SUMMARY FROM IRAQ BATTLEFIELD - DAY 7

American’s War Really Isn’t Going Well, Not Well At All
Mar 25, 2003
By Bruce Kennedy, Jihad Unspun

US and British warplanes, with the help of Special Forces soldiers on the ground, wielded an intense bombardment of Republican Guard bunkers outside Baghdad last night in preparation for an assault on the Iraqi capital however all is not going well for coalition forces.

Troops from the US army 5th Corps have formed a small frontline just north of Kerbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad. Vast convoys of tanks and ground forces were to race up racing up from Kuwait to join them for the battle that will ultimately decide the war in Iraq however these troops are being delayed in several guerilla-style battles in southern Iraq. Ahead of them are 36,000 elite Iraqi soldiers, from three divisions, who represent half of the total Republican Guard force. Protected in sprawling bunkers 30 miles outside Baghdad, the armored divisions are equipped with the best weapons in the Iraqi military, including 300 fighter jets, Russian-built T-72 tanks and heavy artillery.
The war isn’t going well and George Bush and his warmongers are whining.

On Monday, the “dynamic duo” told reporters that the Iraqis were not “playing by the rules” of engagement. It is this hypocrisy that makes the real reasons for this conflict transparent. Accusing Iraqi soldiers of “criminal warfare” is unbelievable. What do you call 2000 daisy cutters and cluster bombs that kill for years? These weapons are outlawed by the Geneva Convention. What do you call grabbing the Iraq’s financial assets saying that they are no longer a country? And what do you call taking out water and food supplies of the population with humanitarian aid no where in sight - liberation? And need we remember, the war is illegal under the UN charter to begin with.

Bush has promised retribution for all of the “wrongdoings” through war crimes trials. Too bad America doesn’t recognize the official International War Crimes Tribunal. And America has no right to waive the Geneva Convention at any one – we are the worse violators and Camp X Ray is a living breathing example of that.

The war strategy isn’t going well either. Even at home, military planners are coming under fire for the obvious holes in the war plan. Rumors have it that Tommy Franks will be the fall guy. Either way, it comes back to the “Commander and Chief” who should know better than to race through a hostile zone without neutralizing the enemy. They are now in the position where enemy forces are behind them, their supply lines are under fire, the flow of troops to cover their flank is seriously slowed and worse yet, and they could potentially be surrounded.

And what was Bush’s comment on how the war is going? “The war is going well – we have the oil in Southern Iraq don’t we?” he said beaming from ear to ear on live international television. There in lies the objective. Too bad Monday, firefighters discovered that several wells are out of control in the South and in fact, coalition forces only control a small portion of the assets there. Further, it will be difficult to get the wells producing even once the fires are out without the Iraqi know-how of the systems.

The propaganda war isn’t going well either. CNN has been turfed out of Iraq which puts Arab media in control. Good thing considering what was poised to be a rallying of home viewers supporting the war turned ugly when live report contradicted the Pentagon and caught them with their pants down. The picture of dead US soldiers, POWs that the Pentagon previously denied doesn’t play well and since then “embeds” are under tight wraps, al-Jazeera is being discredited by US media for insensitive behavior and there are no live Iraqi TV reports that may show the reality of the coalitions dubious position. Saddam has played his media strategy very effectively so far and Arab media has stepped up its coverage which is helping to gain support from the Arab street, considering its accounts are still live and therefore more considered more credible. All things being equal, international media will soak this up which is likely to further undermine the credibility of Western press and frankly has them fuming.

And the war really isn’t going well for the livelihood of many - as casualties mount on both sides. At press time, Basra, the “friendly town that welcomed US solders” and that the US said it took without resistance on Day One of the war has just been elevated to a coalition military target, now scheduled for bombing.


Desert Rats Are Forced To Pull Back From Basra
Mar 25, 2003
Source: The Guardian

The British Desert Rats were tonight encountering unexpectedly stiff resistance outside Basra, Iraq's second city, also in the south, despite earlier claims it had been secured, and some UK elements have pulled back.

Meanwhile, Royal Marines were making a new offensive against the pockets of resistance in the port of Umm Qasr, hoping to complete this action tonight. In Najaf, just south of Karbala, Iraqi forces defended themselves with rockets and anti-aircraft guns.

Earlier, Iraqi lines in northern Iraq were bombed and there were reports of air attacks on the northern city of Mosul. US marines were also bombarding the southern city Nassiriya with artillery following the fierce fighting there yesterday and Iraqi TV said six members of the ruling Baa'th party had died there.

In other developments tonight explosions could be heard on the outskirts of Baghdad, with a dozen blasts reported in the south-east area of the city this evening.

Iraq launched three missiles into Kuwait, two of which were destroyed by a US Patriot battery and one left to land in a northern desert area. Kuwaiti officials have said some of the missiles were banned Scuds but US and British officials say they did not think they were Scuds.


Robert Fisk: Iraq Will Become A Quagmire For The Americans
Mar 25, 2003
Robert Fisk In Baghdad

Iraq stunned the Americans and British last night by broadcasting video tape of captured and dead American troops – the nightmare of both George Bush and Tony Blair.

The body of one American soldier was seen with a great red gash on his neck, while five US prisoners appeared on screen. One, a black female soldier, had been wounded, while a male serviceman said he had been "only following orders".

The film will increase internal support for Saddam Hussein, because it will be regarded as proof that the American-British force will be beaten.

All day, Baghdad felt like Kuwait in 1991 after the Iraqis had set fire to the oil wells. The oil-filled trenches torched by the Iraqi army around Baghdad on Saturday are ablaze. And regardless of whether they really hinder the incoming American cruise missiles, they have placed this city under a sinister, dark canopy. The skyline is black, the sky grey. Only by looking directly upwards can you catch sight of the sun. The Tigris moves sluggishly under a dun-coloured mist. If the people of Baghdad could pretend, a few days ago, that the war did not exist, yesterday they were living in its shadow.

All day, you could hear the explosions. An echoing blast from the suburbs, the sound of jets and then another explosion and then – because war is like this – the gentle roar of traffic and the sight of a red double-decker bus making its routine journey across the river bridge to Qadamiya.

To grasp the realities – at least the strategic realities according to the Iraqis – you had to venture down to the villa where General Hazim al-Rawi of the Iraqi army was giving his morning press briefing, à la General Tommy Franks. In fact, General Rawi is promising us more press briefings than the US commander, a practice that will presumably continue until General Franks takes the surrender of General Rawi or – less likely perhaps – until General Rawi takes the surrender of General Franks.

"Iraq will become a quagmire for the Americans ... It is not true what your agencies have been saying that thousands of troops had surrendered."

Thus did the Iraqi general try to rubbish the BBC's reports on Saturday of the taking of up to 6,000 prisoners from the Iraqi 51st Division. Then there came a familiar part of every Arab war: the claims of planes shot down.

"Our brave and heroic forces have shot down up to five fighters and two helicopters. One fighter was shot down near Baghdad, another near Mosul, a third at Akhtar Rashid, a fourth in the Taji district, another in Basra. A helicopter was shot down at Mosul, another in the Samara area." As reporters like to say, there was no "independent confirmation" of these claims.

The Iraqi Information Minister was full of scorn for the war. "They call it shock and awe," Mohamed Said al-Sahaff declared. "It seems it is they who are suffering from shock and awe." There followed a long statement from the Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, much of which included a demand for the support of the "Arab masses". There was cocky stuff, too, for the claims of Anglo-American advances on the ground from Mr Ramadan. "They say they ... have covered 160 or 180km. I would like to tell them to go 300km. But if they have any contact with any town or village, they will face the same fate as they are now facing at Umm Qasr. You will see on the television the destruction of their tanks."

Mr Ramadan said the Americans would be welcome to try to come to Baghdad, because they would meet a similar fate. Last night's film will be taken by Iraqis to support his contention.


War Pictures Cause Yellowtimes.Org To Be Shut Down, Again
Mar 25, 2003
By Firas Al-Atraqchi

Somebody doesn't like hearing the truth. Okay, for a second, lets scratch that and choose a slightly less politically charged term. Someone doesn't like to be disputed with alternative views, counterclaims, research and fact. Someone wants you, the reading public, to only gather one-sided, monotone, Orwellian dispatch. News the way they "fashion" it. Or as CNN will have you believe, the "most reliable source for news."

And so, once again, the staff at YellowTimes.org was threatened with a shutdown:

"We are sorry to notify you of suspending your account: Your account has been suspended because [of] inappropriate graphic material." Within hours, the site was shut down.

What's next? Martial law?

An e-mail hours later was more explanatory: "As 'NO' TV station in the US is allowing any dead US solders or POWs to be displyed (sic) and we will not ether (sic)." Of course, at the time of this e-mail, TV stations across the U.S. were allowing the images of U.S. POWs to be brought to the public's attention.

These are most certainly difficult, perilous, and often confusing times. The world has been torn asunder by first the prospect of war, and now by the images of war fed live into our living rooms.

Today, Iraqi TV and Al-Jazeera, followed by Spanish National TV, Portugal's networks, and most European TV stations, aired footage of U.S. Marine fatalities in the southern town of Nasiriyah. A handful of terrified U.S. POWs were also shown. According to the Associated Press: "Anecita Hudson of Alamogordo said she saw her 23-year-old son, Army Spc. Joseph Hudson, who was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, interviewed in the Iraqi video, which was carried on a Filipino television station she subscribes to."

There was public outrage in the U.S., citing the Geneva Convention on treatment of Prisoners of War, which forbids the broadcast of any footage or graphic depiction of POWs. True, the Geneva Convention does indeed include that provision.

However, the outrage follows on the heels of extensive, and I repeat, extensive footage of Iraqi POWs, sometimes with cameras panning in for extreme close-ups of blank-staring Iraqi soldiers, dishevelled and fatigued as they were.

CNN grilled an Al-Jazeera spokesperson on the (de)merits of airing such footage today. When asked by the Al-Jazeera spokesperson why it was allowed for U.S. stations to broadcast footage of Iraqi POWs, CNN's Aaron Brown said, "because their families wouldn't be watching".

Not true. CNN is broadcast around the world and is available to Iraqis. There are millions of Iraqis living outside Iraq who may recognize an Iraqi POW as a family member.

Not withstanding, to say "their families wouldn't be watching" is not an excuse. If it is a violation on the Iraqi side, then surely, it is as well on the U.S. side.

(Monday's front page of the Washington Post has a picture of an Iraqi POW being handled by U.S. troops.)

CNN, however, is accused of not airing any footage of Iraqi dead or Iraqi civilian casualties, although this is a necessary image of war. War is horrific and to portray it otherwise speaks of corporate agenda.

Nevertheless, I was tongue-tied at the MSNBC broadcast of a mother of one of the U.S. POWs as she shed tears for her son. It gripped me and moved me and I wanted to cry with her. I also wanted to cry for the parents of the Iraqi civilian child, the top part of his skull torn off; an innocent child caught in a war he did not understand.

So, here we have it, war affects us all. It affects Americans and Iraqis, as well as the rest of the world.

Here, at YellowTimes.org, we did not want these stories to go untold. We wanted to bring the horrors of war inflicted on all sides. We condemn killing, we condemn war, and we certainly condemn persecution and torture.

We also condemn the intentional absence of truth. However, there are some who would prefer we did not publish and inform the public. Consequently, as of this afternoon, March 24, 2003, we were shut down. I do beg your pardon, no, we weren't shut down -- we were censored -- pure and simple.