By James Cogan, wsws.org9 November 2004
https://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/iraq-n09.shtmlexcerpt:
There is no reliable estimate of how many Iraqi fighters and civilians, or US soldiers, are already dead and wounded. Apart from scattered and limited reports, there will be virtually no independent media coverage of the offensive or the conduct of the American forces. Few journalists are inside or near the city. The bulk of what is being published in the printed media is based on US military press releases and statements, or the censored reports of journalists embedded with American units. The bulk of what is being broadcast consists of what the US military has permitted to be filmed.
Censorship was the primary motive for seizing the Fallujah hospital before the major operation began. The American military wants to be able to prevent Iraqi doctors from speaking to the media about how many civilian casualties they are treating.
The Bush administration, along with its puppet Iraqi interim government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, claim that Fallujah is being stormed in order to “liberate” the city from “terrorists” and “foreign fighters” commanded by Al Qaeda-aligned extremist Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi.
These claims are crude slanders and deserve contempt. After months of US officials declaring they had firm information, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld replied to a direct question yesterday as to whether he knew Zarqawi was in Fallujah with the answer: “I have no idea if he is there.” Iraqis have consistently denied Zarqawi is in the city. To the extent men from neighbouring Arab countries have come to Fallujah to fight, it is overwhelmingly to assist the Iraqis defend themselves against the real foreign invaders—the US military.
In the areas of Europe that the Nazis occupied during World War II, the type of homicidal policy guiding the US assault on Fallujah was called “exemplary punishment”. The Bush administration, with the support of the Democrats and the American media establishment, intends to reduce the city to rubble, and to kill or imprison its defenders, in order to make Fallujah an example to other rebellious areas of the consequences of opposing the occupation.
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