Been too busy reading to blog lately, but…

As Baghdad was plunged into darkness, John Irvine reports that the American forces are now at Saddam International Airport, (metaphorically) buying their Baghdad A-Zs. But as Irvine says,

The Americans and British may say their motivation is to liberate the Iraqis, but these people gave every impression that they were prepared to die for their country.

I’m inclined to agree with Simon Jenkins: Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer.

The push to Baghdad has come at a high price though; Lara Marlowe reports that 61 Iraqi civilians were killed and nearly 200 others wounded in the first 3 days of this week in Babylon Province, south of Baghdad.

The corpses were piled one on top of the other, two or three deep, and I was able to look at only one before turning away; the sight and stench were overwhelming.

Dr Ali Abbas Hashem, a neurosurgeon, said: “I received more than 200 wounded in the emergency room on Sunday and Monday. Eighty per cent of them were civilians; most were women and children.”

Marlowe goes on to confirm that the US has been using cluster bombs on civilian areas:

Many, if not all, of the dozens of wounded I saw yesterday were struck by US cluster bombs - long containers dropped by parachute, opening in flight to release thousands of little “bomblets” which detonate in the air or land as unexploded mines.

“There were boxes in the air and they exploded over the houses,” a man named Mohamed Moussa said. All eight members of his family were wounded.

“Some of the bombs are still in our house, unexploded,” he continued. “They look like bunches of grapes, white and silver. Each bomb has something like a thread on it and when you touch it, it explodes.”

A British television journalist was able to visit Nadir, one of the worst-hit neighbourhoods, where he found the parachutes used to drop cluster bombs and unexploded fragments of the deadly anti-personnel weapons. Mr Moussa said his family lived next to a milk factory and a wheat silo in Nadir - the sorts of places where Iraqi soldiers are believed to take cover.

The US has reportedly fought Republican Guard units in the Najaf, Karbala and Babylon region with cluster bombs, but their use against civilians is strictly forbidden. Under the Geneva Convention, civilians must be safeguarded, even if there are military personnel among them.

The article goes on to describe some of the injuries that have been inflicted by the cluster bombs. In the Indie, Robert Fisk has also written about the horrors inflicted by US and British cluster bombs, and there’s a piece on them by a professor of military science. Cluster bombs really are as deplorable as land mines — not only are they indescriminate, but 16%–30% of the ‘bomblets’ they contain fail to detonate immediately, ensuring that they go on killing and maiming years after war has ended. Sickening. And, in a incredibly poor bit of planning, it seems that the bomblets are the same bright yellow colour as similarly-sized humanitarian aid packages that are also dropped from planes.

Still, let’s not forget about the south. On the BBC site, a worker for the charity Cafod is describing the humanitarian effort in British-controlled Umm Qasr as “a shambles”.

From the TV pictures of Umm Qasr, I had been led to believe it was a town under control, where the needs of the people were being met. The town is not under control. It’s like the Wild West. And even the most major humanitarian concern, water, is not being adequately administered.

Everywhere I went, the local people asked me for water. I went into the two rooms occupied by a family of 14, they were drinking from an oil drum half full of stagnant, dirty water…

The hospital has been without water for three days. Inside people were very angry with me because I was a westerner. They felt angry, frustrated and let down by the coalition.

Many had come to Umm Qasr from Basra because they had been told in American radio broadcasts that they would be looked after. They now say the coalition lied to them.

…

One young man angrily said to me: “You support us when the TV cameras and newspapers are here, to show the world you like us. “When they have gone you change. You have changed Saddam for another kind of imperialism.”

This is extremely worrying really — the port was ‘taken’ nine days ago, and is meant to be one of the main access points for aid into Iraq.

If the coalition has trouble looking after such a small town, then what are they going to do about the city of Basra or, my God, Baghdad?

Still, at least the evangelical Christians are on the way to Iraq to hand out food and “promote the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ”. Hmmm, got a feeling that they might find more than just doors slamming in their faces…

Finally, Pat Rabitte, leader of the Irish Labour Party, has written an excellent article for the Irish Times, which provides a very clear summary of the neo-conservatives’ plans for US domination of the world. If you’ve never heard of the PNAC and want to know where this war fits in to the bigger picture, this is a very good place to start.

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