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Marines losing the battle for hearts and minds
Noted on CNN overnight; long but will generate a lot of buzz.Hopes of a joyful liberation of a grateful Iraq by US and British armies are evaporating fast in the Euphrates valley as a sense of bitterness, germinated from blood spilled and humiliations endured, begins to grow in the hearts of invaded and invader alike. Attempts by US marines to take bridges over the river Euphrates, which passes through Nasiriya, have become bogged down in casualties and troops taken prisoner. The marines, in turn, have responded harshly. Harsh? Sounds like al-Guardian editorializing. We're being remarkably restrained. Out in the plain west of the city, marines shepherding a gigantic series of convoys north towards Baghdad have reacted to ragged sniping with an aggressive series of house searches and arrests. A surgical assistant at the Saddam hospital in Nassiriya, interviewed at a marine check point outside the city, said that on Sunday, half an hour after two dead marines were brought into the hospital, US aircraft dropped what he described as three or four cluster bombs on civilian areas, killing 10 and wounding 200. Mustafa Mohammed Ali said he understood US forces going straight to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but was outraged that they had attacked his city and killed civilians. "I don't want forces to come into the city. They have an objective, they go straight to the target," he said. "There's no room in the Saddam hospital because of the wounded. It's the only hospital in town. When I saw the dead Americans I cheered in my heart. Your name again, sir? If you don't want us in your city, then point out the snipers and Fedayeen to us and we'll take care of it, and leave you alone. "They started bombing Nasiriya on Friday but they didn't bomb civilian areas until yesterday, when these American dead bodies were brought in. We know the difference between a missile and a cluster bomb. A missile shoots to one target whereas a cluster bomb spreads after they release it." Mr Ali said marines now controlled the centre of the city, but that fighting was continuing, with members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party in the forefront. Asked about the much-vaunted fedayeen militia, reported by some sources to be leading the battle, Mr Ali said: "They are children." Other travellers from Nassiriya said they were press-ganged youths who went into battle dressed in black with black scarves wound around their faces and who fight for fear of the execution committees waiting to shoot them if they try to run. So let's find the execution committees. Shouldn't be too hard -- hard boys with guns towards the rear. Watching from behind a barbed wire barrier as hundreds of the marines' ammunition trucks, armoured amphibious vehicles, tankers, tanks and trucks lumbered past through clouds of dust as fine as talcum powder, Mr Ali asked why such a huge army was needed just to catch a single man. This guy is right up there with Michael Moore — and the Guardian reporter. "We don't want Saddam, but we don't want them [the Americans] to stay afterwards," he said. "Like they entered into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar and didn't leave, they will do here. They are fighting Islam. They're entering under the pretext of targeting Ba'ath, but they won't leave." Light dawns on Mr. Ali. Another Iraqi squatting next to him leaned over, pointed to the convoys and said: "This is better than Saddam's government." The marine convoys, which have been passing northward now almost non-stop for two days, are using a partly-built concrete motorway bridge over the Euphrates which US military engineers have made strong enough to take one tank at a time. At this point the river is a narrow, slow-flowing blue current. Nasiriya is at the western end of the waterlands once occupied by 200,000 Marsh Arabs, the Ma'dan, whose culture, thousands of years old, was all but destroyed by Saddam with terrible loss of life.
Son is probably about 25 or so, right? Add it up: hard boy, rifle, and money. Take your time, Said, we'll wait for you to figure it out. "What did I do?" he said. "This is your freedom that you're talking about? This is my life savings." In 1991, in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the first Gulf war, Mr Yahir was one of those who joined the rebellion against Saddam Hussein. His house was shelled by the dictator's artillery. The US refused to intervene and the rebellion was crushed. "Saddam would have fallen if they had supported us," Mr Yahir said. "I've been so humiliated." We're sorry about that; that's why we're here this time. Under the bridge, Sergeant Michael Sprague was unrepentant. The money, the marines said, was probably destined for terrorist activities — buying a suicide bomber, for instance. "The same people we determined were safe yesterday were found with weapons today," he said. Marine scouts shot two Iraqi men yesterday when they were seen carrying Kalashnikovs. Each man was found to be carrying three magazines, but they never fired at the marines before they were killed. "They were pointing their weapons in an aggressive manner, and they were taken out," said Sgt Sprague. Nathen had been captured the previous day, along with dozens of others, and like them, had been let go, Sgt Sprague said. Then they caught him again with a Kalashnikov in mint condition and 3m dinars. Sarge is a lot quicker than daddy Said was. "So the question I would like to be asked is, if this person already went through EPW [enemy prisoner of war] questioning and was found to be OK, why on earth would he come back? The problem with these people is that you can't believe anything they say." Could he understand the locals' distrust of the US after what happened in 1991? "If it weren't for the liberal press, we might have taken Baghdad last time," said the sergeant. Attaboy, Sarge, tell us. In the end the marines let father and son go on their way with gun and money, accepting that both were for personal use. But Sgt Sprague was none too happy to see them go. The convoys have, after all, come under sporadic mortar attack. "There's a mad mortarman out there," he said. I would have kept the rifle. Have Said sign a receipt.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-25 |
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