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The Roving Eye<br>
SATAN HIDES IN A HOSPITAL<br>
____________________________________________________________________<br><br>
ASIA TIMES ONLINE<br>
Middle East<br>
November 11, 2004<br>
<a href="http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FK11Ak03.html" eudora="autourl">http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FK11Ak03.html<br>
</a>By Pepe Escobar<br><br>
Everything one needed to know about the true, unspinnable foreign policy
of<br>
the second George W Bush administration is represented by the
"capture" of<br>
the first strategic target in the assault on Fallujah: the general<br>
hospital, on the left bank of the Euphrates, now totally cut off from
the<br>
city. According to the Bush administration world view, this is the
house<br>
where Satan lives.<br><br>
Bush-installed interim Iraqi Prime Minster Iyad Allawi announced with
a<br>
smile of victory that he personally ordered the capture of the hospital.
So<br>
maybe it was not the Pentagon: it was an unelected politician asking
a<br>
foreign occupation army to attack a hospital in his own country and<br>
preventing doctors and ambulances from entering a city under
siege.<br><br>
The assault, dubbed Operation Phantom Fury, perversely started on
Laylat<br>
e-Qadr, the most important and holy night of the year for the
Islamic<br>
world.<br><br>
In terms of the information war, the hospital was indeed the most
strategic<br>
of targets. During the first siege of Fallujah in April, doctors
told<br>
independent media the real story about the suffering of civilian
victims.<br>
So this time the Pentagon took no chances: no gory, disturbing photos
of<br>
the elderly, women and children - the thousands unable to leave Fallujah
in<br>
advance of this week's offensive, the civilian victims of the
relentless<br>
bombing.<br><br>
But this did not prevent the world from seeing doctors and patients at
the<br>
hospital handcuffed to the floor - as if they were terrorists.
Hospital<br>
director Dr Salih al-Issawi told Agence France-Presse that the
Americans<br>
blocked him and other doctors from going to the center of Fallujah to
help<br>
another clinic in distress; he also said an ambulance that tried to
leave<br>
the hospital was shot at by the Americans - just like in April, when
all<br>
ambulances were targeted. The Geneva Convention is explicit: in a
war<br>
situation, hospitals and ambulances are neutral.<br><br>
The Pentagon does not do "collateral damage" body counts. But
as its<br>
relationship with the people of Fallujah now consists of a non-stop
barrage<br>
of heavy metal, the Pentagon is certainly in a much better position
than<br>
Fallujah's doctors to estimate the amount of civilian victims of its
own<br>
bombing.<br><br>
The marines are not only occupying a hospital; they even turned it into
a<br>
military position, as they were using positions around it to attack
the<br>
resistance.<br><br>
Cluster-bomb democracy<br><br>
The Pentagon's key primary target in Fallujah has been information:
doctors<br>
in hospitals, telephone lines that people use to tell the world about
the<br>
civilians' plight. Most of the world is interpreting Fallujah
through<br>
embedded, Pentagon-censored reporters and Arab television. The
Pentagon<br>
line is American "heroes" on the way to "liberate"
the people of Fallujah.<br>
Iraqis, Arabs, 1.3 billion Muslims, the majority of European public
opinion<br>
and decent Americans won't be fooled - again.<br><br>
Asia Times Online sources close to the resistance say the talk in
the<br>
streets of Baghdad is that the bulk of the estimated 2,500 mujahideen
in<br>
Fallujah have already left to Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra, Haditha,
Khaldiya,<br>
and even Mosul in the north. Even before the assault on Fallujah,
there<br>
were more than 100 resistance attacks a day all over the country. The
main<br>
story playing in the Arab world in the past 24 hours is that of
Mohammed<br>
Abboud - who saw his nine-year-old son bleed to death of shrapnel
wounds<br>
when his house in Fallujah was hit because he could not venture out to
go<br>
to a hospital. Abboud had to bury his son in his own garden.<br><br>
Terrified Fallujans calling Baghdad tell of A-10 jets raining cluster
bombs<br>
on the city's streets. Iraqi (very) black humor qualifies
unexploded<br>
cluster bombs as the Iraqi version of Toys "R" Us: children get
injured or<br>
killed because they think cluster bombs are toys. Everyone is talking
of<br>
"scores of bodies" in streets destroyed by US bombing. There is
no power,<br>
no water, shops are closed, food is scarce and practically no
medical<br>
supplies remain, according to Dr Sami al-Jumaili, speaking to
al-Jazeera.<br>
No more clinics are open throughout the city - and there is no possible
way<br>
to estimate how many civilians are dead, blown up, burned or
injured,<br>
although al-Jumaili tells of "scores of injured civilians". A
brand-new<br>
clinic funded by a Saudi Islamic relief non-governmental agency was
bombed<br>
by the Americans during the weekend, as well as a medical dispensary in
the<br>
city center: this was apparently the last place where anybody could get
any<br>
medical attention.<br><br>
Fadhil Badrani, a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC)
World<br>
Service in Arabic, is one of the very few journalists inside Fallujah.
He<br>
writes that "a lot of the mosques have also been bombed. For the
first time<br>
in Fallujah, a city of 150 mosques, I did not hear a single call to
prayer<br>
this morning. I broke my Ramadan fast yesterday with the last of our food
-<br>
two potatoes and two tomatoes. The tomatoes were rotten because we have
no<br>
electricity to run the fridge. My neighbors - a woman and her children
-<br>
came to see me yesterday. They asked me to tell the world what is
happening<br>
here. I look at the devastation around me and ask - why?"<br><br>
The mujahideen battle plan<br><br>
Apart from a maximum of 1,500 "Arab brothers" - as the Iraqis
call them -<br>
from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria and Tunisia, most of the
remaining<br>
mujahideen in Fallujah are nationalist Iraqis whose tribal code
mandates<br>
that they defend at any cost their homes, their families and their
city<br>
under foreign attack.<br><br>
They have been preparing for this onslaught for months. And they do have
a<br>
battle plan - as it was relayed to Asia Times Online by sources in
Baghdad.<br>
Former or retired Iraqi army officials have always been serious students
of<br>
Viet Minh tactics and Che Guevara's theory of the guerrilla foco (center
of<br>
guerrilla operations). Now they are applying this to urban warfare.
This,<br>
in a smaller version, is what the Battle of Baghdad would have been like
in<br>
April 2003.<br><br>
The Americans are closing in toward the city center, under fire
from<br>
mujahideen equipped with only Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled
grenades<br>
hidden in clusters of low-roof houses. The Americans are firing back at
the<br>
houses and at anything that moves. They have been prevented - at least
for<br>
now - by the resistance from storming any buildings. Their priority is
to<br>
control the main bombed-out roads.<br><br>
The mujahideen are operating with small mobile units of five or six or
a<br>
maximum of 20 fighters, changing positions all the time. As a<br>
counter-measure, American snipers are trying to control the rooftops.
The<br>
mujahideen are trying to attract as many American troops to the city
center<br>
as possible - so they can unleash what seems to be hundreds of
coordinated<br>
car bombs and improvised explosive devices.<br><br>
People in Baghdad are also telling of US$3,000 being offered for
any<br>
battered old car to be used as part of a counter-offensive coming in
behind<br>
the US positions once the house-to-house battle in the city center is
fully<br>
engaged.<br><br>
Boycotting the election<br><br>
The US approach in Iraq appears to be a rehashing of the British
imperial<br>
dictum of "divide and rule". Dr Harith al-Dhari, secretary
general of the<br>
powerful Association of Muslim Scholars, says the scheduled January<br>
election would be held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah
and<br>
the blood of the wounded", and has called on all Iraqis to boycott
it. The<br>
association sides with the people of Fallujah - not Allawi: "We have
said<br>
we support the resistance since the occupation of this country began.
This<br>
is our right as Iraqis. Therefore, we don't need a fatwa on this issue
as<br>
this matter is clear."<br><br>
As yet another measure - if any were needed - of the illegitimacy of
the<br>
Allawi government, Secretary of Defense Hassim al-Sha'alan recognized
on<br>
al-Arabiya TV that the resistance won't be finished, even when the<br>
Americans finally take Fallujah, because "they have already prepared
to<br>
fight in other places". This only confirms the above-mentioned that
the<br>
bulk of the mujahideen have already left Fallujah - and are now
launching<br>
dozens of daily attacks in Baghdad itself, Ramadi, Baquba,
Latifiyah,<br>
Samarra, Khaldiya, Kirkuk ...<br><br>
Hospitals "captured", showers of cluster bombs, Fallujah
burning, civilians<br>
dying, not to mention the more than 100,000 Iraqis killed since the<br>
beginning of the invasion-occupation, the country's infrastructure
in<br>
tatters, the center of Najaf and a great deal of Sadr City razed to
the<br>
ground. This is the way Phantom Fury will end: not with terrified
Iraqis<br>
voting for an Allawi-modeled puppet regime in a sham election, but with
a<br>
Bush administration forced to deal with Iraqis who are ready to die
to<br>
acheve real democracy.<br><br>
Copyright © 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.<br><br>
*****<br>
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