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Civilian Casualties:
Massive, Invisible
by Bill Weinberg
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On April 9, the cover of the UK Guardian showed mangled
corpses piled high at the Baghdad morgue. The New York
Times, like most US papers, avoided such photos. But it
reported April 10 that while the number of Iraqi killed may
never be determined, hospital workers in Basra say they
have handled up to 2,000 corpses throughout the three weeks
of war. Not all were necessarily civilians, and the
whereabouts of bodies from the disappeared thousands-strong
Republican Guard divisions remains a mystery.
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The number of casualties in Baghdad is so high that
hospitals have stopped counting, the International
Committee of the Red Cross said April 6. "No one is able to
keep accurate statistics of the admitted and transferred
war wounded any longer as one emergency arrival follows the
other in the hospitals of Baghdad," read the ICRC
statement. "Ambulances are picking up the wounded and
running them to the triage areas and on to hospitals. Some
of the wounded try to reach the nearest hospitals by
foot [...] All of the hospitals are under pressure and the
medical staff is working without respite." The statement
said most hospitals were powered by back-up generators, and
were running low on water.
ICRC, the main aid agency left in Iraq, gave no estimates
on the number of deaths and did not confirm US Central
Command estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqi troops
were killed when US armored vehicles made an early foray
into Baghdad April 5. At one point during the foray, the
al-Yarmouk hospital was receiving Iraqi wounded at a rate
of about 100 an hour, the ICRC said. The ICRC also
protested that a convoy carrying badly needed medical
supplies for the Hillah hospital had to be canceled due to
military operations. Said David Wimhurst of the UN office
for Iraq in Amman: "The access roads are no longer open.
The ICRC can't get through."
The medical stocks in Nasiriyah were destroyed during the
bombardment of the city, the UN office reported. The US
claimed Iraqi defenders turned a Nasiriyah hospital into a
military site. The World Health Organization said it
expects the Iraqi health situation to deteriorate sharply
in the coming days. "The health workers are overwhelmed by
injured and routine work is disrupted," said the WHO's
Fadela Chaib in Amman, adding that the collapse of power
and sanitation systems increases the risk of epidemics.
(AP, April 6)
The BBC reported April 10 that two Iraqi children were
killed and nine others injured when US Marines opened fire
on a car at a checkpoint in Nasiriya. The New York Times
reported that two civilian men were killed April 11 when
fire from a US tank struck their Toyota sedan. The tank had
"Bush and Co." written on its barrel.
In a garbage-strewn stretch of wasteland at Karbala, US
Army Private Nick Boggs shot dead a boy of around 10 who
had bent to pick up a grenade off the body of a killed
resistance fighter. "I did what I had to do. I don't have a
big problem with it but anyone who shoots a little kid has
to feel something," said Boggs. (Sydney Morning Herald, April 8)
Newsday reported April 7 that US troops in combat make
frequent reference to "nuking" Iraqis, who they call
"ragheads" and "camel jockeys," seemingly without
distinguishing between civilians and enemy forces. "I say
we just nuke this place and make it into a parking lot,"
seethed Lance Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan after his
unit was woken up by a pre-dawn artillery barrage in
central Iraq which sent them scrambling from their sleeping
bags.
The web site Iraq Body Count continues to monitor world
press reports to arrive at a daily update of the total
Iraqi civilian dead. Each incident is listed separately,
noting the location, number dead, weaponry used and media
source.
- – Bill Weinberg
in WORLD WAR 3 REPORT #81
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