Tag: iraq

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April in Iraq

“But Iraq has — have got people there that are willing to kill, and they’re hard-nosed killers. And we will work with the Iraqis to secure their future. A free Iraq in the midst of the Middle East is an important part of spreading peace. It’s a region of the world where a lot of folks in the past never thought democracy could take hold. Democracy is taking hold. And as democracy takes hold, peace will more likely be the norm.”

–Bush, press conference, April 28, 2005

Killed in April:

–51 U.S. troops, including 11 in the month’s final three days. The total for March and April is the lowest two-month toll since February and March 2004, immediately before the Shiite uprisings in Baghdad and elsewhere. The total number of U.S. soldiers who’ve died in the Iraq war is now 1,586.

–501 Iraqi civilians, police and military. The breakdown: 302 civilians, 199 police officers and troops. Those are rough numbers compiled by Iraq Coalition Casualties and don’t include any accounting of insurgent deaths; nor do they resolve uncorroborated casualty reports.

–At least 20 foreign contract workers, from Australia, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Fiji, the Philippines, and the United States.

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Dead in Iraq

I didn’t pay much attention to the news last weekend about the death in an insurgent attack of Marla Ruzicka in Iraq. Ruzicka came from Lakeport, one of the towns on Clear Lake, about 75 miles northeast of San Francisco. She had dedicated herself over the last couple of years to a campaign that aims to make the United States account for civilian casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She would have turned 29 this year.

What finally made me pay attention to her story was a column this morning by Bob Herbert in The New York Times. He talks about Ruzicka’s organization, The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict and its aims.

“Tim Rieser, [an aide to Senator Patrick Leahy], said: ‘She came here as a very sort of naïve antiwar protestor, really, and became someone who was extraordinarily effective at putting politics aside – not trying to cast blame, but rather working with everyone from U.S. military officers to the Congress and others on how to actually help people. She was out there doing something that all of us knew was really needed, but that was too dangerous for most people to want to do, or be willing to do.’

What she was doing was stunningly simple and modest, in a way. She died trying to lift the veil that’s been drawn — that we’ve allowed to be drawn — across the reality of the war we’re fighting. The human price among our own troops is largely hidden — photographing the caskets of the slain is prohibited, and the awful injuries suffered in battle are largely invisible to us. There’s virtually no discussion of the ongoing toll among the people of Iraq. On one hand, Ruzicka was trying to get the government to acknowledge information she knew existed: statistics on civilian casualties; and on the other, she was trying to get help for victims and survivors.

On the accountability side, Ruzicka was making some headway. In an op-ed piece on the USA Today site, written just before she died, Ruzicka said:

“Recently, I obtained statistics on civilian casualties from a high-ranking U.S. military official. The numbers were for Baghdad only, for a short period, during a relatively quiet time. Other hot spots, such as the Ramadi and Mosul areas, could prove worse. The statistics showed that 29 civilians were killed by small-arms fire during firefights between U.S. troops and insurgents between Feb. 28 and April 5 — four times the number of Iraqi police killed in the same period. It is not clear whether the bullets that killed these civilians were fired by U.S. troops or insurgents. …

“… These statistics demonstrate that the U.S. military can and does track civilian casualties. Troops on the ground keep these records because they recognize they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it is in their interest to minimize mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is a key component of their strategy. The military should also want to release this information for the purposes of comparison with reports such as the Lancet study published late last year. It suggested that since the U.S.-led invasion there had been 100,000 deaths in Iraq.

“A further step should be taken. In my dealings with U.S. military officials here, they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths and injuries of civilians. Systematically recording and publicly releasing civilian casualty numbers would assist in helping the victims who survive to piece their lives back together.

A number is important not only to quantify the cost of war, but as a reminder of those whose dreams will never be realized in a free and democratic Iraq.

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Iraq by the Numbers

The Iraq Coalition Casualties Web site offers a glimpse at a dimension of the human toll often missing from U.S. reporting on the war. For last month, the site’s operators compiled all the stray day-in, day-out reports of violence around Iraq and tallied casualties among Iraqi civilians and members of the Iraqi security forces. As the site cautions, it’s not a complete list, just what folks could scrape together from a careful reading of daily news wires.

The toll reported for March was 440, including 240 civilians and 200 military. The compilation continues this month.

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Over There

Iraq — let us not forget Iraq.

Is the news good or bad? Well, it depends. In March 2005, fewer U.S. troops have been killed (32, 35, as of this writing) than in any month since February 2004, when 20 died. That’s good, and I list it first only because the impression one gets is that there are few hard, dependable facts in the Land Between Two Rivers. Our casualty list is one.

Most days, I still scan the headlines on the Iraq Coalition Casualties site. Maybe that’s part of the reason I have an ongoing unease about what’s happening over there even as the war has been pushed into the background here. The current lineup of items starts with this news from the Pentagon:

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

“Pfc. Samuel S. Lee, 19, of Anaheim, Calif., died March 28 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, from non-combat related injuries. Lee was assigned to 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Greaves, Korea.”

The rest of today’s headlines from the page:

–Reuters: U.S. Citizen Kidnapped in Iraq with Three Romanians

–AP: Mississippi soldier loses legs, three others wounded in Iraq

–Ark City Traveler: Winfield soldier still recovering

–DOD: Troop-Strength Assessment in Iraq Expected This Summer

–KUNA: U.S. questions UN conclusions on malnutrition among Iraqi children

–CENTCOM: MARINE KILLED IN ACTION

–KUNA: Four killed, three wounded in booby-trapped car in Mosul

–MEMRI: Kirkuk: Between Kurdish Separatism and Iraqi Federalism

–CENTCOM: MQ-1 PREDATOR CRASHES IN IRAQ

–AP: Accused Soldier Has Hearing Postponed

–KUNA: Two Iraqis killed in separate incidents

–DOD: Joint Repair Facility Extends Robot Lives

–Reuters: Syria demands Iraq release two accused of spying

–Reuters: Six Iraqis killed as insurgents battle US troops

–DemocracyNow: Halliburton Employee Says He Was Gang-Beaten By Co-Workers

–Anatolia: 36 Iraqis In Baghdad have AIDS – Health Ministry

–Stars and Stripes: 31st MEU arriving in Okinawa Saturday

–KUNA: Two Iraqis killed in blast

–AP: Nearly twice as many Iraqi children going hungry since Saddam’s ouster

–MOD: British soldier was found dead

–AP: Car bomb in Baghdad kills one; attackers fire on Shiite pilgrims

–National Guard and Reserve Mobilized as of March 30, 2005

–USA TODAY: Tanks take a beating in Iraq

–AP: Number of prisoners held by U-S in Iraq doubled in five months

–AFP: Seven Iraqis killed in attacks

–Beacon News: Wounded GI gets much-needed help

–aljazeerah: One American, Three Romanians Kidnapped

–WorldNow: Local Soldier Severely Injured

–KUNA: Up to 2,000 soldiers join Iraqi army in Khout

–irib: US Forces Wound Iraqi Basketball Federation Head

–newstandardnews: Rise of Extremism, Islamic Law Threaten Iraqi Women

–RFE: Iraqi Army More Visible On Baghdad Streets

–iribnews: Iraq closes border checkpoint

Whatever the reality is, all that accounts for just a fragment. Not a comforting fragment, though. (And, of all the stories above, here’s the one I’d check out first: The tale of the Halliburton worker from New Mexico who was reportedly beaten so badly by fellow employees that he’ll need to be evacuated to an Army facility in Germany for treatment. The story suggests the motive was racial — the victim is Latino, the assailants are part of a group from Louisiana that the story refers to as a “redneck Mafia.”)

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Making Up for Good Intentions

I, and many other bloggers, wrote earlier this year about an incident in which a U.S. Army patrol fired on a car in Iraq that carried a mother, father, and six children. The parents were killed and one of the kids was badly wounded. What made this incident different from many other accidental (or reckless) shootings during the course of the war was the presence of a press photographer, Chris Hondros of Getty Images, who recorded the horror of the scene. Newsweek has a story in its current issue on the shooting’s extraordinarily unhappy aftermath.

I see this evening, by way of Mark Frauenfelder on BoingBoing, that a group of people in the Seattle area has set up a relief fund for the family, the Hassans (the parents left nine children behind; the boy wounded in the attack suffered spinal injuries and could be permanently paralyzed unless he gets access to expensive medical treatment unavailable in Iraq). The fund has been organized under the auspices of an Anglican church group and a tech consulting firm, and is taking donations by mail or via PayPal. Check out the relief fund page for yourself.

Perhaps the fund is just our typical Yank gesture: We’re so sorry we killed your parents; let us give you some cash. On the other hand, it’s a small way of trying to set right the damage wrought by all our highly principled, well-intentioned violence.

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Making Friends, Influencing People: Iraq Edition

A friend and fellow Land of Lincoln native, Ayla Jean Yackley (she hails from Ottawa, on the banks of the mighty Illinois River), has been working as a correspondent for Reuters in Turkey (her mom’s family is Turkish, I think, and Ayla speaks the language) for several years. She passed on a press release yesterday from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists about an ugly incident involving U.S. soldiers, three Reuters employees, and an NBC photographer near Fallujah last year. According to the release (and Reuters offers a similar account, too):

“The three Reuters employees, along with Ali Mohammed Hussein al-Badrani, a cameraman working for NBC, were covering the aftermath of the downing of a U.S. helicopter when they were detained by U.S. troops on Jan. 2, 2004. The four were taken to a U.S. base near Fallujah and released three days later without charge.

“The Reuters employees allege that while detained, they were beaten and deprived of sleep. They said they were forced to make demeaning gestures as soldiers laughed, taunted them, and took photographs, Reuters has reported. Two alleged they were forced to put shoes in their mouths, and to insert a finger into their anus and then lick it.”

The news from both Reuters and the CPJ release was that the Pentagon, which never interviewed the men who made the allegations, has decided that it’s satisfied with its investigation and is dropping the matter.

Now, in a place where so many have died such awful deaths, this is not an example of the worst savagery of the Iraq war. But what’s just as disturbing as the original allegations is the Pentagon’s apparent complacency about this kind of behavior in the ranks.

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Benefit of the Doubt

Today’s New York Times is running a John Burns story on shootings at U.S. security checkpoints in Iraq, like the one late last week that nearly turned a freed Italian captive into a freed dead Italian captive. So, while the dust settles on that incident — our troops say they followed all the rules before firing on a car they regarded as suspicious; survivors from the car deny anything happened to arouse suspicion — the Times takes a look at other episodes in which apparently innocent people have wound up dead, wounded, or scared witless.

The article ends with a discussion of a widely reported January incident in which an American patrol accompanied by a press photographer opened fire on a car carrying a father, mother, four of their children, and two other kids. The parents were killed; except for seeing their dad’s head blown off and their mom riddled with bullets, the children were unharmed. Burns’s story concludes with an account from the photographer, Getty Images’ Chris Hondros:

“Back at a base in Tal Afar, the soldiers and Mr. Hondros filled out forms with their observations on the incident. The company commander told the soldiers that there would be an investigation, but that they had followed the rules of engagement and that they should tell the truth, Mr. Hondros said. ‘I’ll stick up for you,’ the captain told the soldiers, Mr. Hondros recalled. He said the platoon involved in the incident had been engaged in an intense firefight with insurgents in Tal Afar two days before the incident. ‘It was a jangling experience,’ he said.”

What gets me about these incidents, besides the wanton waste of life, is our forces’ attitude toward what I guess I’d call consequences. It’s great that these soldiers’ captain said he’d stick up for them. But where in this situation is the one who’s sticking up for this family, who’s up front acknowledging responsibility and acknowledging that we have a double-homicide on our hands? (No — the usual canned statement of regret doesn’t work. Neither does patting the kids on the head and saying we’re sorry.)

Yes, the people who concocted this war for us have sent our troops into a situation that is a) next to impossible to handle cleanly and b) one for which they appear to be ill trained to handle with anything other than force. But even given that, how is it that whatever happens, whoever dies, our troops get the benefit of the doubt nearly every time while the hapless Iraqis and others who wander into their gunsights almost never do? How do we think this looks to the people who know they’re going to be shot at if they make the wrong move; who know that if they’re killed, well, that’s just the breaks and at least Saddam Hussein didn’t do it?

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1-800 MARINES

What a week for the Marines Corps: Remembering one of its most storied moments, the Iwo Jima flag raising; trying to figure out why its suicide rate is up; and shelling out big bucks to keep the ranks full.

The New York Times, among others, reports on the Marine Corps offering big re-enlistment bonuses as recruiting gets tougher. The drop in recruitment is due partly to lack of enthusiasm for “Crazyworld,” as some soldiers have been known to call Iraq, and partly to the fact some troops who would normally be doing recruiting have been sent to war zones instead.

In a reflection of the difficult market for Marine recruiters, the service offers bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is unusual about these incentives is that the Marines Corps for the first time is offering re-enlistment bonuses, averaging $20,000, to its most junior infantrymen, rather than relying mainly on inexperienced troops fresh from boot camp to replenish the infantry. About 75 percent of enlisted marines leave the service after their first tour, requiring a steady stream of recruits moving through training centers in San Diego and Parris Island, S.C.

The reports on the bonuses include this priceless quote from Marine Corps commandant General Michael W. Hagee: “We need infantrymen. That’s what we’re using over there on the ground.”

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Yesterday’s News

Remember during November’s big fight in Fallujah when NBC videojournalist/independent blogger Kevin Sites filmed a Marine shooting a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi insurgent? Some denounced the shooting as little more than murder, many more denounced Sites as little more than a traitor, and the military announced … it would investigate. Big controversy.

That was all of three and a half months ago, and the incident has been mostly forgotten. The Marine is reportedly at Camp Pendleton. Kevin Sites left Iraq and covered the tsunami aftermath in Southeast Asia (and won an award earlier this week for his blog). And the military either has or has not come to a conclusion about whether the shooting was justified.

Two days ago, CBS News reported that Navy investigators “believe the situation is ambiguous enough that no prosecutor could get a conviction.” Thus, CBS said, he wouldn’t be charged in the shooting. Thursday, the Marines rushed to deny the report and issued statements that the investigation hasn’t been completed and no decision on charges has been made one way or the other. But the denials aren’t directly contradicting the CBS report if you read them carefully: They emphasize that the inquiry isn’t finished, which the CBS story also acknowledges. And the CBS story adds that regardless of the decision on a homicide or war-crimes prosecution, the Marine could still face some sort of internal sanctions from the Corps.

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Back to Business as Usual

Thank [your deity here], we’re done with the Iraq vote. Now we can back to the really important stuff: The 9 a.m. (Pacific) CBS radio news led with Michael Jackson arriving at the courthouse as jury selection began for his trial on child-molestation charges. In the correspondent’s breathless report, you could hear the throngs screaming in the background.

In San Francisco, meantime, people actually protested the Iraq vote and, I guess, the way it’s being portrayed. It’s all well and good to point out all the conditions that made the event less than the dawn of full-fledged democracy in Iraq: martial law, the heavy military presence, the polling places that didn’t open, et cetera. But it’s a losing proposition, in PR and human terms, to demonstrate against the vote. Regardless of all the flaws, regardless of the long-term meaning, regardless of our government’s untruths in leading us into the war and its calamitously misguided actions in conducting it, when given the opportunity, a group of people who have suffered a degree of oppression we glimpse only in nightmares got a chance to change their future and jumped at it (one view of the event from The New York Times’s John Burns; and another from Salon, hardly a friend of the Iraq project). In my mind, that’s something to be celebrated, no matter how angry I happen to be about what has led us to this point and how much doubt I entertain about the future course of events there.

And in Iraq today, things are going back to business as usual, too. The insurgency is still on. Several U.S. troops have been killed in combat. I’m sure that soon it will be apparent that, in terms of creating a new government and new political reality in Iraq, yesterday was the easy part.