corrente

This morning I heard a reporter on the NPR program Day To Day report that the "coalition" had concluded its succesful assault on Samarra, which has included aerial bombardment - that is bombing from the air a crowded city with crowded residential areas. Next up, according to this report, all the other "no-go"zones, otherwise known as cities like Najaf anf Fallujah, and Baghdad.

Riverbend responds with a post titled, Samarra Burning.

Watching the military attacks on Samarra and hearing the stories from displaced families or people from around the area is like reliving the frustration and anger of the war. It's like a nightmare within a nightmare, seeing the corpses pile up and watching people drag their loved ones from under the bricks and steel of what was once a home. To top it off, we have to watch American military spokespersons and our new Iraqi politicians justify the attacks and talk about 'insurgents' and 'terrorists' like they actually believe what they are saying... like hundreds of civilians aren't being massacred on a daily basis by the worlds most advanced military technology.

As if Allawi's gloating and Bush's inane debates aren't enough, we have to listen to people like Powell and Rumsfeld talk about "precision attacks". What exactly are precision attacks?! How can you be precise in a city like Samarra or in the slums of Sadir City on the outskirts of Baghdad? Many of the areas under attack are small, heavily populated, with shabby homes several decades old. In Sadir City, many of the houses are close together and the streets are narrow. Just how precise can you be with missiles and tanks? We got a first-hand view of America's "smart weapons". They were smart enough to kill over 10,000 Iraqis in the first few months of the occupation.

The explosions in Baghdad aren't any better. A few days ago, some 40 children were blown to pieces while they were gathering candy from American soldiers at the opening of a sewage treatment plant. (Side note: That's how bad things have gotten- we have to celebrate the reconstruction of our sewage treatment plants).

Obviously there's more, all of it deeply disturbing; force yourself to read it, anyway. And then read this article about the reaction of ordinary Iraqis to the bombs that were loosed by some form of the insurgency, killing forty children who had gathered the "celebration" Riverbend references. The title more or less says it all: Iraqis Blame U.S. for Massacre of Children. Their reaction might not be entirely fair, but its entirely understandable.

"The Americans are the first terrorists and the people who carried out the attack are the second terrorists," he added. It was the largest number of children killed in any single insurgent attack since the conflict erupted 17 months ago.

Al-Badri's is a common lament here. Confronted by daily bombings, kidnappings, deadly crossfires and soaring violent crime, many Iraqis blame most of their ills on the Americans. Many say that they and their children would not be dying today had the U.S. not invaded their country 17 months ago.

Any wonder that, as Lambert reports, Saddam might actually win a democratic election these days. How can any American think we can "win" anything of lasting value in terms of getting ourselves out of Iraq and not leaving it in some kind of hellish chaos from this?

A US military commander said Sunday he estimated that 10 percent of the dead were civilians while local hospital officials said that percentage may be much higher.

Ambulances guarded by US military vehicles were going around Samarra to collect the bodies of the dead, while Iraqi national guardsmen roamed the streets in pickup trucks or stood at intersections.

Many buildings in the city's commercial district were either riddled with bullets or partially destroyed, the streets littered with burnt out vehicles.

Despite the bloodshed and destruction, Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said the mission was the most successful to date, and hinted at more action to regain control of no-go areas ahead of the January 2005 elections.

But a leading Sunni Muslim religious group blasted the Samarra operation calling it a "massacre" and warned the interim government that its US-influenced strategy will plunge the country into more chaos.

"Who is going to respect elections paved by the blood of Iraqis and built on their skulls?" asked Sheikh Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi, spokesman for the respected Committee of Muslim Scholars, during a press conference at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque.

US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice praised the US-Iraqi cooperation in the operation.

Or this:

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces tightened their grip on a rebel-held city on Sunday in the first step of a campaign to take back all of Iraq but ignited complaints about the cost in lives and suffering.

Aid organizations said they were concerned about a lack of water and power in the city of Samarra and the fate of hundreds of families forced to flee. Questions arose also about the number of civilians killed.

A man who gave his name only as Abu Qa'qa, and who said he had fled Samarra on Sunday, told reporters in Baghdad he had seen stray dogs picking at corpses in the street. He said he had seen several incidents of civilians being killed.

"I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman," he said.

His report could not be independently verified.

Also on Sunday, a hospital near Baghdad said it had received the bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, found by police on Saturday. The man had been beheaded with a sword and the woman shot in the head.

Neither carried any identification and doctors in the town of Mahmudiya said only that their features looked Western.

Around 3,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers stormed Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on Friday, determined to rid the city of its insurgent population.

"This has been a successful operation ... We're very confident that the future of Samarra is good," Major-General John Batiste, the commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, which led the assault on Samarra, told CNN.

The U.S. military has vowed to take back all rebel strongholds before the end of the year, ahead of elections due in January.

What a shame that no reporter ever thinks of asking Ms Rise a question like, "Who is going to respect elections paved by the blood of Iraqis and built on their skulls?"