------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 22, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AS PENTAGON SENDS MORE TROOPS: BATTLES RAGE ACROSS IRAQ Resistance Broadens after Pentagon Atrocities By Deirdre Griswold April 14--The stakes keep getting higher. Even as George W. Bush was telling a news conference at the White House last night that now his lofty goal in Iraq is to "change the world for the better," the Pentagon was making plans to send overseas another 10,000 to 20,000 troops. And Iraqis of all backgrounds were saying they would fight to the death to win back their country. In the past week there was fierce fighting between U.S. troops and the Iraqi resistance in Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, Kerbala, Kufa, Najaf, Kut, Mosul and Nasariyah, and clashes in many smaller cities. The death toll among Iraqis has been horrific. In Falluja alone, the head of the main hospital reported 600 dead in less than a week--mostly the elderly, children and women. This account and many eyewitness reports refute the claim of the Pentagon that it only targets "fighting men." U.S. forces have sustained their largest casualties since the end of the "official" war a year ago. In the first 13 days of April, at least 82 U.S. troops were killed and more than 560 wounded. (The Sun [UK], April 14) However, this tells only half the story. According to Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, "At least 80 foreign mercenaries--security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies--have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq. ... At least 18,000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect U.S. troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1,000 a day. ... [A]lthough many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the U.S. Department of Defense--and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers--they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can therefore be hidden from public view." (The Star, April 13) The intransigence of the Bush administration, and the absence of any real opposition to this hideous war of conquest from within the U.S. capitalist political establishment, makes it clearer than ever that it will be ended only through the combined efforts of the Iraqi resistance and the massive anti-war movement around the world. In the United States, where a call to restore the draft is already creeping into editorial and opinion columns in the corporate media, and where disillusioned veterans are starting to return from the battlefields--many facing the threat of being sent back to fight again-- the prospect of another militant, Vietnam-type anti-war resistance is on the horizon. SUNNI-SHIITE UNITY DISMAYS PENTAGON The sharp escalation of the fighting came after a Shia Muslim cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, called on his followers to rise up against the U.S. occupation. The Pentagon had already targeted al-Sadr. U.S. troops had closed his newspaper, al-Hawza, on March 28 and then put a price on his head. The strategy of U.S. and British imperialists has long been to try to foment antagonism among various sectors of Iraqi society. While U.S. overseer L. Paul Bremer III talks about "nation building" and the "protection of minority rights," the invaders have tried to pit Sunni and Shiite Muslims against one another. But that strategy was dealt a strong blow when the Shiites in a wide area rose up just as the Pentagon was laying siege to the city of Falluja, in a predominantly Sunni area. Jonathan Steele and Rory McCarthy reported from Baghdad about a huge solidarity rally there: "Up to 200,000 Iraqi believers, many of them Shias, crowded into the precinct of Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque yesterday to denounce the American occupation and pledge solidarity with the people of Falluja as well as the uprising led by the Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr. It was the largest show of joint support by Iraq's Sunni and Shia communities. "'Long live Moqtada, long live Falluja, long live Basra, long live Kerbala,' they shouted, naming the various cities where Shias have attacked coalition forces. Many punched the air with their fists. "'It is a year since America with its ally, the British devil Tony Blair, launched its attack. The Americans invaded the land of Iraq, but they did not penetrate its people or their souls,' Dr. Harith al-Dhari, the main preacher at the Umm al-Qura mosque thundered into a loudspeaker, as the overflow crowd sat on the lawns and concrete concourse. "'A year has passed and where is the democracy they promised? Instead, we have terror and censorship and rivers of blood,' he went on." (The Guardian [UK], April 10) Faced with such widespread opposition, the U.S. claims to be seeking negotiations, both in Falluja and with al-Sadr in Najaf, all the while moving in fresh troops. Anticipating an assassination attempt by the U.S., al-Sadr told Lebanon's al-Manar television, "I call on the people not to allow my death to cause the collapse of the fight for freedom and an end to the occupation." GUERRILLAS SHOW 'NEW SOPHISTICATION' A report by Thomas E. Ricks, appearing in the Washington Post of April 14, quotes U.S. military sources in Iraq as saying that the resistance in the south is showing a "new sophistication" in its tactics. Guerrillas successfully destroyed three bridges on the route taken by a U.S. convoy moving south from Baghdad toward Najaf, the Shiite holy city where al-Sadr is holding out. "'The dropping of the bridges was very interesting, because it showed a regional or even a national level of organization,' [Army Col. Dana J.H.] Pittard said in an interview. He said insurgents appeared to be sending information southward, communicating about routes being taken by U.S. forces and then getting sufficient amounts of explosives to key bridges ahead of the convoys. "With occupation forces battling Sadr's Shiite militiamen south and east of Baghdad and Sunni Muslim insurgents to the north and west, the timing of the Iraqis' tactical development is nearly as troubling for U.S. forces as its effect. But the explanation for the change is not yet clear, military commanders said. "Here in southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, U.S. officers say the best guess is that former soldiers who served under President Saddam Hussein have decided to lend their expertise and coordinating abilities to the untrained Shiite militiamen. "'It's a combination of Saddam loyalists and Shiite militias,' Maj. Gen. John R. Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said ... ." Naomi Klein reported on this remarkable unity from Baghdad: "For months, the White House has been making ominous predictions of a civil war breaking out between the majority Shiites ... and the minority Sunnis ... . But this week, the opposite appeared to have taken place. Both Sunnis and Shiites have seen their homes attacked and their religious sites desecrated. Up against a shared enemy, they are beginning to bury ancient rivalries and join forces against the occupation. Instead of a civil war, they are on the verge of building a common front. You could see it at the mosques in Sadr City on Thursday: Thousands of Shiites lined up to donate blood destined for Sunnis hurt in the attacks in Falluja. 'We should thank Paul Bremer,' Salih Ali told me. 'He has finally united Iraq. Against him.'" (Los Angeles Times, April 9) U.S. SNIPERS TARGET AMBULANCES Klein described the U.S. atrocities that had precipitated this unity: "At Al Thawra Hospital, I met Raad Daier, an ambulance driver with a bullet in his abdomen, one of 12 shots he says were fired at his ambulance from a U.S. Humvee. At the time of the attack, according to hospital officials, he was carrying six people injured by U.S. forces, including a pregnant woman who had been shot in the stomach and lost her baby. "I saw charred cars, which dozens of eyewitnesses said had been hit by U.S. missiles, and I confirmed with hospitals that their drivers had been burned alive. I also visited Block 37 of the Chuadir District, a row of houses where every door was riddled with holes. Residents said U.S. tanks drove down their street firing into homes. Five people were killed, including Murtada Muhammad, age 4." This, multiplied by thousands of other tragic stories, is what the occupation has done, and this is why the Iraqi people are so furious and will attack anyone they see as part of it. What the U.S. military and their Commander-in-Chief continue to deny, but is attested to by hundreds of reporters and other observers, and by the facts on the ground, is that the Iraqi people as a whole have grown to detest the U.S. occupation. It has brought them nothing but death, destruction and the transfer of control over their country and resources to the predatory billionaire corporations favored by the Bush clique. The administration, which invaded a country that had done absolutely nothing to the U.S.--despite Bush's desperate use of innuendo to somehow blame Iraq for 9/11--is now in a deadly spiral of answering the people's resistance with more violence, which merely increases the resistance. In his news conference, Bush restated his administration's plan to hand over "sovereignty" to Iraqis on June 30. Which Iraqis? The ones installed by Washington, of course. Yet even they are so shaky these days that bourgeois critics are demanding the president explain how his plan is going to work. IRAQI SOLDIERS REFUSE TO FIGHT The U.S. is finding it impossible to build an Iraqi puppet state that can be relied on to carry out its demands. This was made very clear when, according to the Washington Post of April 11: "A battalion of the new Iraqi army refused to go to Falluja earlier this week to support U.S. Marines battling for control of the city, senior U.S. Army officers here said, disclosing an incident that is casting new doubt on U.S. plans to transfer security matters to Iraqi forces. It was the first time U.S. commanders had sought to involve the postwar Iraqi army in major combat operations, and the battalion's refusal came as large parts of Iraqi security forces have stopped carrying out their duties. "The 620-man 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi Armed Forces refused to fight Monday after members of the unit were shot at in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Baghdad while en route to Falluja, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who is overseeing the development of Iraqi security forces. ... "Eaton said members of the battalion insisted during the ensuing discussions: 'We did not sign up to fight Iraqis.' "The refusal of the battalion to perform as U.S. officials had hoped poses a significant problem for the occupation. The cornerstone of the U.S. strategy in Iraq is to draw down its military presence and turn over security functions to Iraqis. "Over the past two weeks, that approach has suffered a severe setback as Iraqi security forces have crumbled in some parts of the country. In recent days perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the Iraqi army, civil defense, police and other security forces have quit, changed sides, or otherwise failed to perform their duties, a senior Army officer said Saturday." COALITION OF THE NOT-SO-WILLING In this heroic uprising, untrained Iraqi civilians armed only with rifles or stones picked up from the street are facing down helicopter gunships and troops armed with tanks, mortars, rockets, machine guns and night-vision equipment. The fighting has been accompanied by a rash of kidnappings of foreigners inside Iraq, especially aimed at countries that have bowed to Washington's pressure and sent troops there. As a result, a number of countries have announced they may be pulling back their personnel. Russia is sending seven planes to Iraq on April 15 to begin the evacuation of 800 contract workers from Russia and other former Soviet republics. The president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, says she is considering withdrawing Philippine troops and aid workers--a demand of anti-war forces at home. Thailand and Spain say they intend to withdraw their troops this summer. THE 9/11 COMMISSION Even as this volcano of resistance has erupted in Iraq, the commission investigating 9/11 has been grilling Bush and Clinton administration officials on what the government knew about threats from al-Qaeda and how prepared it was for terrorist attacks. It has drawn out much testimony showing that Bush and his Cabinet badly wanted a war on Iraq and were focused on that objective when the 9/11 attacks occurred. However, in approaching the question of the "security" of the United States, the bipartisan commission is not asking any questions about the many egregious atrocities committed for decades around the world by U.S. imperialism's military and secret police, which were bound to antagonize millions of people. It is only asking questions that will lead to restructuring the executive branch of the government in order to make it more efficient at carrying out repression. In the age of jet planes and the Internet, no wall, no matter how fortified, is big enough to isolate this country from the rest of the world. The best security for the workers here is to resist the aggressive war policies of this government--and of the Democrats, too, who are calling for more troops to Iraq--and build solidarity with all peoples around the world fighting for justice and self-determination. Putting Bush and his co-conspirators on trial for war crimes would do more to protect the people of this country than any new intelligence super-agency of the type that is likely to come out of the 9/11. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
