
"Ambulances are picking up the wounded and running them to the triage areas and on to hospitals," it said. "Some of the wounded try to reach the nearest hospitals by foot."
The neutral Swiss-run organization - the main aid agency left in Iraq - gave no estimates on the number of deaths and did not confirm U.S. Central Command estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in Saturday's foray into Baghdad by American armored vehicles.
"All of the hospitals are under pressure and the medical staff is working without respite," said the ICRC statement. "Despite the intense and desperate activity, hospital staff is still managing the situation."
But it said that hospitals urgently needed more water supplies. Given the general power outage in Baghdad, most hospitals and water installations are now being powered by backup generators. It said it was getting many requests for service kits, spare parts and repairs for water plants.
The ICRC said that Red Cross delegates who reached the southern city of Basra reported that the medical situation was generally under control and that there were no signs of epidemics. But it said it feared the worst for other hospitals outside Baghdad and Basra.
3.
Widespread Use of Cluster Bombs Sparks Outrage
Published on April 4, 2003 by The Financial Times (UK)
by Mark Odell
Confirmation by the US and Britain of widespread use of cluster munitions in Iraq caused anger yesterday among campaigners and politicians who claimed it ran counter to the coalition's aim to minimize civilian casualties.
The danger posed by the use of these weapons, designed to destroy concentrations of armour and infantry by scattering small bomblets over a wide area, was shown during the Nato bombing campaign in Kosovo in 1999 and again last year in Afghanistan.
"We are appalled, in the context of a conflict where we have been assured that civilian casualties will be minimized. It is very hard to use these weapons knowing exactly who you are going to target," said Richard Lloyd, director of Landmine Action.
The weapons are dropped or fired in such large quantities at any one time that, with a failure rate as high as one in 10, an attack leaves hundreds of unexploded bomblets scattered around a target site, creating a de facto minefield.
Although many are unleashed as so-called cluster bombs, both the US and British armies have also fired large numbers from the ground in artillery barrages.
Campaign groups such as Landmine Action and the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund are targeting the use of these weapons, in the same way they successfully fought for the ban on anti-personnel mines under the 1998 Ottawa treaty.
The debate has heightened the sensitivity to their use among the military, particularly the British, as demonstrated by a bizarre chain of events yesterday.
Officers at a British divisional headquarters near Basra confirmed that new cluster munitions, with a much lower failure rate, had been fired by artillery at targets around Basra, although not where they might injure civilians.
Almost immediately, however, Colonel Chris Vernon, the spokesman at the British army headquarters in Kuwait, categorically denied that any such weapons had been used.
Hours later, Geoff Hoon, UK defense secretary, contradicted that statement when he confirmed in parliament that British forces were in fact using cluster munitions.
Mr Hoon said the weapons were used only when it was "absolutely justified . . . because it is making the battlefield safer for our armed forces". Mr Lloyd said they were in fact a threat to forces who used them, adding: "The first British casualties in Kosovo were two Ghurkhas killed clearing our own cluster munitions."
The US was put on the defensive yesterday after the International Red Cross backed Iraqi claims that BLU-97 cluster bombs had been used in the town of Hilla.
Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, the spokesman at Central Command, said he did "not have any factual basis" on which to respond.
But Mr Lloyd said: "We have some very clear footage of unexploded BLU-97s in the ground in Hilla. We are very clear on that and would stake our reputation on it."
Paul Keetch, defense spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: "Cluster bombs send the wrong message to the people whose hearts and minds we are trying to win."
---
See also:
What are cluster weapons? (April 5) EXCELLENT ARTICLE!
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/side-a05.shtml
Cluster weapons are packed with small bombs, or bomblets, known as submunitions, designed specifically to cause the greatest possible number of human casualties
Cluster Bombs Liberate Iraqi Children (April 3) IDEM!
http://CommonDreams.org/views03/0403-09.htm
The horror. The horror. And unlike Apocalypse Now, there are real, not fictional images to prove it.
4.
From: http://etherzone.com/2003/sart040403.shtml
THE PETRO-DOLLAR AND THE EURO: MONEY IS THE ROOT OF WAR
By: SARTRE
Published in the April 4, 2003 issue of Ether Zone.
War is always about achieving a political end. Even holy wars seek to impose a secular control over the vanquished. At the root of every political conflict, lies the MONEY component. On the scale of greed or fear, international discords can slide up or down. Depending on the circumstances or demands, governments rally domestic populations to accept their foreign interventionist goals. Claims of altruistic liberation are fictitious, when the rhetoric is stripped away and the real substance is exposed. Notwithstanding, variances of emphasis; the motive of money underpins the movements of all military confrontations.
The case that the conquest of Iraq is about appropriating control over oil reserves is well known. The argument that removing Saddam Hussein for a friendly regime change will enhance the adherence of global community policies, secure and annex a ëgreater Israelí and project the power of the empire into the region, has been circulated widely. The excuses of a ìWar on Terrorismî, elimination of WMD, combating radical Islamics, fulfilling prophecy and personal grudges between feuding criminal families and former business partners, have been known to all. But the one aspect that seems to allude the scrutiny of most observers is that of the precarious nature of the global economy, which teeters on the fragile requirement that the US Dollar must remain as the world reserve currency.
OPEC always priced oil in US Dollars. In the perceptive essay, The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq by W Clark, the thesis that a shift using the EURO as the settlement currency, drives the Bush/Cheney administration hydrocarbons geo-strategy.
"The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 (when the euro was worth around 82 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar's steady depreciation against the euro. (Note: the dollar declined 17% against the euro in 2002.)
"The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq -- or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq -- is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way." (While also hoping to veto any wider OPEC momentum towards the euro, especially from Iran -- the 2nd largest OPEC producer who is actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports)."
The effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their (central bank) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You'd have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there'd surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario.
A U.K. article by Hazel Henderson, is cited that outlines the likely consequences of the displacement of the US Dollar (translate: federal reserve counterfeit species) as the reserve currency.
1. US global over-reach in the `war on terrorism' already leading to deficits as far as the eye can see -- combined with historically-high US trade deficits -- lead to a further run on the dollar. This and the stock market doldrums make the US less attractive to the world's capital.
2. More developing countries follow the lead of Venezuela and China in diversifying their currency reserves away from dollars and balanced with euros. Such a shift in dollar-euro holdings in Latin America and Asia could keep the dollar and euro close to parity.
3. OPEC could act on some of its internal discussions and decide (after concerted buying of euros in the open market) to announce at a future meeting in Vienna that OPEC's oil will be re-denominated in euros, or even a new oil-backed currency of their own. A US attack on Iraq sends oil to 40 (euros) per barrel.
4. The Bush Administration's efforts to control the domestic political agenda backfires. Damage over the intelligence failures prior to 9/11 and warnings of imminent new terrorist attacks precipitate a further stock market slide.
5. All efforts by Democrats and the 57% of the US public to shift energy policy toward renewables, efficiency, standards, higher gas taxes, etc. are blocked by the Bush Administration and its fossil fuel industry supporters. Thus, the USA remains vulnerable to energy supply and price shocks.
6. The EU recognizes its own economic and political power as the euro rises further and becomes the world's other reserve currency. The G-8 pegs the euro and dollar into a trading band -- removing these two powerful currencies from speculators trading screens (a "win-win" for everyone!). Tony Blair persuades Brits of this larger reason for the UK to join the euro.
7. Developing countries lacking dollars or "hard" currencies follow Venezuela's lead and begin bartering their undervalued commodities directly with each other in computerized swaps and counter trade deals. President Chavez has inked 13 such country barter deals on its oil, e.g., with Cuba in exchange for Cuban health paramedics who are setting up clinics in rural Venezuelan villages.
What is missing in this excellent analysis is that the nature of fractional reserve debt created money, requires ever growing liability and increasing deficits. There is a limit when higher taxes become unsustainable. However, the clock never stops on the interest payments needed to retire previous bond obligations and service ever higher levels of future obligations. And just wait when interest rates rise to reflect real market risks! Remember all those projections of imaginary surpluses? This is not a partisan issue between party factions. It is a systemic quandary, created by design.
The box that the world economy has been placed into requires a repudiation of this sham cycle founded upon the viscous and unforgiving disposition of compound interest. The consequences for disciplining rogue countries who dare stray from the dictates of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO, are visible with each explosion of every JDAM bomb. Even in victory, the pyrrhic character of temporary relief, offers but a fleeting reprieve to acquire that villa in Tuscany.
The Clark essay is significant and should not be ignored. Currency speculation and exchange rate conversions, carry with them such huge transactional volume. Entire economies rise or fall on pegging their relative value, against the surreal and contrived evaluations for the US Dollar. Oil paid in the EURO is more of a serious threat to the reign of the dollar than all those mythical WMD that Saddam will use. Nevertheless, donít be naive and conclude that it is in our own personal best interest to protect the reserve currency status of the dollar. Quite to the contrary, as more Western Hemisphere countries adopt the US Dollar, the adverse impact upon our own net worth, is magnified.
The inevitable fall of the US Dollar is unavoidable, when the charade can no longer be cloaked with smoke and mirrors or tolerable foreign adventures. At that point the calls for a single world currency, administered through a solitary clearing house and autarchic central bank, will be offered as the answer for economic stability. Thus, the ultimate transfer and expropriation of individual wealth will be achieved. The world runs on money, not oil. Those who control it and require legal tender laws, rule the economic and political order. You will come to learn this lesson, no matter what currency you use ...