April 22, 2004
Deafining Silence on Fallujah Massacre
Michel Chossudovsky

While the Western media highlights the death and "kidnapping" of paid mercenaries, on contract to Western security firms, there is a deafening silence on the massacre of more than 700 civilians in Fallujah by coalition forces.

While the Western media highlights the death and "kidnapping" of paid mercenaries, on contract to Western security firms, there is a deafening silence on the massacre of more than 700 civilians in Fallujah by coalition forces.

The operation in Fallujah is casually described by the Bush administration as "a crackdown" against extremists:

"This violence we've seen is a part of a few people trying to stop the progress toward democracy. Fallujah, south of Baghdad, these incidents were basically thrust upon the innocent Iraqi people by gangs, violent gangs." (President Bush, 11 April 2004)

According to CNN, an unduly high death toll was the unfortunate result of the "rules of engagement", which required leading a military operation against insurgents in a densely populated urban area. The civilians were said to have been caught in the cross-fire.

The US military claims that most of the deaths were insurgents, an assertion which is refuted by statements emanating from the hospitals and by several eye-witness reports:

"We’ve been seeing it with our own eyes. People were told to leave Fallujah and now there are thousands trapped in the desert. There is a 13 km long convoy of people trying to reach Baghdad. The Americans are firing bombs, everything, everything they have on them. They are firing on families! They are all children, old men and women in the desert. Other Iraqi people are trying to help them. In Falluja the US military have been bombing hospitals. Children are being evacuated to Baghdad. There is a child now, a baby, he had 25 members of his family killed, he’s in the hospital and someone needs to be with him ... The Americans are dropping cluster bombs. They are bombing from the air. There are people lying dead in the streets. They said there’d be a ceasefire and then they flew in, I saw them, and they began to bomb. They are fighting back and they are fighting well in Falluja. But we are expecting the big attack in 24-48 hours. It will be the main attack. They will be taking the town street by street and searching and attacking. They did this already in a village near-by. Please get help, get people to protest, get them to go to the Embassies, get them out, get them to do something. There is a massacre" (Eyewitness Report from Fallujah, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/JAS404A.html )

"During the course of the roughly four hours we were at that small clinic, we saw perhaps a dozen wounded brought in. Among them was a young woman, 18 years old, shot in the head.... Doctors did not expect her to survive the night. Another likely terminal case was a young boy with massive internal bleeding. I also saw a man with extensive burns on his upper body and shredded thighs, with wounds that could have been from a cluster bomb" (See http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAH404A.html )

Coalition forces, using their own snipers equipped with precision rifles on rooftops, are targeting women and children. Ambulances carrying the wounded are being targeted by the US Marines:

"The most horrible brutality was the targeting of ambulances which carried pregnant women who were about to give birth. There were tens of bodies which are still under debris and we could not arrive at the places as US snipers prevented people from getting them out." (quoted in Al Jazeera, press conference of Dr Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi, 16 April 2004, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6B0698D9-3C9D-4CB8-9275-10ECD0D46565.htm )

The killings were ordered by the US military. Tens of thousands of refugees have fled the city. The various member states of the occupying forces including Italy and Japan, are responsible alongside the US-UK coalition, for these massacres, in accordance with international law and the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NUR203A.html ).

The Security firms are also involved in the killing of civilians. Western and Iraqi sources confirm the presence of some 1500 private mercenaries working alongside and/or collaborating with the coalition forces.

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