- Despite the attempts of the Bush administration and international
media to claim the capture of Saddam Hussein as a major breakthrough in
suppressing armed resistance, events on the ground in Iraq speak otherwise.
As the attacks on US troops and Iraqi collaborators continue unabated,
the response of the US military has been to intensify its heavy-handed
repression aimed at terrorising the Iraqi people into submission.
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- Just days after Hussein's detention, some 2,500 US soldiers
sealed off Samarra, a city of 200,000 people, in the early hours of December
17 and set about smashing their way into homes and factories in search
of "insurgents". It was a classic reprisal raid, not unlike those
carried out by Israeli troops against the Palestinian population, or for
that matter by the Nazis against villages and towns accused of harbouring
resistance fighters in occupied Europe.
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- The Pentagon identified Samarra as a "hotspot"
after two separate US convoys were ambushed simultaneously on November
30. American troops responded and claimed to have scored "a significant
victory" by killing 54 of the attackers. However, journalists who
later questioned hospital staff and local residents, found an entirely
different story: that US soldiers had fired indiscriminately, killing nine
civilians including a child and an elderly Iranian pilgrim, and wounding
others.
-
- On December 15, US troops were ambushed again. Military
spokesmen claimed that 11 "insurgents" had been killed, but like
the earlier clash, failed to produce any evidence. According to veteran
Middle East journalist Robert Fisk, the only dead man to be found was a
vegetable seller. The following day, American soldiers raided a nearby
village and detained more than 70 people, including an alleged rebel commander
Qais Hatten.
-
- December 17's huge operation, however, was clearly planned
well in advance. US military planners decided the city had to be taught
a lesson. Or as Lieutenant Colonel Nate Sassaman told the media afterward:
"Samarra has been a little bit of a thorn in our side. It hasn't come
along as quickly as other cities in the rebuilding of Iraq. This operation
is designed to bring them up to speed."
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- Operation Ivy Blizzard began at 2 a.m. Troops from the
Army's 4th Infantry Division, backed by Apache attack helicopters and F-16
fighters, blocked the main routes and poured into the city. "Using
sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives and armoured vehicles, US forces smashed
down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards to attack
the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein,"
Associated Press reported.
-
- According to other accounts, US troops detonated plastic
explosives to break open doors. In one of the city's industrial areas,
the military used Bradley Fighting Vehicles to ram through the doors of
warehouses and workshops. US military officials cited by the Los Angeles
Times described the operation as a "robust response" to insurgents
in Samarra. Others explained that a force of some 1,500 fighters was conducting
attacks on US troops as well as police and civilians working for the US
occupation authorities.
-
- In a sinister development, hooded men described as "Iraqi
civil corpsmen" accompanied the US troops. One of them told the Los
Angeles Times: "This is a tribal town, and everyone knows everyone
else. If someone knows who I am, they will surely try to kill me as a collaborator.
The resistance is everywhere here." While he did not explain his role
in the operation, the obvious function of such Iraqi militia is to finger
and interrogate suspected "insurgents".
-
- The US soldiers had been primed for the task. Staff Sergeant
Tome Walker told the press: "They hyped this place like it was the
Wild West. We heard there were two factions of foreign fighters, and Fedayeen
Saddam [Hussein's paramilitary forces]. We haven't seen it yet. Maybe later
in the week." By the end of the day, 86 people had been detained,
just 12 of whom were on the US list of targets, and a cache containing
200 automatic rifles and some bomb-making material had been uncovered.
-
- According to the US military, several civilians were
wounded but no one was killed. But as on previous occasions, this bland
statement proved to be a mixture of lies and callous indifference to the
suffering, not to speak of the anger and resentment, which had been caused.
A dispatch by Robert Fisk entitled "Shooting Samarra's schoolboys
in the back" reported at least one fatality-a taxi driver Amer Baghdadi
who was shot dead by US troops. Other casualties were in the Samarra hospital.
-
- Maouloud Hussein, 31, was shot in the back as he tried
to shepherd his family into the back room of their house. His brother Hamid
Hussein angrily declared: "You said you would bring us freedom and
democracy but what are we supposed to think? My neighbour, the Americans
took him in front of his wife and two children and tied his hands behind
his back, and then, a few hours later, after all this humiliation, they
came and told his wife to take all her most expensive things and they put
explosives in their house and blew it up. He is a farmer. He is innocent.
What have we done to deserve this?"
-
- Issam Naim Hamid, 17, was in the emergency ward with
a bullet wound to his stomach. His mother, Manal, explained that US troops
had come to their home at around 3 a.m. and fired through the gate. As
the family huddled for protection, one of the bullets hit Issam and another
hit his father who was in a serious condition in Tikrit hospital. Manal
was terrified that they would bleed to death as the US troops refused to
allow anyone to leave the house for several hours.
-
- In a separate interview with the Los Angeles Times, Manal,
a teacher, denounced the heavy-handed methods of the US military. "The
best thing America can do for us is go home and let us take care of our
own security. This will only make the resistance stronger... How can the
Americans treat us this way? Where is the democracy they promised us?"
she asked.
-
- Asked to comment on the impact of the operation on civilians,
Colonel Frederick Rudesheim, commander of one of the 4th Infantry Division's
combat teams, was completely unapologetic. "Certainly we've inconvenienced
a number of citizens of Samarra. But these same citizens are the ones who've
been living for months with terrorists among them," he said.
-
- Rudesheim's comments reveal the logic behind Operation
Ivy Blizzard. It is not only the resistance groups that are being blamed
for the attacks on US troops. All of the city's residents, "who've
been living for months with terrorists," are being held responsible.
The response was a form of collective punishment, aimed at intimidating
and terrorising the city as a whole. The US military is increasingly resorting
to such methods to pacify a population that is becoming more and more hostile
to the neo-colonial occupation of the country.
-
- It is significant that the US military has singled out
Samarra for special attention. Prior to the US invasion, the city and its
tribal leaders were regarded as anti-Hussein-traditionally it had been
a rival to Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. As Ali Hussein, 35-year-old labourer,
exclaimed to the press: "Saddam accused us of being against him, and
now the Americans accuse us of being with Saddam." If Samarra has
now become a "hotbed", it is one more indication of the extent
of the opposition to the US occupation.
-
- The US military claims that there has been a significant
decline in the level of attacks in Samarra. The city has been placed under
an 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew. The arrests have continued. Any lull, however,
is dependent on the presence of large numbers of US troops and is therefore
only temporary. One "insurgent" told the Washington Post: "There
is a total siege of the city. They are all over the streets. If we hit
them, people are bound to get hurt. If one shot is fired, the whole street
will be shot up."
-
- Elsewhere, the anti-US attacks and American reprisals
continue unabated. Over the weekend, guerrillas struck oil storage tanks
in southern Baghdad, blew up a pipeline in the al-Mashahda area north of
the capital and fired a rocket-propelled grenade on a US military convoy
in Mosul. The US military continued its raids and house-to-house searches
in Fallujah and Rawah, as well as Samarra.
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