Fallujah, Iraq: an unnatural disaster

Catholic New Times, July 3, 2005 by Joe Carr

Fallujah is a devastating city to drive through. There is more destruction and rubble than I've ever seen; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The U.S. and coalition forces have leveled entire neighborhoods, and every third building has been destroyed or damaged from air-to-ground assaults. The city looks as if it's been hit by a series of tornados. Rubble and bullet holes are everywhere.

We visited a family's home in a neighborhood where every structure was damaged or destroyed. The home was full of holes and black inside from fire. They said that they'd left during the fighting with their home intact, and returned to find all of their possessions burned. Three families, more than twenty-five people, now live in this three-room burned-out shell of a home, including four infants.

U.S. checkpoints continue to strangle the city. One shopkeeper said that farmers from around Fallujah can no longer deliver their produce unless they have a U.S.-issued Fallujah I.D. card. The shopkeepers have to go out and pick up the produce He said the trip takes him around four hours because of the checkpoint delays.

"They mistreat us," he said. "they point guns at us and insult us, even the women." Both U.S. and Iraqi troops search through the vegetables roughly, sometimes dumping them on the ground and smashing them.

Iraqis from rural areas surrounding Fallujah are now dying of treatable illnesses because they can't get through the checkpoints to the Fallujah hospital. One hospital employee said that many patients also die when they try to transfer them to hospitals outside Fallujah. "It's better to rake them in a civilian car than in an ambulance," he said, "because the troops delay and search ambulances more."

A Sunni cleric told us that during the first invasion, several families near his mosque took cover in a home. U.S. troops used megaphones to order all of them out into the street and told them to carry a white flag. They complied, but when they all got out, the soldiers opened fire and killed five. He said one boy had run to his mother who'd been shot, and Americans shot him in the head. A U.S. Commander cried as this happened, "but what good were his tears?" he asked, "He didn't do any thing to stop it."

During our meeting with the cleric, a man told us, "The Americans shot and killed my 15-year-old daughter, was she a terrorist?" The U.S. military denied killing her "With all respect to you," he said. "I hate! Americans; they killed my family. They shot and killed my sister-in-law while she was washing clothes, and my other brother's hands and feet were blown off." He apologized for interrupting, but said that he had to tell us because he's in so much pain.

Someone once told me "You can't bomb a resistance out of existence but you can bomb one into it."

Joe Carr an American member of Christian Peacemaker Teams.