Defiant US says Falluja dead were rebels

The Guardian (U.K.) ^ | 04/12/04 | Rory McCarthy and Julian Borger

[Pokey78]

600 dead in besieged Iraqi city - but marine commander claims victims mostly insurgents

The United States last night robustly defended its controversial siege of Falluja which has cost the lives of more than 600 people over the past week, by claiming most of those who died were militants picked off with precision by US marines.

As a tense ceasefire held in the turbulent city west of Baghdad and an international hostage crisis persisted across Iraq, the US marine commander in charge of the siege of Falluja claimed 95% of those killed were legitimate targets.

The death toll in Falluja has sparked widespread international concern and has led to condemnation by the US-appointed Iraqi governing council.

Yesterday, the director of the town's general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, said the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly.

But when asked about the victims numbers, US marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said: "What I think you will find is 95% of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting. The marines are trained to be precise in their firepower ... The fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the marines are very good at what they do," he said.

The figure of 600 was gathered from four clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital, which have all been taking in bodies, said al-Issawi. Bodies were also being buried in two football fields. "We have reports of an unknown number of dead being buried in people's homes without coming to the clinics," Mr Issawi said.

Asked about the number of Iraqi casualties in Falluja, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for the US military in Iraq, repeated that marines were "tremendously precise" in their operations and suggested any civilian deaths were caused by insurgents hiding among them.

At least 50 US soldiers have also been killed over the past week, with another 10 over the Easter weekend. Nearly a third of Falluja's 200,000 population fled the city during the weekend lull in fighting.

A British civilian, Gary Teeley, who was kidnapped in the southern city of Nassiriya, was released yesterday, and there were reports last night that eight other foreign hostages including three Pakistanis and two Turks had been freed.

Several other foreigners, including one US contractor and three Japanese civilians, were still being held by their captors.

The bodies of two dead westerners dressed in civilian clothes were shown on Arabic television. Reports from Bonn suggested they were German private security guards.

US officials persevered with ceasefire talks with Sunni mil itants despite the shooting down of a US Apache helicopter over the western Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, killing its two-man crew.

The US civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, appealed for insurgents in Falluja to hold their fire long enough for members of the Iraqi governing council to enter the Sunni stronghold for negotiations. But he insisted: "We will not negotiate over hostages."

The ceasefire calls also appeared to be aimed at freeing US troops and resources for a parallel running battle with radical Shia militias, after it became evident that US-led coalition troops were being overwhelmed by the two-front conflict. It emerged yesterday that an entire Iraqi battalion had refused to fight with US troops and had returned to barracks, torpedoing any prospects of the US pulling out any of its 135,000 troops and passing on their duties to an Iraqi force.

Mr Bremer confirmed that the 620-strong battalion of newly trained Iraqi soldiers had refused to fight after members of the unit were attacked while passing through a Shia district of Baghdad.

According to Major General Paul Eaton, who is overseeing their training, the Iraqi soldiers had told him: "We did not sign up to fight Iraqis."

The report quoted an unnamed senior US officer as saying as many as a quarter of the new Iraqi security forces had "quit, changed sides, or otherwise failed to perform their duties".

Mr Bremer played down the significance of the issue yesterday. "I don't think it's a significant portion at all," he told ABC television.

The surge in fighting has led to calls for an increase in the numbers of US troops in Iraq. "It's obvious that we're paying a heavy price, I think, for not having had enough troops there from the beginning," said John McCain, a Republican senator.

President George Bush insisted that political sovereignty would be handed over by a June 30 deadline.

"Obviously I pray every day there's less casualty. But I know what we're doing in Iraq is right," the president said, after spending Easter Day with troops in Texas. Tony Blair made a similar pledge of resolve yesterday.

[tet68]

Wither the "Human shield" now?

[sgtbono2002]

They started it, they should bury their dead and STFU

[SouthernFreebird]

Sounds right... I think I saw about 600 in that crowd cheering at the sight of our guys burned to death and hanging in the street.

[First_Salute]

What I want to know is, did they get "Mr." Sadr, or has he been granted Arafat Immunity by the Bush Administration?

[don'tbedenied]

I have been predicting that when the enormity of the defeat of the Jihadists in Fajullah gets to the press, the press will change from "the US is losing" to the "US are brutal bullies" overnight, seamlessly and without apology for being wrong.

[vbmoneyspender]

The ceasefire calls also appeared to be aimed at freeing US troops and resources for a parallel running battle with radical Shia militias, after it became evident that US-led coalition troops were being overwhelmed by the two-front conflict.

I believe in the vernacular this is referred to as 'believing what you want to believe.' It is also interesting to note that on the one hand, you have people like Bill Kristol arguing that because we only have 2,000 Marines fighting in Falluja (a number which Kristol is hardly in a position to know is true or not) this shows that we don't have enough troops in Iraq, while the Observer argues the exact opposite that the number of troops fighting in Fallujah is so great that we need to stop the fighting in Fallujah order to free them up to go fight against Sadr's thugs.

Just goes to show that if you listen to the commentators in the media right now, you will end up concluding that they are more than willing to opinionize when they have little or no idea what is going on. .

[kcar]

I got your "widespread international concern" right here...

[mrsmith]

"Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said: "What I think you will find is 95% of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting. The marines are trained to be precise in their firepower ... The fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the marines are very good at what they do," he said"

Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne gets better and better. He deserves his own keyword.

[PhiKapMom]

Guess this is only controversial by the media's standards!

[LoudRepublicangirl]

The media is not being much help in this war and I'm talking about our own media let alone the arab and euroweenie media. If I were to listen to every speculation they are throwing out there I would be giving up like those who are crying for us to pull out.

[saquin]

"Yesterday, the director of the town's general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, said the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly."

I can't believe the audacity of this guy. Does he actually think people will believe that the "vast majority" of dead are women, children and the elderly?? Does he think people will really believe our Marines are such bad shots? Especially when most of the "women, children and the elderly" are hiding inside during all the fighting.

I'll bet his next pronouncement will be that the rest of the dead (those that are not "women, children and the elderly") were little, fuzzy bunny rabbits. And the international press will eat it up.

[Flavius]

Does he think people will really believe our Marines are such bad shots?

You have something there, I think the 'extremee' islamonazis were trying to shoot at us troops, but they kept shooting the people they were hiding behind.. The women, the children, and the elderly...

peace

[F.J. Mitchell]

If any of the dead were non-combatants, why were they hanging out with the bad guys while the shooting was going on?

[uncbob]

Recent poll showed majority of US citizens said Bush wasn't being tough enough

[saquin]

Actually, I think you're not far off. I don't know why the assumption is made that any civilian casualties were the result of our guys. I was watching a report on CNN (I know!) today about this very subject and the analyst was showing video of the insurgents fighting in Fallujah (taken from Al Jazeera, probably). They were firing from the hip, without aiming or looking through the scope, in great sweeping shooting sprees across streets, alleys. Where do people think those shots land? Not many are landing on our troops. Also, they're lobbing RPGs and mortars, of which not many are landing near our troops. Where do people think those are landing? Maybe on those civilians whose injuries are being blamed on us?

[blandbutmarvellous]

As Wretchard has commented at his blog site:

Never in history have 1,200 men stormed a city of 230,000 in urban combat without extensively using heavy weapons before the US Marines did in Fallujah. This is nothing short of amazing because the 90% of the combat power of an infantry unit is embodied in their heavy weapons. And they were stopped only by a truce, not by enemy resistance. When the Marine casualties from the Ramadi ambush, not part of the Fallujah battle are subtracted, the Marine losses have been spectacularly low by historical standards. They are actually lower than the IDF losses in the smaller Jenin engagement (which used armored bulldozers to clear lanes) and several orders of magnitude beneath the Russian casualties in Grozny, despite the lavish use of armor, artillery and air by the Russians. US forces were never tested in extensive urban combat during Iraqi Freedom. MOUT is no longer theory. It is practice.

[vbmoneyspender]

Just as a comparison look at what happended during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where the Jewish resistence was compressed in a much smaller area and was much less well armed than the Fallujah thugs are and the Nazis were much more ruthless than the Marines have been in Fallujah. There, the Nazis admitted losing 15 people and suffering over 70 casualties in the fight to retake the Ghetto. This number however was believed to have substantially undercounted Nazis deaths and casualties in order to not cause embarrassment to Himmler, whose people had been in charge of retaking the Ghetto. At the end of the uprising, which lasted over a month, the SS finally had to resort to burning down the Ghetto - but even that didn't kill off all of the defenders, so the Nazis ended up killing the last holdouts by gassing them

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[Lijahsbubbe]

Great point. As if it's only the evil US inflicting any collateral damage.It only makes sense that the maniacal terrorists are the cause of many deaths.

[Polybius]

Yesterday, the director of the town's general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, said the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly.

He also added that the vast majority of the damaged buildings were "Baby Milk Factories".