A shift in Pentagon tactics?
U.S. accused of inflating Samarra 'body count'
By Leslie Feinberg
The U.S. government minimized the Iraqi loss
of life during its "shock and awe" assault on Baghdad and
during the decade of sanctions that preceded the invasion.
Could it now be inflating the number of Iraqis killed by U.S.
troops in order to offset news about how badly the occupation
is going for the Pentagon?
On Nov. 30, after the smoke cleared in Samarra, a city 60
miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. top military command rushed to
claim that 46 Iraqis were dead and scores wounded after a
fierce fire fight. Within hours, the number of Iraqi dead given
was upped to 54. Early accounts said the guerrillas wore the
distinctive uniforms of the Fedayeen militia.
The headlined battle reportedly took place after one of two
simultaneous and coordinated attacks on U.S. military convoys
in different parts of the city. The convoys were carrying a
large amount of the new paper currency created by the
imperialist occupation.
But where were the uniformed bodies of the dead
fighters?
Samarra residents offered a very different account. They
said some eight Iraqi civilians were gunned down by occupation
forces. Officials from the local hospital confirmed that the
morgue had received the bodies of eight civilians, including a
child. More than 60 people, reportedly wounded by gunfire and
shrapnel from U.S. rounds fired in the bustling city center,
had also poured into the health care facility for treatment.
(AlJazeera.net, Dec. 1)
Al-Jazeera related that "local residents said U.S. troops
killed innocent bystanders when they opened fire on anything
that moved around midday." Workers at a nearby pharmaceutical
factory said at least two of their co-workers were killed and
many wounded as they left the plant when their shift ended. A
U.S. tank was shooting randomly in all directions, they
said.
The British newspaper The Guardian described the scene: "Six
destroyed vehicles sat in front of the hospital, where
witnesses said U.S. tanks shelled people dropping off the
injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank
shells."
Ibrahim Jassim, who works at the kindergarten, said no
children were hurt: "Luckily we evacuated the children five
minutes before we came under attack. Why did they attack
randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank
shells?"
And why the discrepancy in the number of casualties?
In its coverage of the disputed number of Iraqi deaths, the
Dec. 2 New York Times reiterated that the Pentagon typically
does not publicize the toll of dead or wounded Iraqis, but
after weeks of coalition force casualties, "American military
officials seemed to relish the opportunity on Monday to claim
credit for dealing the fighters a punishing blow."
Lyndon Johnson's administration used inflated "body counts"
for public relations clout after battles with Vietnamese
liberation fighters.
Battling the Empire
The Pentagon began an escalated campaign of sheer terror on
Nov. 12, dropping mega-bombs on and around Iraqi cities,
breaking into homes in the night and dragging off
residents.
However, November was also a punishing month for U.S.
imperialist forces and all who have joined them in the
occupation of Iraq.
At least 104 "coalition" troops were killed, including 79
GIs--the highest number of troop deaths since the U.S. invasion
began. Some days during that month of Ramadan, U.S. soldiers
officially faced as many as 50 attacks a day.
Iraqi collaborators who have been appointed to posts by the
occupying forces were also targeted in November. These titular
officials faced 74 attacks; Iraqi police were hit 82 times.
The weekend of Nov. 29-30, Iraqi insurgents killed seven
Spanish intelligence agents, two Japanese diplomats, two South
Korean contractors and a Colombian contractor in scattered
ambushes. "The attacks demonstrated once again," the Nov. 30
New York Times admitted, "how Iraqi guerrillas, believed to be
small in number, have managed to sustain an initiative against
American forces and their allies. Despite extraordinary
security precautions for most foreigners here, the guerrillas
managed once again to find vulnerable spots."
These attacks came just days after President George W. Bush
was stealthily whisked into Baghdad for a photo op on
"Thanksgiving" Day--a holiday steeped in colonial and patriotic
propaganda and a slow news day. The bombshell arrival of the
Commander in Chief was aimed at bolstering domestic and
international support for the seven-month-old occupation.
But even with the presence in Iraq of 130,000 troops, Bush
could only briefly pose with a few of them and a turkey before
he was hastily jetted away after only 150 minutes on the
ground. The media were forbidden to speak to the GIs who were
part of the op."
After the Nov. 29-30 attacks on Washington's allies, the
Bush administration scrambled to do damage control. Bush and
Secretary of State Colin Powell began phone banking to stiffen
the resolve of allied governments to hang tough. Bush rang up
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Powell called the
Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers.
When asked if he thought the deaths led to second thoughts
in those countries about taking part in the U.S.-led occupation
of Iraq, State Department spokesperson Richard A. Boucher
replied, "I would say none whatsoever."
That's not how others saw it. "But all was not so smooth on
Monday after the attacks," the Dec. 2 New York Times noted,
"and officials said the United States was not especially
pleased with the latest move by the United Nations secretary
general, Kofi Annan, in setting up a meeting in New York on
Iraq with Security Council and Arab diplomats."
Annan has so far not yielded to diplomatic pressure by
Powell to appoint a special personal representative whose job
would be to return United Nations staff to Iraq.
The deaths of multinational forces allied with the U.S.
imperial occupation of Iraq are deeply reverberating in the
populations of those countries. The Japanese government has
been forced to postpone deployment of non-combat troops while
debate rages at home. Television images showing civilian Iraqis
celebrating the deaths of the Spanish intelligence agents
rocked Spain. Italian officials are described as increasingly
"nervous" about the outpouring of grief and anger in their
country over rising Italian casualties.
Sovereignty armed with RPGs
The U.S. and its allies desperately want to fashion the
appearance of self rule in Iraq as a cover for a continuing
imperialist occupation. But after smashing the Iraqi state, all
King George's horses and all his men are finding it difficult
to piece a shell of "sovereignty" back together again. They are
anxious to carry out "reconstruction" of Iraq, by which they
mean creating the pipelines to channel the wealth of Iraq into
their own coffers.
The real battle to defend the sovereignty and right of
self-determination of the Iraqi people is taking place on the
ground.
According to Pentagon commanders, the level of insurgent
intelligence gathering and ability to carry out coordinated
attacks is mounting. "Is this something larger than we have
seen over the past couple of months? Yes. And are we concerned
about it? Yeah," said Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.
While Bush was posing with the turkey, the Special
Operations Command Central was being moved back to Qatar from
Florida to coordinate an offensive against the insurgency.
But the use of massive firepower to terrorize the Iraqi
population is not dampening down anti-colonial resistance--it's
inflaming it.
Some of the residents of Samarra had reportedly grabbed
their guns and fought back against the U.S. tanks, cannons and
Bradley fighting vehicles. (guardian.co. uk, Dec. 1)
"If I had a gun. I would have attacked the Americans
myself," vowed Satar Nasiaf, a shopkeeper who said he had
watched two Iraqi civilians cut down.
Reprinted from the Dec. 11, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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