Gruesome toll grows as army grinds to a halt

[kramadas]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/29/1048653903996.html

Gruesome toll grows as army grinds to a halt

By Paul McGeough

March 30 2003

The Sun-Herald

Lucky... Saja Jaafar, 3, lies in a Baghdad hospital after surviving the bombing of the al-Naser market in the Shuwaila district. Photo: AFP

Silver stars and red tracer fire lit the sky as the Al Shualla people washed their dead - as many as 58 of them were slaughtered when a bomb exploded in their little marketplace.

Some carried blanket-draped coffins through darkened alleyways, others strapped them to the roofs of battered cars.

But from all houses the same teary cries drifted into the chilly night: "There is no god but God."

As each family group left the

mosque, the men faced Mecca in prayer and the lights of passing cars etched the outline of their women, standing in tight knots off to the side.

Iraqi officials insist this bomb, the second in 48 hours to hit a civilian market, was dropped by a US or British jet. The Americans are investigating; they say they don't know.

But the suffering and the grief radiating from a small crater in this impoverished Shi'ite neighbourhood in Baghdad will make it harder for ordinary Iraqis to see the US-led invasion force as an army of liberation, rather than one of conquest.

At the Al-Noor Hospital, 500metres from the marketplace in north-west Baghdad, tearful men held each other in their arms as distraught women yelled the names of the dead.

A man, sobbing with grief, called over and over: "That man! That man!" Relatives said he was referring to President George Bush, who, in Washington, appeared to be warning of more setbacks before victory in saying: "We are now fighting the most desperate units of the dictator's army. The fierce fighting under way will demand further courage and further sacrifice, yet we know the outcome of this battle."

In the face of stiff resistance and severe front-line problems - security and logistic - US commanders have now decided on a pause of up to six days in their advance on Baghdad.

The Al Shualla carnage came on a day in which the US seemed to put aside its undertaking not to damage Iraq's infrastructure: waves of strikes, including the first confirmed use of 4700-pound (2100 kilogram) bunker-buster bombs, destroyed much of Baghdad's telephone system.

In Al Shualla, at 6.30pm, people were busy in the market. Ghannun Hussein was waiting for his 59-year-old father with the vegetables for their evening meal when he heard the whoosh of a missile.

Standing by his father's hospital bed later, he said: "I heard the explosion. I ran. All the people were on the ground; people's arms and legs were cut off, there was too much blood."

Najin Abdula, who works at the hospital, raced to the scene: "There was the body of a man with no head. I stopped cars in the traffic to get them to bring the injured to the hospital."

Then he opened the door of a morgue refrigerator for The Sun-Herald. Inside were five bodies. One young man had half his head blown away; the nose of another was gone and his flesh and clothing were torn.

As family members and hospital staff, many in tears, worked f*****shly, survivors who could talk spoke of their split-second encounter with war.

Khalid Jabar Hussein, 49, with shrapnel in his arm, wrist and leg, said: "First I heard an aircraft and then the missile coming at us and I don't know anything after that. I fell down."

Sajaja Jaafur, one of five in her family who were injured, lay in her bed, crying with pain as she tried to turn to face her mother.Her lovely olive skin was torn, there was a tube in her nose and a blood-stained dressing around her abdomen.

Samaan Kadhim, 52, sedated with a bad gash on his back, said: "This was a civilian area, there were no soldiers. It was just a market."

In the midst of all this, Dr Ahmed Sufian lashed out: "Our floors are covered with blood of our people, the walls are splashed with blood. Why, why, why? Why all this blood? I'm a doctor, but I can't understand such things. They say [they] come to free us? Is this freedom?"

There was no overt support for Saddam Hussein, but all blamed the US for the bombing. There was no hostility towards western reporters invited by families to witness their grief.

"America did this to us," said 50-year-old Kadhim Ali. "Why does it hate the Iraqi people?"

[siceone]

Nice propaganda piece..

The Crater at the bombing according to sky news Correspondents said the Crater at that "bombing" a meter deep and a meter in diameter. There is nothing in the US arsenal that makes a crater that small that was any where close to bahgdad.

Bombs don't make Craters that small the smallest bomb we're using is 2000 lb HE bombs which makes a crater bigger than that.

artilery shells do like Anti Air Craft shells that fall back in to the city after missing.

cause that would explain the fireing of the iraqi Air defense marshall but you wouldn't want to tell that side would you ?

[kramadas]

Originally posted by siceone

Nice propaganda piece..

The Crater at the bombing according to sky news Correspondents said the Crater at that "bombing" a meter deep and a meter in diameter. There is nothing in the US arsenal that makes a crater that small that was any where close to bahgdad.

Bombs don't make Craters that small the smallest bomb we're using is 2000 lb HE bombs which makes a crater bigger than that.

artilery shells do like Anti Air Craft shells that fall back in to the city after missing.

cause that would explain the fireing of the iraqi Air defense marshall but you wouldn't want to tell that side would you ?

Riiiiighttt....and you know EXACTLY what the US is using, how? You work at the Pentagon?

I didn't know about the air marshall being fired. Links please.

And propaganda piece my ass - I posted a news article, take it as you will.

[cintron]

i DO know a good amount about the US Arsenal, and we don't currently deploy weaponry that we would use IN A WAR, to make a crater 1 meter wide by 1 meter deep. That would not be a weapon employed by an aircraft doing deep strike interdiction in the Baghdad area.

"small" bombs used by aircraft, are on the 500lb side.

Tomahawk cruise missiles are on the 1000lb side.

The item that could make a hole about that size would be the 2.75" "zuni" rockets, often seen on Apache helicopters.

They may also be fired from aircraft, but in order to do so, the aircraft would have to be in a dive with it's nose pointed at the target. Additionally they are not "precision" weaponry, relying on aerodynamics and the pilot's aim to impact correctly.

The F117 and B2 aircraft currently being used over baghdad are not certified carriers of 2.75" rocket pods, nor do they have provsions to carry such weaponry.

take a look at your bed. That's about the size of the hole made.

Most of the stuff we drop makes larger craters than that.

anybody else want to harp on the corrupt military/industrial complex/conspiracy theory/baby killer viewpoint?

[kramadas]

Originally posted by cintron

i DO know a good amount about the US Arsenal, and we don't currently deploy weaponry that we would use IN A WAR, to make a crater 1 meter wide by 1 meter deep. That would not be a weapon employed by an aircraft doing deep strike interdiction in the Baghdad area.

"small" bombs used by aircraft, are on the 500lb side.

Tomahawk cruise missiles are on the 1000lb side.

The item that could make a hole about that size would be the 2.75" "zuni" rockets, often seen on Apache helicopters.

They may also be fired from aircraft, but in order to do so, the aircraft would have to be in a dive with it's nose pointed at the target. Additionally they are not "precision" weaponry, relying on aerodynamics and the pilot's aim to impact correctly.

The F117 and B2 aircraft currently being used over baghdad are not certified carriers of 2.75" rocket pods, nor do they have provsions to carry such weaponry.

take a look at your bed. That's about the size of the hole made.

Most of the stuff we drop makes larger craters than that.

anybody else want to harp on the corrupt military/industrial complex/conspiracy theory/baby killer viewpoint?

So, all those eye-witness accounts of civilians saying they heard an aircraft, "whoshh" of a misslie, and an explosion are all lying right?

Never said the military was corrupt or baby-killers...its dangerous to assume things. Just don't support this "illegal" war, especially when "collateral damage" is brushed aside as a necessary evil.

[mrmatas2277]

Originally posted by raver_mania

So, all those eye-witness accounts of civilians saying they heard an aircraft, "whoshh" of a misslie, and an explosion are all lying right?

i believe them...but:

a) it happened at night, correct? how can they really know?

the crater was extremely small to be a US/coalition bomb

c) Air Defense Minister is fired...and the reason for this? his surface to air missiles have been missing their mark and have been very unreliable

i think its an Iraqi surface to air miss. that went up, missed its target and came back down..u fail to remember that Iraqi's arsenal isnt the very best in the world...many of their stuff is unreliable...and many times either misses its mark or is just ineffective...

[cintron]

Originally posted by raver_mania

So, all those eye-witness accounts of civilians saying they heard an aircraft, "whoshh" of a misslie, and an explosion are all lying right?

Never said the military was corrupt or baby-killers...its dangerous to assume things. Just don't support this "illegal" war, especially when "collateral damage" is brushed aside as a necessary evil.

i wouldn't call it a necessary evil, but in war "innocent" people die.

It's a fact, not a prerequisite.

as for "eye-witness" acccounts, i hold a lot of skepticism for public opinions, especially in a police state like Iraq.

All Saddam has to do is have a few people off camera wave their AK47's in the air and chant "American Bomb", and wha-la everyone starts chanting it.

Why? Because it's so easy to believe that with the entire country under attack, every explosion would be caused by the Americans.

Especially when you have a state-controlled radio and TV network and a government that's known for "silencing" dissidents.

So call me skeptical, but between evidence of our weaponry employed, the impact area, and the known behavior of Iraqi people as well as state-sponsored instigators, i don't believe the US blew up that market. that's my opinion.

besides, with Saddam's soldiers killing their own people and forcing some to fight at gunpoint, it wouldn't be a big deal to plant a few sticks of TNT in a market and blow it up, then find some pieces of scrap and hold it in front of the camera and scream "AMERICAN BOMB"

[igloo]

Just curious,

but why do people on this board seems to always give Iraq and this brutal regime the benefit of the doubt on these "conflicting" reports?......

Also, I was wondering why the anti-war crowd on this board spend so much time looking for and promoting US military errors (whether they are true or not) and presenting them as deliberate acts, versus the lack of outcry against this brutal regime and what this regime is doing to Iraqi civilians?

Where are the protests against this animal and his regime???

Absolutely amazing ....

[kramadas]

Originally posted by igloo

Just curious,

but why do people on this board seems to always give Iraq and this brutal regime the benefit of the doubt on these "conflicting" reports?......

Also, I was wondering why the anti-war crowd on this board spend so much time looking for and promoting US military errors (whether they are true or not) and presenting them as deliberate acts, versus the lack of outcry against this brutal regime and what this regime is doing to Iraqi civilians?

Where are the protests against this animal and his regime???

Absolutely amazing ....

Now igloo, we have the pro-war crowd having the protests against the regime, thus, we have to balance it out with the other side of the story!

I'm NOT giving the regime the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, I'm not going to swallow everything the US media tells us.

Cintron - I hear you about the state-controlled media and thug intimidation factor. However, these are Western journalists reporting, and if there were Saddam henchmen waving AK-47's off camera, I'm sure that would be reported too.

Not sure if the man who lost his wife, son, and son's wife in the blast is necessarily being forced to shout anti-American slogans.

Regardless of who did this, the Iraqis in Baghdad are convinced its the US - thus anti-American sentiment is going to run higher and higher, as this war takes longer and longer to finish.

BTW, the US military has not issued an official statement saying the blast was not caused by an errant missile.

[siceone]

Originally posted by raver_mania

Now igloo, we have the pro-war crowd having the protests against the regime, thus, we have to balance it out with the other side of the story!

I'm NOT giving the regime the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, I'm not going to swallow everything the US media tells us.

Cintron - I hear you about the state-controlled media and thug intimidation factor. However, these are Western journalists reporting, and if there were Saddam henchmen waving AK-47's off camera, I'm sure that would be reported too.

Not sure if the man who lost his wife, son, and son's wife in the blast is necessarily being forced to shout anti-American slogans.

Regardless of who did this, the Iraqis in Baghdad are convinced its the US - thus anti-American sentiment is going to run higher and higher, as this war takes longer and longer to finish.

BTW, the US military has not issued an official statement saying the blast was not caused by an errant missile.

Balancing something is all good when the Information is True don't forget that.

and you really think That american journalists are allowed to report the truth and have free riegn then why are all the journalists getting kicked out why have they been kidnapped. I can respect you for being anti war that's great. but you sound like you're actively for the enemy.. why don't you get together with arrnett and give some more comfort to the enemy.. I hear he's free

[igloo]

Originally posted by raver_mania

Now igloo, we have the pro-war crowd having the protests against the regime, thus, we have to balance it out with the other side of the story!

I'm NOT giving the regime the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, I'm not going to swallow everything the US media tells us.

I think the anti-war crowd should be protesting against Saddam and what he has done to his civilian population, now and since he has been in power........

you could be against this war, and you can be against Bush, and you can certainly be against US foreign policy......

but at the end of the day, Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime are the "bad guys", put simply.......and the anti-war crowd seems to have forgotten that(even those who say "we know he is brutal, but....)......and if anything, this war should wake those up who can't seem to get it

And many in the Western media, who are very anti-Bush and anti-war, are not reporting "news" but instead editorializing their reporting to align with their views...this is not my opinion, but an accurate observation....

Civilians dying is disgusting and brutally sad.......but to not recognize the campaign the US Military as undertaken, and to not differentiate between an errant bomb (as brutal as that is) and what the Iraqi's are doing to civilians is ridiculous...

Raver...and I agree with you, I do not swallow everything the US media throws out (even though publications like the LA Times are distorting the truth against the U.S.)...

But when conflicting reports arise, I will give the benefit of the doubt to the U.S.

[mrmatas2277]

does anyone have the Sports Illustrated with the "March Madness" cover on it?? if so, there is a great article about Uday and his treatment of Iraqi athletes...a good read!!!

[dnice35]

Originally posted by mrmatas2277

does anyone have the Sports Illustrated with the "March Madness" cover on it?? if so, there is a great article about Uday and his treatment of Iraqi athletes...a good read!!!

I read it, its a tragedy what the Iraqi athletes have to go thru...

[vicman]

nope nope and nope. sorry guys, but if you buy everything that the US media has to tell you, then I have a bridge to sell you. :laugh:

the essence of the matter is that war was not unavoidable. we were not at the exact same position as before WWII, it was not the last resource that the US could rely on. I have said so before, they could have gone into Iraq and conducted those inspections themselves, but of course the main goal for the administration was to see a head roll after 9/11, and Saddam was the easiest target out there.

I'm still waiting for Bush to get tough on the Saudi's, that wont happen, to much at stake for Israel and the US if they mess with the Saudi's even if Saudi $$$ has been positively linked to Osama and his organization.

[vicman]

Originally posted by dnice35

I read it, its a tragedy what the Iraqi athletes have to go thru...

i think chinese athletes also go through that. so the US should invade china also

[siceone]

Originally posted by vicman

i think chinese athletes also go through that. so the US should invade china also

Whatever happened to liberals caring abotu human rights

[dnice35]

Originally posted by vicman

i think chinese athletes also go through that. so the US should invade china also

are you on crack? invade china? impossible.

by the way as far as I am concerned, I have no proofs this goes on in China.

[kramadas]

Originally posted by siceone

Whatever happened to liberals caring abotu human rights

define "liberal"

[vicman]

china's treatment of taiwan is totally fair

[igloo]

Originally posted by igloo

I think the anti-war crowd should be protesting against Saddam and what he has done to his civilian population, now and since he has been in power........

you could be against this war, and you can be against Bush, and you can certainly be against US foreign policy......

but at the end of the day, Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime are the "bad guys", put simply.......and the anti-war crowd seems to have forgotten that(even those who say "we know he is brutal, but....)......and if anything, this war should wake those up who can't seem to get it

And many in the Western media, who are very anti-Bush and anti-war, are not reporting "news" but instead editorializing their reporting to align with their views...this is not my opinion, but an accurate observation....

Civilians dying is disgusting and brutally sad.......but to not recognize the campaign the US Military as undertaken, and to not differentiate between an errant bomb (as brutal as that is) and what the Iraqi's are doing to civilians is ridiculous...

Raver...and I agree with you, I do not swallow everything the US media throws out (even though publications like the LA Times are distorting the truth against the U.S.)...

But when conflicting reports arise, I will give the benefit of the doubt to the U.S.

[dnice35]

Originally posted by vicman

china's treatment of taiwan is totally fair

are you suggesting we enter into a conflict with China?

[igloo]

Originally posted by vicman

china's treatment of taiwan is totally fair

So, I guess you support a policy of kick the shit out of everyone, or never, ever intercede anywhere....

Because that is exactly what you are saying if your antiwar stance in Iraq is " but what about N Korea, or China, etc....

[vicman]

Originally posted by igloo

So, I guess you support a policy of kick the shit out of everyone, or never, ever intercede anywhere....

Because that is exactly what you are saying if your antiwar stance in Iraq is " but what about N Korea, or China, etc....

dude, how can you qoute yourself in a post?

anyway, thats what the current administration looks like it would want to do. play with fire, and you will get burned with fire.

[mrmatas2277]

Originally posted by vicman

i think chinese athletes also go through that. so the US should invade china also

bro...read the article...its very scary

[vicman]

Originally posted by mrmatas2277

bro...read the article...its very scary

yeah i read it last week. it is freaky shit. i agree, 100%, any type of torturing should be punished, and then this is for sports reasons which is even worse. not like your torturing someone that puts in danger your countries national security etc., but for losing a soccer game, for not agreeing to fix one, etc. truly Saddam and his son are some of the lowest scum on the face of the earth, and I've said in the past, they should be removed, but as I have also said, aside from the fact that the invasion is violating international law, but they are barking up the wrong tree. If they wanted to go after the terrorist network, yeah maybe some of them operate within Iraq, but there is the Saudi money, the Pakistani connection and further violations of treaties, embargo's, human rights etc. by other countries within this coalition.

they wanted a head to roll after 9/11 and Saddam provided the easiest target. lets see what happens in the next few decades, the region, and the american way of life will never be the same.