Raul Mahajan is reporting on war crimes committed in Fallujah. Who will speak out?
Report from Baghdad
by Rahul Mahajan
April 19, 2004
NOTE: Doctors from four hospitals in Baghdad were interviewed in compiling this report; all asked that their names be left out.
Baghdad, Iraq -- "Why do you keep asking about the closing of the Fallujah hospital?" my Iraqi translator asks in exasperation. I explain that this is big news, and it hasn't really been reported in English. He looks at me, incredulous; all Iraqis know about it.
When the United States began the siege of Fallujah, it targeted civilians in several ways. The power station was bombed; perhaps even more important, the bridge across the Euphrates was closed. Fallujah's main hospital stands on the western bank of the river; almost the entirety of the town is on the east side. Although the hospital was not technically closed, no doctor who actually believes in the Hippocratic oath is going to sit in an empty hospital while people are dying in droves on the other bank of the river. So the doctors shut down the hospital, took the limited supplies and equipment they could carry, and started working at a small three-room outpatient clinic, doing operations on the ground and losing patients because of the inadequacy of the setup. This event was not reported in English until April 14, when the bridge was reopened. ...
By any reasonable standard, these hospital closings (and, of course, the shooting at ambulances) are war crimes. However afraid the Plus Ultra garrison may have been of attack from the rooftops, they didn't have to close the hospital; they could simply have screened entrants. In the case of Fallujah, it's clear that one of the reasons the mujahideen were willing to talk about ceasefire was to get the hospital open again; in effect, the United States was holding civilians (indirectly) hostage for military ends.
After an earlier article about attacks on ambulances, many people wrote to ask why U.S. forces would do this -- it conflicted with the image they wanted to have of the U.S. military. Were they just trying to massacre civilians? And, if so, why?
In fact, it's fairly simple: the United States has its military goals and simply does not care how many Iraqi civilians have to be killed in order tomaximize the military efficiency of their operations. A senior British army commander recently criticized the Americans for viewing the Iraqis as Untermenschen -- a lower order of human being. He also said the average soldier views all Iraqis as enemies or potential enemies. That is precisely the case. I have heard the same thing from dozens of people here -- "They don't care what happens to Iraqis." ...