Iraq: Fewer Deaths Bring No Reassurance
BAGHDAD - Despite claims by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Bush administration officials that violence in Iraq is decreasing, residents in the capital tell a different story.
Attacks by Iraqi resistance groups against the U.S. military continue in Baghdad and Iraq’s al-Anbar province, despite U.S. military support for certain Sunni militias in the areas.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad and al-Anbar in October. In all 39 U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Iraq for the month, making it the lowest monthly total since March 2006.
Despite the relatively low October numbers, 2007 is on pace to be the deadliest year on record for U.S. troops since the invasion of March 2003. At least 847 U.S. military personnel have been reported killed this year in Iraq, making it the second highest toll yet.
The deadliest year was 2004, when 849 U.S. military members were killed.
But many Iraqis say that violence elsewhere continues unreported - and that where there is calm, it is hardly for reassuring reasons.
“Sectarian killings are less because all the Sunnis have been evicted from mixed areas in Baghdad,” Salman Hameed, a teacher who was evicted from the al-Hurriya area west of Baghdad eight months ago told IPS. “All my relatives and Sunni neighbours who survived the killing campaign led by the militias under the eyes of American and Iraqi forces have fled either to Syria or to other Sunni cities.”
On Nov. 5 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared victory during a rare walkabout in Baghdad as night fell. “We have achieved victory against terrorist groups and militias,” Maliki told reporters. “Things will not return to the way they were.”
Many Iraqis feel that the reason for the relative calm is that many people have either fled, or been killed.
“There is no one left for them to kill,” 55-year-old retired teacher Nathum Taha told IPS in Baghdad. “The Americans continue to use Arab Shia Iraqi militias to kill Sunnis, but most people have left by now.”
Others blamed the media for lack of adequate reportage.
“Attacks against U.S. forces are not much less than they were last month, but media coverage has almost disappeared,” Muhammad Younis from Mosul, in Baghdad on a business trip, told IPS. “The resistance is moving fast and changing locations in order to avoid intelligence provided by collaborators. Most Iraqis hate the Americans more than ever after the death and destruction caused by their occupation.”
There was a reported five-fold increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 compared to the same period in 2006. Over 30 tonnes of these were cluster weapons, which take a particularly heavy toll on civilians.
“American air raids are increasing in a way that shows a total failure on the ground,” a retired general of the dissolved Iraqi army told IPS. “A whole family was killed near Madayin, southeast Baghdad on Saturday (Nov. 3) just after the tragic bombing of houses south of Tikrit (about 100 km north of Baghdad) where more than 10 civilians were killed.”
On Nov. 4, Iraqi army personnel backed by U.S. soldiers detained 12 people during a raid on the Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghad.
“Those American and government forces could not face the resistance fighters, so they arrest innocent people,” Aziz Thafir, a lawyer who witnessed the arrests, told IPS. “They started their raid with nasty sectarian words against Sunnis, and then arrested every one who was around in the mosque.”
Sectarian violence, which many Iraqis believe to be backed by the U.S., continues at many places where there are still mixed communities left.
In Duluiya, 150 km north of Baghdad, a U.S. army unit raided a house last week and killed a young man inside. Witnesses who arrived in Baghdad from the Sunni town complained that the media is not covering either the resistance activity there or the regular “crimes” committed by U.S. and Iraqi government forces against innocent civilians.
“They are more vicious than they were before,” 44-year-old Abu Ahmed told IPS in the capital. “This is a religious war against Sunnis, who would not accept the occupation and division of the country.”
(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
© 2007 Inter Press Service
“On Nov. 4, Iraqi army personnel backed by U.S. soldiers detained 12 people during a raid on the Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghad.
“Those American and government forces could not face the resistance fighters, so they arrest innocent people,” ”
Yes, that sounds like our bold crusaders and proud soldiers.
On the US role in manipulating & exacerbating ’sectarian’ differnces –
http://www.islamicamagazine.com/issue-20/solving-the-problem-of-sectarianism.html
“Fewer deaths” ??
- According to whom?
All the reporters and camera crews denied access to what is REALLY going on?
-or just those very tame ones who hardly ever get out of the Green Zone, -those ‘embedded’ with the illegal invaders?
Now s-u-r-e-l-y that nice Mr. Dreck Cheney wouldn’t lie to us, ~ would he?
The only thing we know for sure about casualties as a whole in Iraq is: we are not even close to knowing for sure.
25 years ago, IFFN was an important acronym in the precision munition design business. Identification Friend, Foe, or Neutral. This is not done by US troops, even though Iraq & Afghanistan are situations in which accurate IFFN is essential for a peaceful occupation.
In practice, it appears that the civilian populations of both nations are the primary targets of US forces. The presence of suspected militants is used an excuse, and a tiny fraction of them are true enemies of the US. As the US military has selected the civilian populations as part of the enemy for years (decades in Iraq), all are enemies of the US military as selected by the US military. Some have hostile intent, but that is only natural.
Why the hell are the U.S. troops still in Iraq? They’ve already admitted they made a mistake by attacking it, blaming “faulty intelligence” (yeah sure).
They’ve done their damage and killed over a million innocent Iraqis, with no end in sight. Does anyone believe the lying Bush administration anymore when they say deaths are down in Iraq?
Ongoing contracts for the military industrial complex?
Distraction from his own hostile domestic program here at home?
Trying to get Jesus to come back?
AIPAC’s orders?
Help secure the oil facilities?
Part of a policy of slow genocide/depopulation?
You’re right — the beginning made no sense. And the present makes even less.
Here’s my intuit-hit.
* Iran refuses US treasury notes for anything (oil).
* We launch cruise missiles.
* Russia & China respond & they through out - FLOOD US $$ everywhere.
* Our US economy collapses–we are in Chaos–most in fear.
* The super secret military pulls off a fake, (mock) negative ET landing (s).
* Martial law is imposed due to the most scariest “realities” taking place.
The White House is still “blowin’ smoke” over the death-tolls! These people need to be impeached and imprisoned! The entire White House needs to be cleaned-out!
The fact that there are fewer deaths may not be because the surge is working but because Al Sadr has suspended militia activity for 6 months beginning on August 30th. But you won’t see this anywhere in the news these days. See:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082900467.html
Just like ‘Nam, we are in a country that wants us OUT! Our personnel are at risk all the time, because they don’t know if the little kid with the flowers might be holding a grenade. So, they shoot what they don’t trust. That increases the hate of the populace for the occupiers.
Look at WW-II. Despite horrible Nazi reprisals for any sabotage, any killing of German troops, the resistance went on until they were driven out. That happened in many occupied countries, not just France.
There will never be any peace as long as we are there. It will probably be bloody after we leave, but if we keep pumping up the civil war it will be worse.
The current strategy is to take the boots off the ground to minimize casualties and go to air strikes. A shot is fired, call in an air strike and destroy the village. They are all insurgents, or terrorists or (sigh) collateral damage.
Remember that, they are not humans, family members, husbands, wives, lovers, children; they are either insurgents, terrorists, or collateral damage, collateral damage, collateral damage.
If they can prove they are collateral damage, the government will give the survivors a few hundred dollars as reparations. That, of course makes up for a husband, wife, lover or child. We just pay them off like we pay mercenaries and it is all OK. Right? Right? Right?
The body count will be a lot higher…but never reported…if they aren’t killed “in Combat”, they don’t count. Let’s estimate how many will die from depleted uranium. Our own government is killing our troops. And they think the insurgants and terrorists are dangerous…..Iraq and the countries surrounding it are subject to this stuff….civilian and troops alike…all over the region.
YOu don’t have to go into battle to be killed over there…just show up.