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UNDILAH PAS DAN BARISAN ALTERNATIF
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Robert Fisk: Raw, devastating realities that expose
the truth about Basra
28 March 2003
Two British soldiers lie dead on a Basra roadway, a
small Iraqi girl – victim of an Anglo American air
strike – is brought to hospital with her intestines
spilling out of her stomach, a terribly wounded woman
screams in agony as doctors try to take off her black
dress.
An Iraqi general, surrounded by hundreds of his armed
troops, stands in central Basra and announces that
Iraq's second city remains firmly in Iraqi hands. The
unedited al-Jazeera videotape – filmed over the past
36 hours and newly arrived in Baghdad – is raw,
painful, devastating.
It is also proof that Basra – reportedly "captured''
and "secured'' by British troops last week – is indeed
under the control of Saddam Hussein's forces. Despite
claims by British officers that some form of uprising
has broken out in Basra, cars and buses continue to
move through the streets while Iraqis queue patiently
for gas bottles as they are unloaded from a government
truck.
A remarkable part of the tape shows fireballs blooming
over western Basra and the explosion of incoming – and
presumably British – shells. The short sequence of the
dead British soldiers – over which Tony Blair voiced
such horror yesterday – is little different from
dozens of similar clips of dead Iraqi soldiers shown
on British television over the past 12 years, pictures
which never drew any condemnation from the Prime
Minister.
The two Britons, still in uniform, are lying on a
roadway, arms and legs apart, one of them apparently
hit in the head, the other shot in the chest and
abdomen.
Another sequence from the same tape shows crowds of
Basra civilians and armed men in civilian clothes,
kicking the soldiers' British Army Jeep and dancing on
top of the vehicle. Other men can be seen kicking the
overturned Ministry of Defence trailer, which the Jeep
was towing when it was presumably ambushed.
Also to be observed on the unedited tape – which was
driven up to Baghdad on the open road from Basra – is
a British pilotless drone photo-reconnaissance
aircraft, its red and blue roundels visible on one
wing, shot down and lying overturned on a roadway.
Marked "ARMY'' in capital letters, it carries the code
sign ZJ300 on its tail and is attached to a large
cylindrical pod which probably contains the plane's
camera.
Far more terrible than the pictures of dead British
soldiers, however, is the tape from Basra's largest
hospital that shows victims of the Anglo-American
bombardment being brought to the operating rooms
shrieking in pain.
A middle-aged man is carried into the hospital in
pyjamas, soaked head to foot in blood. A little girl
of perhaps four is brought into the operating room on
a trolley, staring at a heap of her own intestines
protruding from the left side of her stomach. A
blue-uniformed doctor pours water over the little
girl's guts and then gently applies a bandage before
beginning surgery. A woman in black with what appears
to be a stomach wound cries out as doctors try to
strip her for surgery. In another sequence, a trail of
blood leads from the impact of an incoming –
presumably British – shell. Next to the crater is a
pair of plastic slippers.
The al-Jazeera tapes, most of which have never been
seen, are the first vivid proof that Basra remains
totally outside British control. Not only is one of
the city's main roads to Baghdad still open – this is
how the three main tapes reached the Iraqi capital –
but General Khaled Hatem is interviewed in a Basra
street, surrounded by hundreds of his uniformed and
armed troops, and telling al-Jazeera's reporter that
his men will "never'' surrender to Iraq's enemies.
Armed Baath Party militiamen can also be seen in the
streets, where traffic cops are directing lorries and
buses near the city's Sheraton Hotel.
Mohamed al-Abdullah, al-Jazeera's correspondent in
Basra, must be the bravest journalist in Iraq right
now. In the sequence of three tapes, he can be seen
conducting interviews with families under fire and
calmly reporting the incoming British artillery
bombardment. One tape shows that the Sheraton Hotel on
the banks of Shatt al-Arab river has sustained shell
damage.
On the edge of the river – beside one of the huge
statues of Iraq's 1980-88 war martyrs, each pointing
an accusing finger across the waterway towards Iran –
Basra residents can be seen filling jerry cans from
the sewage-polluted river.
Five days ago the Iraqi government said 30 civilians
had been killed in Basra and another 63 wounded.
Yesterday, it claimed that more than 4,000 civilians
had been wounded in Iraq since the war began and more
than 350 killed.
But Mr Abdullah's tape shows at least seven more
bodies brought to the Basra hospital mortuary over the
past 36 hours. One, his head still pouring blood on to
the mortuary floor, was identified as an Arab
correspondent for a Western news agency.
Other harrowing scenes show the partially decapitated
body of a little girl, her red scarf still wound round
her neck. Another small girl was lying on a stretcher
with her brain and left ear missing. Another dead
child had its feet blown away. There was no indication
whether American or British ordnance had killed these
children. The tapes give no indication of Iraqi
military casualties.
But at a time when the Iraqi authorities will not
allow Western reporters to visit Basra, this is the
nearest to independent evidence we have of continued
resistance in the city and the failure of the British
to capture it. For days the Iraqi have been denying
optimistic reports from "embedded'' reporters –
especially on the BBC – who gave the impression that
Basra was "secured'' or otherwise in effect under
British control. This the tape conclusively proves to
be untrue.
There is also a sequence showing two men, both black,
who are claimed by Iraqi troops to be US prisoners of
war. No questions are asked of the men, who are
dressed in identical black shirts and jackets. Both
appear nervous and gaze at the camera crew and Iraqi
troops crowded behind them.
Of course, it is still possible that some small-scale
opposition to the Iraqi regime broke out in the city
over the past few days, as British officers have
claimed. But, seeing the tapes, it is hard to imagine
that it amounted, if it existed at all, to anything
more than a brief gun battle.
The unedited reports therefore provide damaging proof
that Anglo-American spokesmen have not been telling
the truth about the battle for Basra. And in the end
this is far more devastating to the invading armies
than the sight of two dead British soldiers or – since
Iraqi lives are as sacred as British lives – than the
pictures of dead Iraqi children.
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