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In Iraq, the U.S. Does Eliminate Those Who Dare to
Count the Dead
By Naomi Klein
The Guardian U.K.
Saturday 04 December 2004
You asked for my evidence, Mr. Ambassador. Here it is.
David T. Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London
Dear Mr. Johnson,
On November 26, your press counsellor sent a
letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a
sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence
read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates
are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian
targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors,
clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies."
Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless"
and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or
provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation".
It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly
involve themselves in the free press of a foreign
country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But
while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no
intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the
evidence you requested.
In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in
retaliation for the gruesome killings of four
Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure,
with US troops eventually handing the city back to
resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was
that the siege had sparked uprisings across the
country, triggered by reports that hundreds of
civilians had been killed. This information came from
three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on
April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were
gathered from four main clinics around the city and
from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV
journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of
dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a
human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera
crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of
mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.
US authorities have denied that hundreds of
civilians were killed during last April's siege, and
have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For
instance, an unnamed "senior American officer",
speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled
Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But
the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV
networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's
reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in
Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence,
replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious,
inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops
once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the
attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.
Eliminating Doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi
soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital,
arresting doctors and placing the facility under
military control. The New York Times reported that
"the hospital was selected as an early target because
the American military believed that it was the source
of rumours about heavy casualties", noting that "this
time around, the American military intends to fight
its own information war, countering or squelching what
has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons".
The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that
the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital
- preventing doctors from communicating with the
outside world.
But this was not the worst of the attacks on
health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency
health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a
medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami
al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the
bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35
patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the
manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US
general the location of the downtown makeshift medical
centre" before it was hit.
Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed
accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate
many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr
Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is
not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved
to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the
city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control
of the al-Zaharawi hospital.
Eliminating Journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came
almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US
troops. This is because Arab journalists who had
covered April's siege from the civilian perspective
had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no
cameras on the ground because it has been banned from
reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have
faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces
invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command
urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city.
Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with
their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed
al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq
Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave
the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine
hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network
Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US
soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's
family, which alleges that US forces were well aware
that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that
they committed a war crime.
Eliminating Clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been
targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have
spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja.
On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of
the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was
arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei
has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a
civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government
does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19,
AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a
prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya,
killing three people and arresting 40, including the
chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege.
On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops
also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian
border". The report described the arrests as
"retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two
Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also
been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both
had spoken out against the Falluja attack".
"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy
Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what
happens to the people who insist on counting the
bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients
dead, the journalists who document these losses, the
clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is
mounting that these voices are being systematically
silenced through a variety of means, from mass
arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt
and unexplained physical attacks.
Mr. Ambassador, I believe that your government and
its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One
war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.
Count the Dead
By Naomi Klein
The Guardian U.K.
Saturday 04 December 2004
You asked for my evidence, Mr. Ambassador. Here it is.
David T. Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London
Dear Mr. Johnson,
On November 26, your press counsellor sent a
letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a
sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence
read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates
are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian
targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors,
clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies."
Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless"
and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or
provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation".
It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly
involve themselves in the free press of a foreign
country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But
while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no
intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the
evidence you requested.
In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in
retaliation for the gruesome killings of four
Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure,
with US troops eventually handing the city back to
resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was
that the siege had sparked uprisings across the
country, triggered by reports that hundreds of
civilians had been killed. This information came from
three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on
April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were
gathered from four main clinics around the city and
from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV
journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of
dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a
human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera
crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of
mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.
US authorities have denied that hundreds of
civilians were killed during last April's siege, and
have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For
instance, an unnamed "senior American officer",
speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled
Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But
the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV
networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's
reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in
Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence,
replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious,
inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops
once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the
attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.
Eliminating Doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi
soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital,
arresting doctors and placing the facility under
military control. The New York Times reported that
"the hospital was selected as an early target because
the American military believed that it was the source
of rumours about heavy casualties", noting that "this
time around, the American military intends to fight
its own information war, countering or squelching what
has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons".
The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that
the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital
- preventing doctors from communicating with the
outside world.
But this was not the worst of the attacks on
health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency
health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a
medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami
al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the
bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35
patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the
manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US
general the location of the downtown makeshift medical
centre" before it was hit.
Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed
accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate
many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr
Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is
not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved
to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the
city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control
of the al-Zaharawi hospital.
Eliminating Journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came
almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US
troops. This is because Arab journalists who had
covered April's siege from the civilian perspective
had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no
cameras on the ground because it has been banned from
reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have
faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces
invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command
urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city.
Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with
their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed
al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq
Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave
the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine
hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network
Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US
soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's
family, which alleges that US forces were well aware
that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that
they committed a war crime.
Eliminating Clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been
targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have
spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja.
On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of
the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was
arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei
has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a
civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government
does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19,
AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a
prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya,
killing three people and arresting 40, including the
chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege.
On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops
also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian
border". The report described the arrests as
"retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two
Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also
been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both
had spoken out against the Falluja attack".
"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy
Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what
happens to the people who insist on counting the
bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients
dead, the journalists who document these losses, the
clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is
mounting that these voices are being systematically
silenced through a variety of means, from mass
arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt
and unexplained physical attacks.
Mr. Ambassador, I believe that your government and
its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One
war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.
