Special report from Baghdad
Iraqi people prepare for U.S. invasion
By Sara Flounders
Baghdad, Iraq
A delegation led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark arrived in Baghdad Feb. 22 after a 14-hour drive from
Amman, Jordan, across the open desert. A waning moon lit the
nearly empty six-lane highway. We couldn't help wondering if
the Pentagon will launch the war when the moon disappears from
the sky. Or will the surging world movement against this war be
powerful enough to stop the attack?
The delegation's purpose, as in previous trips, was to
assess the impact of the 1991 war and 12 years of sanctions,
especially on health care.
Dr. Zuhair Abdul Al-Azawi, senior deputy minister of health,
told the delegation on Feb. 24 that after 11 years of
constantly worsening conditions, this year the situation had
finally stabilized and even slightly improved. Conditions are
of course still horrendous compared to the excellent health
care available to Iraqis before the 1991 U.S. war, when
hospitals were targeted by bombs and missiles. Sanctions since
then have kept out even standard medicines and medical
equipment. They've also diminished the capacity of water
purification plants, the food processing industry and the
electric power grid.
After years of deprivation, there are no surpluses to cope
with an emergency. Every effort is being made to distribute
generators, drugs, antiseptics and all other available material
to different parts of the country.
"This time," said Clark, "our greatest concern is the state
of preparedness of the health services in the face of war. In
1991 when the hospitals and pharmacies were fully equipped,
doctors ran out of everything in the first weeks of the
war.
"When we visited hospitals in February 1991 there were no
antiseptics, no gauze, no gloves, no antibiotics and no
anesthesia. Thousands died because there were no materials to
save them. But again, the bad water will be the greatest
crisis.
"The world must be told of the impending crisis," Clark
added. "And there must be every form of emergency medical
assistance now."
Surface calm in Baghdad
On the surface Baghdad, a city of 5 million people, is calm.
Schools, workplaces, offices and shops are open. Traffic is
heavy.
There are photo exhibits and sports events, even weddings.
Movie houses are open. But every small merchant says that
people buy only what they absolutely need. People expect a
horrendous war, with the civilian population a Pentagon
target.
"My family has a plan when the missiles start to hit," Ali
told us. "We are all going to stay in the same room. Whatever
happens, it will happen to all of us together."
For decades, Ali and his two brothers have run a small fish
store in a poor market neighborhood of Baghdad. Theirshop had
the misfortune of being near one of Baghdad's larger bridges.
In the 1991 war, bombs destroyed the bridge and much of the
community--and one wiped out their shop.
The brothers worked hard and rebuilt their shop. But now
people are too poor to afford to buy fish.
We spoke to Ali on Feb. 22, just a week after the massive
worldwide demonstrations against a war. Protesters are trying
to stop the Pentagon's "Shock and Awe" plan, which the media
say will deliver as much destructive power in two days with
"conventional" weapons as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima in
1945.
Ali remembered how hard it was to get drinking water after
U.S. firepower destroyed the water and sewage systems in 1991.
"We drank whatever we could get," he said. "Lots of people got
sick. Many died, especially the children."
In 1991, the Penta gon had a strategy of purposely targeting
anything that people need for health and life. This included
water and food supplies, the electrical grid necessary in an
urban society, hospitals and schools.
Thomas Nagy, professor of expert systems at George
Washington University, has drawn public attention to
declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents showing that
the Pentagon knew what havoc the destruction of Iraq's civilian
infrastructure would cause. It was part of the plan.
Nagy's findings appeared in the Sunday Herald of Sept. 17,
2000, and the September 2001 issue of The Progressive
magazine.
The latest figures show that the 1991 war and subsequent
sanctions caused the premature death of 1.8 million Iraqis.
Attacks on the Iraqi drinking water supply and on the
health-care infrastructure are violations of the Geneva
Convention, which forbids targeting the civilian
population.
This time, Ali hopes some of the precautions the government
is taking might avoid the 100,000 deaths from illnesses the
attacks caused throughout 1991.
The government has more than doubled the free food ration
for the last three months so that many basic necessities can be
stockpiled in every home. Families have now received five
months of extra rations.
The food rations mean survival for that large section of the
population unemployed since the last U.S. war. Over the course
of 12 years the U.S.-imposed sanctions have kept most industry
shut down.
Iraqi families are stockpiling kerosene for cooking and
heating, candles for light, and endless containers of water.
Families with some resources are buying small generators.
Today many families are digging wells in their back yards.
The water will be untreated, but it may be better than drinking
straight from the Euphrates River.
A long resistance?
Besides helping the population to survive, the government is
mobilizing them to fight the invaders.
When many millions around the world demonstrated to stop a
war on Iraq on Feb. 15, people in Iraq were also in the
streets--hundreds of thousands in every major city. In each of
four different sections of Baghdad there were massive
demonstrations of the Iraqis' will to resist.
A council of both Shiite and Sunni Islamic clerics has
signed a "fatwa" or religious edict calling for total
resistance to foreign occupation. This did not happen in
1991.
There is a popular volunteer army the Iraqis say is 7
million strong, drawing from almost every family in Iraq. It
has received basic training in military tactics, street combat
and resistance.
Almost every family has been issued small arms for the
home.
People know they can't stop U.S. cruise missiles with rifles
and pistols. No one can predict what kind of battle this
people's army can wage. But in working out war scenarios, the
Brookings Institute put its estimate of possible U.S.
casualties at 5,000 dead and 30,000 wounded, should the urban
population resist. There are already news reports that the
Pentagon has quietly ordered tens of thousands of body bags to
be shipped to the area.
Beyond the initial attack lies the prospect of a long U.S.
occupation. This is a colonial war to steal the resources in an
area where nationalist and anti-imperialist sentiment is very
strong. The population is educated and conscious, and nearly
everyone is armed.
Reprinted from the March 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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