Aid Officials Urge Relief For Baghdad Slum; Reports of Pending Sadr City Assault
BAGHDAD - Civilians caught up in fighting between security forces and Shi’ite militiamen in a Baghdad slum are running out of food, water and medicine and relief agencies are unable to bring in supplies, officials said on Thursday.
But aid officials and an Iraqi government spokesman denied reports there had been a mass displacement of residents from Sadr City, home to 2 million people and the stronghold of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia.
They said it was too dangerous to get aid into the district in eastern Baghdad, where weeks of clashes have killed hundreds of people. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking to impose law and order, launched a crackdown on militias in late March.
Dana Graber Ladek, a displacement specialist on Iraq at the U.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Amman, said around 500 families had fled when U.S. and Iraqi operations against militiamen began.
“Since then, very few Iraqis have been able to leave due to curfews and … insecurity,” Ladek said by telephone.
“We need that corridor open to allow aid in, by U.S. and Iraqi forces … by everyone involved in the conflict.”
Ladek said relief was need urgently. Public distribution of food rations had stopped while prices of basic food items were rising.
Water and medical services were also falling short in the affected areas, especially since a U.S. missile strike near a Sadr City hospital on Saturday damaged a number of ambulances.
“Much … depends on how long this (conflict) goes on for … If it goes on for very long … we risk some more serious consequences like an epidemic of cholera or malnutrition.”
Maliki’s crackdown was initially launched in the southern Shi’ite city of Basra, where the Mehdi Army put up stiff resistance for a week until Sadr ordered his fighters off the street. But fighting has continued in Baghdad’s Sadr City.
Tahseen al-Sheikhli, the government’s civilian spokesman for security operations in Baghdad, accused gunmen of attacking convoys trying to bring aid in.
“Who is responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sadr City? Isn’t it the armed groups?” he said.
“We have done our best to let food aid reach affected families but they are in areas of fighting and we can’t even send forces to secure them because militants will attack us.”
Saeed Haqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said fewer than 1,000 families had fled Sadr City since the operations began, adding that most of those had gone to stay with relatives.
LOUDSPEAKER WARNING?
Some residents said Iraqi security forces had used loudspeakers urging people to leave their homes — perhaps signaling a major offensive was imminent — but Sheikhli and a spokesman from Sadr’s office in the slum denied this.
Iraqi security officials gave conflicting accounts of whether loudspeakers had been used to warn people to flee while the U.S. military said it had no information on the reports.
Maliki, himself a Shi’ite, says the crackdown is to disarm militias, but Sadr’s followers sees it as an attempt to sideline the cleric’s mass movement before local elections in October.
The prime minister caught his American backers off-guard with his offensive in Basra, but after early military setbacks, it has gone well. Political leaders across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divide — apart from the Sadrists, who control 10 percent of seats in parliament — have backed Maliki’s campaign.
Sadr last month threatened to formally scrap a ceasefire he imposed on the Mehdi Army last August. But then a couple of weeks later he urged his followers to observe the truce, leaving many guessing about his true intentions.
Sadr, in his 30s, is a fervent nationalist who has a zealous following among young and dispossessed Shi’ites.
Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Khalid al-Ansary and Wisam Mohammed; writing by Tim Cocks and Dean Yates, editing by Ralph Boulton
© 2008 Reuters
BAGHDAD - Civilians caught up in fighting between security forces and Shi’ite militiamen in a Baghdad slum are running out of food, water and medicine and relief agencies are unable to bring in supplies, officials said on Thursday.
Yes, but we have plans for luxury hotels and a “Tigris Woods” golf resort in the Green Zone!
We’ll probably add Sadr City to the economic development zone after we raze all the structures and remove the populace.
Sadr City — Your Money at Work in the “War Against Terror”
(Photo Credit: By Karim Kadim — Associated Press Photo)
Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his home after a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad’s Sadr City. The 2-year-old died at a hospital.
Don’t forget to “support your troops”.
Another raping of a civilian area by US forces a la Fallujah.
The Republican’s BROKE IT, but we, the American people are responsible.
How’s that for the “ownership society”?
I wonder if the US will drop ‘Poptarts’ in the same yellow colored packaging as the cluster bomb sub-munitions they way they did in Afghanistan.
OR will it be another round of Faluja style phosphorus bombs?
Either way, the US is doing the same thing in Iraq that the English did in 1928. That is, use the local populace as target practice from aircraft.
Turning Sadr City into Fallujah. I’m sure that will win more hearts and minds and increase our support and popularity. The whole world is watching as they say.
Puh-lease — it is American troops, artillery and air power who are delivering the lion’s share of the destruction in the Creeping Fallujah in Sadr City.
Prime Minister Malarki is a puppet whose stings are pulled by both Iran and the US.
Al-Sadr has to go because he is against the occupation; because he is against the split up of Iraq; because he would see both Sunni and Shia to have power and because he is a fervent nationalist — worst of all, he would have the oil benefit Iraqis.
Can those of us opposed to this occupation and annihilation continue to afford to do nothing except tap on a keyboard?
Tell me fellow patriots……..at what point do we do more than talk?
The chickenhawk murderers have everyone so fearful of repercussions this has in essence become a military dictatorship. Think about that. A military dictatorship. We are powerless. We are afraid to do anything because no one wants to “get involved”.
Too busy talking on our cellphones. Too busy downloading tunes. Too busy making a living to buy a plasma tv.
There is nothing left for us to do but tap, tap,tap on a keyboard. All day long. Day after day. Trapped in our prison of communication warfare.
I have become disaffected by the lack of engagement by Joe public. They have allowed themselves to become a part of the machine.
This is some kind of freedom huh?
Hey, I’ve been to every antiwar demonstration in my town since November 2002.
Every day I drive to work with a big sign in the back window of my Jeep that says, “They lied to me, they lied to you, they lied to our troops.”
I write one letter a month to my local newspaper in opposition to the war. More than half get published.
I sent $100.00 to the peace candidate running against my Republican congressman.
But when I see pictures like the one above, all seems far too little.
Perhaps I’ll make prints of it and start leaving them on windshields at the mall… “your tax dollars at work”.
johnjj,
I have stood out on street corners by myself against traffic for years with signs to provoke thought. Attended all the rallies, speeches and events.
I call any congressman two to three times a week and debate issues.
I send faxes to congress twice a week to a committee that just had a hearing on whatever topic of interest that is pressing.
I talk to anyone in any line at anyplace about politics.
I’ve tried to start the bandana revolution on this blog and others.
And that picture did it to me as well.
What we fail to understand is those who care are a very very small percentage of Joe public. The rest are just too damn busy being selfish.
That has to change. And Obama is not the only way it will change. Even he is enamored of the military. We need more. Much more.
jjohnjj May 8th, 2008 3:21 pm — “Perhaps I’ll make prints of it and start leaving them on windshields at the mall.”
Good idea. I’d also like to tape it to the windshield of every military aircraft. Air Force personnel, with their cool new “Above All” motto, need to be brought much closer to the grim realities of their aloof, indiscrimate and largely unchallenged “war” on mere mortals below.
Shedding tears and sputtering with rage isn’t something that I do often at my age, but that photo sure did it to me too.
From Wikipedia:
The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the Ghetto was estimated to be 440,000 people, about 38% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 4.5% of the size of Warsaw. Nazis then closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16, 1940, building a wall with armed guards.
During the next year and a half, thousands of the Polish Jews as well as some Romani people[1] from smaller cities and the countryside were brought into the Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal, compared to 2,325 kcal for gentile Poles and 5,613 kcal for Germans.
Everyone may want to send a note to the ombudsman, Deborah Howell, at the Washington Post and let her know that publishing the photograph of the Iraqi child above ON THE FRONT PAGE of the Post was very brave AND important.
ombudsman@washpost.com
The US of Genocide and Oil Domination , or GOD, is poised to fight the local populations again, whom they supposedly came to liberate. This time the weapons are a siege, with food and water to be turned off. This is par practice advice learned from watching the Israelis deal with the Palestinians in Gaza. To complete the standard picture, the slums may also get instead of water, the outpourings of all the sewrage from the Green zone luxury apartments. Or at least the excremental words of US politicians. The real message is going to be “eat shit and die” , you Sh’ite nationalists. The mainstream US media will keep it quiet.
Send that picture of the dead child to Bush and the rest of his blood-thirsty neocons.
Maybe it can be delivered while he is enjoying his glass of champagne(?) at his daughter’s wedding.
How many more children do we have to see pulled from the rubble before we get the hell out of there?
Bush, get a clue.
If there are any doubts as to what Sadr’s intentions are: He wants the US to GTFO of Iraq.
Bush will prevail. Mission accomplished. Hail McCain, our next glorious leader.
Each of the above posts hits the nail smack on the head - and the tragedy is that few Americans (compared to the whole adult population) read these posts or listen to news of any sort that would make them pay attention to the fact that THE USA IS THE MILITIA THAT’S DOING THE KILLING IN SADR CITY! They’re all too busy to even listen to the campaign lies being told us every day - most think I’m crazy when I try to tell them about Fallujah and now Sadr City - what’s going on over there does not fit their grandiose idea of “America the Great”! For those and for other self-centered reasons, these same Americans will be the ones to suffer some day when the dictators now ruling this country really take over and finish off the constitutional safeguards already being greatly violated here! They call us “crazy” today, and flatly deny anything such as that picture would ever be carried out by “our” guys - - God Help America!
Wow, our brave pilots put themselves “in harm’s way” while bombing undefended slums in devastated cities. Makes you want to watch Tom Cruise fighting for freedom, and get a real vicarious pump.
It’s difficult to know what, if any, impact a particular report or photograph may have on any of USA Incorporated’s geopolitical enterprises. I have a gut feeling, however, that the above photo of an innocent 2-year-old victim of the onging so-called “War On Terror” could possibly represent some kind of breaking point. Amongst others, ABC News is now reporting that “[d]ramatic photographs of Hussein’s dust-covered body being pulled out of the rubble of his home appeared on front pages and TV news reports around the world.” Recalling Viet Nam and another photograph of a young girl horribly burned by napalm, one can only hope that this one might generate a similar level of public revulsion and determination to end the attrocities.
” Chuck Cliff May 8th, 2008 2:44 pm
Puh-lease — it is American troops, artillery and air power who are delivering the lion’s share of the destruction in the Creeping Fallujah in Sadr City.”
YEP or yup.
“Prime Minister Malarki is a puppet whose stings are pulled by both Iran and the US.”
*) Might prefer to say “a puppet whose stingers are”, as opposed to “a puppet whose stings are”.
*) ‘Malarki’ is fitting enough, but we can’t say for sure in terms of fully, or not. The smoke from all of the screening of the U.S. making is obscuring the situation; it’s not easy to know what PM Maliki thinks and says.
*) And I don’t think Iran is particularly involved in what’s going on in Iraq; a little, surely, but I doubt that it’s much. Forget about Iran involving itself in the situation in Iraq; except diplomatically. Or so I figure to do anyway.
Chuck Cliff concludes:
Al-Sadr has to go because he is against the occupation; because he is against the split up of Iraq; because he would see both Sunni and Shia to have power and because he is a fervent nationalist — worst of all, he would have the oil benefit Iraqis.”
That is the, ‘a’ anyway, reason he must be supported, and MOST Iraqis want the USA et al OUT, gone, bye-bye, bye-bye and don’t look back, just provide the due reparations and [fast]!. And that’s one reason why I find this Reuters article a little questionable in terms of intent, for it reports that most southern Iraqi leaders in the puppet regime in Iraq side with the U.S., that is, against the Sadr’ists, and I doubt a majority of Iraqis living in southern Iraq would agree with such anti-Iraq, pro-invaders, imperialist West, … views as these are.
After all, most of them want USA et al all OUT. Iraqis now look back on what they knew during Saddam Hussein’s govt and the internationally imposed (really only due to the U.S.) 1991-2003 economic sanctions of genocidal scale as the ‘good’ol days’ or ‘good old days’; Dahr Jamail (and I think another reporter) recently provided of quoted words. They want the USA et al OUT, and surely realise that there is no future for them in Iraq unless the USA et al DEPART and soon.
Hence, what’s important is not what their political leaders are saying, but what they are thinking and saying. After all, it’s the way to judge political leadership in democracies, and it’s the sensible way in all other societies; just that we have to sometimes be extra careful about expressing political views, in … too many countries, the international “pal network” of the U.S. govt’s ruling elites.
In that regard, the Reuters article is questionable, and the above is only a first assessment. There’s truth in the article, but I’m trying to think of what’s stated, vs what is not juxtaposition-ally stated. There’s surely contrasting reality involved, and if there is, then it should not be hidden.
Whatever the whole truth of the whole situation in Iraq is, it’s something I can’t speak on. But that it’s all BS, based on lies, etcetera, sure; no problem. After all, it’s even obvious. Hidden details are not so obvious.
So “what the hell is going on?”, and “cut it all out!”!.
amacd: Thank you for posting the info about the Warsaw Ghetto. Sucks for me that I just ate before reading it…. I’m going to go throw up now.
This is the picture that broke my heart.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/images/security/iraq/images/checkpointschildren-chrisho.gif
When my employee newsletter printed a propaganda piece “support the troops” I copied this picture and wrote an angry letter opposing the propaganda.
the good news is: I didn’t get fired.’
the bad news is: Every 2 weeks they continue to print pro-troop propaganda, but not as bad as the one that set me off.
Thanks Curmudheon99. A great suggestion which I took to heart and sent an e-mail. Thanks!
Thanks Arvy for the picture and once again our posts are much deeper than the article.
I think it would make a great mother’s day card - especially for Laura and Barbara.
Sophia, now that would be a great idea, if we all use that same image and flood the White House mail room with mother’s day cards with that image on it. And send them to Cindy McCain as well. Let her see what her husband is behind. Cindy with that sweet little-girl voice who oh so supports her husband’s bid for the presidency. It’s too late now but it would have been wonderful.
The dead kid in the picture is probably named Achkmed. It is not as if the people who are being killed are white Christian kids. These are brown skinned Muslim kids. So it is hard to sway public opinion.