Falluja operation underway

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by problem_child
1200 people are known to have died in Falluja, what they were is unknown. How many more are dead is also unknown. Seems the Americans consider a "civilian" to be anyone working for them in the Green Zones.

That's not quite fair. There have been 1,000 people that have died and been identified as "insurgents." Now, that number is probably a bit high, given that a civilian caught in an unfortunate circumstance might get ID'd a an insurgent.

The number of civilian deaths hasn't been released.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by GePap
If our troops aren't counting, where the hell do they get these estimates from?

Perhaps they are counting...just not counting bodies. The number could be wildly off the mark then.

-Drachasor

[Ned]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


Arrogance doesn't yield reciprocity

And just how is the US arrogant?

[Arrian]

[Chemical Ollie]

That really deserves a 500 post thread of it's own. But a short summary:

You are either with us or against us

[Ned]

Ollie -- on the war on terror.

The world is united on that score.

[Ramo]

Lots of odd things happening regarding Fallujah. First off, the gov't forces Iraqi media to parrot the gov't's line on Fallujah:

It said news organizations should "guide correspondents in Fallouja … not to promote unrealistic positions or project nationalist tags on terrorist gangs of criminals and killers."

It also asked media to "set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear."

"We hope you comply … otherwise we regret we will be forced to take all the legal measures to guarantee higher national interests," the statement said. It did not elaborate.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-media12nov12,1,5956115,print.story

Good thing them A-rabs have freedom now.

[Ramo]

And FWIW, the Guardian is claiming enormous civilian casualties in Fallujah. That sounds a hell of a lot more credible than the Pentagon's line that there were none.

The moves came amid renewed warnings from aid groups that Iraq's civilian population was facing a 'humanitarian catastrophe'.

Although many of Falluja's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault, between 30,000 and 50,000 are believed to have remained during the fighting.

The horrific conditions for those who remained in the city have begun to emerge in the last 24 hours as it became clear that US military claims of 'precision' targeting of insurgent positions were false.

According to one Iraqi journalist who left Falluja on Friday, some of the civilian injuries were caused by the massive firepower directed on to city neighbourhoods during the battle.

'If the fighters fire a mortar, US forces respond with huge force,' said the journalist, who asked not to be named.

The city had been without power or water for days. Frozen food had spoiled and people could not charge their cellphones. 'Some people hadn't prepared well. They didn't stock up on tinned food. They didn't think it would be this bad,' he said.

At the main hospital, cut off from the rest of the city, doctors have reportedly been treating the injured with nothing but bandages, while the Red Crescent says people have been bleeding to death for lack of medical attention.

The claims came as an Iraqi Red Crescent convoy entered Falluja yesterday with the first aid supplies to reach the city since US-led forces began to blast their way in five days ago.

Prior to that the city had been surrounded by a US military cordon and subjected to heavy daily bombardment.

Red Crescent spokeswoman Firdoos al-Abadi - who had described the situation inside the city as 'catastrophic' - said 30 volunteers with five trucks and three ambulances had driven into the city west of Baghdad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350926,00.html

An AP photographer has more:

"Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out," he said.


"There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days."


By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.


"U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house," he said.

[...]

"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."


He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."


"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_escaping_fallujah_1

[Arrian]

From an inbedded BBC reporter:

Eyewitness: Falluja battle scars

Bodies have been left uncollected for days
American forces say they are still fighting small pockets of insurgents in the city of Falluja.

Our correspondent, Paul Wood, is with American marines in the city. He gave the following interview to BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

If you look outside of my window now, you can see a deserted street with about five bodies on it.

They still have their weapons with them - [you can hear] a little bit of what they call "suppressing fire" from the marines, because occasionally people are still circling around.

These are bodies of insurgents who tried to attack the base over the last couple of days.

These bodies still have their weapons with them, because the marines think it's just too risky to go out a couple of hundred metres further from this base to take the weapons away.

The consequence of this, for the ordinary people of Falluja, is that for four days now there have been bodies lying in the streets.

It is starting to become a serious health risk.

I spoke to an officer who had been a little way out from the base and he said that cats and dogs are now starting to eat these bodies.

In these last hours and days of the fighting, it is more frantic, it is more intense

It is a quite horrific picture which I'm drawing but that is what awaits the people of Falluja when they come back.

Q: What resistance is there left? To what extent do the Americans now control the city?

They do pretty much control it, but there is still intense fighting going on.

Now remember that on Sunday, the Iraqi government declared mission accomplished.

Well, we're not quite there yet.

There are still injured coming into this base, yet you might hear occasionally at this base thunderous explosions - those are mortars firing volleys in support of the mission of the rest of this unit, which is now right in the south of the city.

The attack, to quote one officer this morning, "is being pressed very hard in the south of the city".

But the character of the fighting has changed.

It is no longer through extremely dense narrow streets and alleyways.

I went out with the marines doing a little bit of that on Friday and it was absolutely horrific. We took casualties on just 15 minutes into that fighting. The marines were being peppered with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades constantly.

They dragged these casualties on - one guy literally bled all over my right trouser leg as we brought him back. They both survived.

The character of the fighting is changed now, because they have pushed the insurgents right to the edge of Falluja. The insurgents have nowhere else to go - there's only desert and the US army beyond them.

So in these last hours and days of the fighting, it is more frantic, it is more intense.

Q:If it's not safe to go out on the street, what is the situation for civilians there, as far as food and water is concerned?

Well, these are the crucial questions.

As an embedded reporter, I have a very limited ability, to be honest, to answer those. I see what my unit sees.

We have heard from the Iraqi Red Crescent that in their view, conditions are catastrophic inside Falluja - no food, no water, no medicines, no electricity.

On the other hand, the Iraqi health ministry, for instance, which is visiting this unit this Monday morning, says that the Red Crescent simply isn't in a position to make that assessment, precisely because it hasn't yet been allowed inside Falluja.

And the Iraqi health ministry's own figure for civilian casualties is 20, because it says most people are out of the town and those that are in have very sensibly - in fact they're compelled to - have stayed literally on the floor of their homes.

But given the volume of gunfire which is being poured out by the Americans, any civilians who are still here, of course their plight is desperate.

But to get any kind of assessment of the scale of the humanitarian tragedy - if indeed that's what it is - we have to know how many are here and we're not going to know that literally until the smoke clears.

Q: But as you travel with the American soldiers, do you come across civilians?

We saw literally a glimpse of civilians.

We were on the roof of a building - this was the first day of the battle in fact on Wednesday - and saw people waving white flags running away. And the marines stood up to say "Keep going, it's dangerous, don't come in this direction" and as soon as they did that, a volley of gunfire came in, because they'd revealed their position. And that was the only view of civilians that we have had.

One female civilian came to be treated at the medical post here and left before I had a chance to speak to her.

But I've questioned ordinary marines, officers and they say quite truthfully, we literally don't see civilians and that is the position of, I think, most of the US forces here - they do not see civilians.

Having said that, a big civil affairs effort is about to start.

The civil affairs people are arriving today with, just for this battalion, $20m to start very rapidly paying out compensation for damage, trying to repair things because they know - the marines know - they're going to be back here again unless they can win those famous hearts and minds.

Of course, I don't know how people are going to feel when they see their city and they see the holes in the mosques and they see the destruction that has been wrought by this battle.

Seems like a plausible report to me.

-Arrian

[Ramo]

Interesting bit on the history of Fallujah. Very fascinating:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1683/

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Ramo
And FWIW, the Guardian is claiming enormous civilian casualties in Fallujah. That sounds a hell of a lot more credible than the Pentagon's line that there were none.

I believe the official line is that they aren't releasing the numbers and don't know them exactly.

-Drachasor

[Arrian]

Ramo,

It was an interesting article.

The vast majority of the reader comments, however, were really moronic.

My favorite:

Posted by amy on November 14, 2004 at 8:38 PM
america is done. it is very interesting to see how the Iraqis are fighting for their country even if it means death and destruction. that surprising part in the world is that Americans aren’t fighting for their country anymore, they had forfieted their coutry to their masters: the jew bankers and the zionists. Americans are finished they will be destroyed when their usefullness is no longer needed. just read the old testament ( the forged bible by the jews) or better yet Read the “controversy of Zion” by Douglas Reed. You will see the futur of America there. The zionists in this country are living like demi-gods..they are stealing the gentiles blind and raping their daughters and sons. the biggest child smuggling ring is in the hands of jews in America and canada..selling little boys and little girls to psychos is a big buisness in the hands of the jews in America...nextime your child is missing he is sold by your friendly jew who claim his parents are hallow-hoax survivers

Sigh.

-Arrian

[Drachasor]

Anyhow, there are naturally going to be a lot more civilian causalties than insurgent ones for the following reasons:

1. There are a lot more civilians there than insurgents.

2. It can be hard to tell the difference and hard to be cautious when soldiers making mistakes can easily end up dead.

3. There is probably a grey area of some civilians helping the insurgence, and this just muddies the water further.

4. Often the only reliable way to take out an insurgent is with overwhelming fire of some sort, which would typically lead to civilian causalties.

All these are true in Falluja and most Urban Warfare settings.

In Falluja in particular, the estimated civilians outnumber the estimated insurgents by a factor of 10 to 1 or so. Of course, the insurgents are much harder to estimate, and, if anything, are probably there in lower numbers. This just plays into the above points.

-Drachasor

[lord of the mark]

http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2003_01_29.htm

[lord of the mark]

sorry, dp.