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DAY 18: IRAQI COUNTERATTACKS AT AIRPORT: KDP HIT
BY
U.S.
BOMBS
British take Basra Outskirts: Attempt to Cut U.S.
Line at al-Shomali
Quote of the day: "We come as an army of
liberators." [Paul Wolfowitz,
MSNBC,
April 6, 2003.]
[Comment from Buut Shikan:
Zionists
like
Wolfowitz and Perle bear a heavy
responsibility for this war which has done
nothing but harm to America's real
interests. Israel and America's
Jews
are the only
gainers from this
bloodletting. The American people will one day
question these parasites.]
[New Trend's reporting on the invasion of Iraq is
meant to clarify the
situation. Owing to the welter of news reports,
most people are confused
about what's going on. On April 6, for instance,
for a moment, Wolf Blitzer
of
CNN
announced that he was reporting "from
Baghdad" and later corrected
himself without apology. Nick Robertson, we are
told, is reporting "from just
across the Iraqi border, in Jordan." Actually he
is NINE HOURS away from
Baghdad.]
[Our report is based on a critical study of U.S.
reports, Russian reports,
al-Jazeerah,
BBC and others.]
APRIL 6, 2003: The Iraqis launched counterattacks
on U.S. troops on the
perimeter of Saddam International Airport. The
Americans were hard pressed
but were able to survive owing to air support.
Several hundred Iraqis were
killed in these attacks. American troops too seem
to have suffered heavily.
The outer perimeter belongs to the U.S. while the
inner perimeter is held by
the Iraqis.
Owing to the ferocity of the Iraqi
counterattacks, U.S. forces were
NOT able to stage a second raid into Baghdad,
although CNN kept announcing,
without evidence, that it had happened.
INSIDE BAGHDAD, Iraqi officials gave a tour of
the city to a bus load of
journalists to prove that there were no U.S.
troops inside Baghdad.
[Looks like CNN's constant claim that the
Americans are "in Baghdad"
for a second day has started irritating Iraqi
Information Minister Al-Sahhaf
who has "lost his cool" in denying American
reports. He's been watching too
much CNN. Watching CNN stories can be hurtful for
the psyche.]
BRITISH TROOPS entered Basrah again and
this time seem to have decided
to stay in one of the outlying areas of the city.
Iraq still has most of the
city. Al-Jazeerah reports bombing has caused 17
more civilian deaths in
Basrah. No confirmation of American reports of
death of Saddam's cousin,
Abdul Majeed.
KDP leader Barazani's brother was seriously
wounded in a (mistaken)
bombing of a Kurdish rebel column by the U.S. At
least 18 KDP fighters were
killed. Barazani's son was lightly injured.
SEVENTY MILES south of Baghdad, at
Al-Shomali, Iraqi units tried to
cut the U.S. supply line. MSNBC reported the
attack but then cut off the
report.
Almost all towns remain in Iraqi hands
though Najaf has been taken in
part by the Americans. There is also heavy
fighting in Kerbala.
The battle is becoming quite stressful for
Americans. DAVID BLOOM of
NBC, an embedded reporter with U.S. military
forces, has died of a heart
attack.
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[WAR CAUSES TERRIBLE SUFFERING. There is no such
thing as a sanitized war. We
bring two reports, one about the steeply rising
deaths of Iraqi civilians
owing to U.S. bombing and then about the
suffering of American soldiers owing
to Iraqi resistance -Ed]
(With thanks to Ms. Carolyn in Florida.)
Red Cross Horrified by Number of Dead Civilians
Canadian Press
Friday 4 April 2003
OTTAWA - Red Cross doctors who visited southern
Iraq this week saw
"incredible" levels of civilian casualties
including a truckload of
dismembered women and children, a spokesman said
Thursday from Baghdad.
Roland Huguenin, one of six International Red
Cross workers in the Iraqi
capital, said doctors were horrified by the
casualties they found in the
hospital in Hilla, about 160 kilometres south of
Baghdad.
"There has been an incredible number of
casualties with very, very serious
wounds in the region of Hilla," Huguenin said in
a interview by satellite
telephone.
"We saw that a truck was delivering dozens of
totally dismembered dead
bodies of women and children. It was an awful
sight. It was really very
difficult to believe this was happening."
Huguenin said the dead and injured in Hilla came
from the village of
Nasiriyah, where there has been heavy fighting
between American troops and
Iraqi soldiers, and appeared to be the result of
"bombs, projectiles."
"At this stage we cannot comment on the nature of
what happened exactly at
that place . . . but it was definitely a
different pattern from what we had
seen in Basra or Baghdad.
"There will be investigations I am sure."
Baghdad and Basra are coping relatively well with
the flow of wounded, said
Huguenin, estimating that Baghdad hospitals have
been getting about 100
wounded a day.
Most of the wounded in the two large cities have
suffered superficial
shrapnel wounds, with only about 15 per cent
requiring internal surgery, he
said.
But the pattern in Hilla was completely
different.
"In the case of Hilla, everybody had very serious
wounds and many, many of
them small kids and women. We had small toddlers
of two or three years of
age who had lost their legs, their arms. We have
called this a horror."
At least 400 people were taken to the Hilla
hospital over a period of two
days, he said -- far beyond its capacity.
"Doctors worked around the clock to do as much as
they could. They just had
to manage, that was all."
The city is no longer accessible, he added.
Red Cross staff are also concerned about what may
be happening in other
smaller centres south of Baghdad.
"We do not know what is going on in Najaf and
Kabala. It has become
physically impossible for us to reach out to
those cities because the major
road has become a zone of combat."
The Red Cross was able to claim one significant
success this week: it played
a key role in re-establishing water supplies at
Basra.
Power for a water-pumping station had been
accidentally knocked out in the
attack on the city, leaving about a million
people without water. Iraqi
technicians couldn't reach the station to repair
it because it was under
coalition control.
The Red Cross was able to negotiate safe passage
for a group of Iraqi
engineers who crossed the fire line and made
repairs. Basra now has 90 per
cent of its normal water supply, said Huguenin.
Huguenin, a Swiss, is one of six international
Red Cross workers still in
Baghdad. The team includes two Canadians, Vatche
Arslanian of Oromocto,
N.B., and Kassandra Vartell of Calgary.
The Red Cross expects the humanitarian crisis in
Iraq to grow and is calling
for donations to help cope. The Red Cross Web
site is:
http://www.redcross.org.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2617.htm
Horrific wounds among U.S. soldiers, says medic
04/05/03
A Colorado newspaper has quoted a neurosurgeon
treating wounded U.S. soldiers
from Iraq at a U.S. military hospital in
Landstuhl, Germany, as saying that
TV reports were sanitising the war.
Dr Gene Bolles said wounded being flown to
Landstuhl were young men, aged 18,
19, and 20, with "horrific injuries", including
lost arms, legs and hands,
and significant brain injuries.
The newspaper, Colorado's "Boulder Daily Camera",
said Dr. Bolles is a
66-year civilian medic and a former Vietnam War
surgeon.
Up until Friday, the hospital at Landstuhl had
received 281 wounded from the
war.
Plane-loads were arriving regularly.
Officially, the USA lists 75 dead; Britain, 27
killed. Iraq has not stated
its military losses, but puts civilian casualties
at 1,252 killed and 5,103
injured.
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April 5, 2003 [Courtesy COUNTERPUNCH]
[Strange Fall Out from
9.11]
Aborigines and the Different God
What the Christian Chuch Could Not Do, Islam Has
Done
By BERNIE PATTISON
[Excerpts]
Many Australian blacks gather around the fringes
of the cities, getting taxis
into town to get their grog on pension day and
spending the rest of the
fortnight drinking and fighting, sometimes
killing one another. Their
conditions are worse than any third world
country, their death rate higher,
the rate of rape and murder almost unbelievable.
A few full-blooded Aborigines still live in
Arnhem Land, attempting to live
their ancient lifestyles, but thwarted every inch
of the way by tourists,
land owners and mining companies.
Yet suddenly, there are young black men walking
the streets, wearing their
colours, orange red and black with pride, heads
up, and looking people in the
eye, proud of who they are and where they come
from.
What has wrought this change?
What has brought pride to the young black people
when their elders couldn't,
and the church couldn't, and the bureaucrats
couldn't.
Islam.
It all began with young black rugby league
sensation turned boxer Anthony
Mundine who announced publicly when the towers of
the World Trade Centre fell
to terrorists in 2001, "They brought it all on
themselves the Americans, they
deserve all they get."
There were many who were horrified by what he
said, but also many who
listened, and the ones who listened were his
black brothers.
Now there are swelling groups devoting their
lives to studying the
Koran,
their women veiled, and the men alive with
self-respect and honour.
What the Christian church could not do, Islam has
done.
Every Australian would laugh when some young
Aboriginal man would declare
that he would lead his people to fight the
whites. Didn't they all get in a
bus to drive to Sydney during the 1988
bicentennial to protest at the
stealing of their land, and before they were
halfway there they were all
drunk, and the whole trip was called off?
Well not now.
Now it is different. Now they are answering the
call of a different God, and
they are transformed.
Bernie Pattison is an environmental and peace
activist in Australia. She can
be reached at:
czechmate@iprimus.com.au
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2003-04-06 Sun 16:26ct