"Life in Falluja is really a horror story. Most of the city’s residents are refugees and will continue to be refugees for quite some time. They’re scattered in small towns on the outskirts of Falluja, as well as Baghdad and other cities. The last estimate I heard was about 25,000--maybe a little bit more than that--had returned back to a city that once had a population of 350,000.
ER-WHEN THE U.S. announced its assault on Falluja, it claimed its goal was to root out the resistance. Can you talk about the strategic goal that the U.S. set for itself and also whether it succeeded?
DJ-I BASICALLY heard two reasons for going in and doing what they did to Falluja: what you mentioned, as well as another primary goal--providing “security and stability” for the January 30 elections.
What happened was that most of the fighters in the city left even before the siege began--even the military admitted to that. So of the roughly 3,000 people killed, the vast majority were civilians. Falluja was declared a “free-fire” zone for the military, meaning that they were not distinguishing between civilians and fighters, which is, of course, a violation of international law in a city where there might be civilians.
As far as accomplishing this goal of “rooting out fighters” and/or providing “security and stability” for the January 30 election, we can see that neither have been accomplished.
They have effectively spread the resistance further around the country. We have another sort of “mini-Falluja” situation in Ramadi, where rather than sectioning off the entire city and doing what they did to Falluja, they’re doing it neighborhood by neighborhood. In essence, any fighters who are there are moving to a different neighborhood when one is being hit, and then moving back when the military goes to another neighborhood.
They’re going to have to employ the same strategy in Samarra, in Baquba, in Bayji, in Mosul and even in parts of Baghdad. It’s a strategy that the U.S. military has been using since almost the beginning of the occupation--using very heavy-handed tactics to fight the resistance. But by doing so, they’re just spreading the resistance to other areas around the city or the country, and essentially creating more resistance.
ER-WHEN YOU say the U.S. is spreading the resistance, is that because actual individuals go to other cities and start recruiting and organizing there? Or, is it because the horrors that the U.S. has caused have angered people who then join the resistance?
DJ-IT’S BOTH. Most fighters know when the U.S. is going to launch a new offensive, so they take off. It’s a guerrilla war. Some of the basics of guerrilla warfare are that you don’t attack when you’re expected to attack, and you do attack when you’re not expected. They’re not going to try to go toe to toe with the U.S. military, so they take off.
Plus, if you and I are brothers, and we’re living in a predominantly tribal culture like Iraq, and someone kills you, if I don’t go avenge your death, then I dishonor the family. In that way, when we look at the fact that well over 100,000 Iraqis are estimated to have died during the occupation--the vast majority of them at the hands of occupation forces--it’s a simple matter of doing the math to figure out how many people are in the resistance.
ER-LAST WEEK, there was triumphant talk by U.S. officials of an assault on an insurgent camp led by Iraqi ground forces with U.S. air support. Do you think this is a new turn in the occupation?
DJ-NO, ACTUALLY I think it’s an old propaganda tactic being used by the military in Iraq, and being trumpeted by the media here in the U.S. We’re already seeing massive discrepancies in the reporting on this situation.
It’s similar to a situation I reported on back in December 2003, which happened in Samarra, where the U.S. military claimed that they were attacked by a large contingent of resistance and killed 48. Then, magically, the number went up overnight to 54.
I went up to Samarra myself to report on that. I interviewed doctors at the hospital. I went to the morgue. I interviewed civilians at the scene. Everyone said that eight people were killed, and they were all civilians. It was simply a propaganda smokescreen spewed out by the military to try to cover up the fact that they made a mistake, they were attacked and they killed some civilians....
dahrjamailiraq.com |
