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Iraqi allies warn US over Falluja
From BBC (aka the âYou are all going to DIEEE!â network) so put on your old boots cause you are liable to step in it.
Members of Iraqâs US-appointed governing council have condemned the US military operation in Falluja after four days of bitter fighting. One member described the operation as "genocide" after doctors in the Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 reported 450 deaths and 1,000 injured this week.
No puppies or bunnies!
| 450 isn't a very spectacular genocide, especially when most of them were waving guns... |
The fugitive leader of the countryâs parallel Shia unrest has demanded the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
| He's been demanding that for the past year, hasn't he? |
The US has declared a truce in Falluja but fighting continued as night fell. Gunfire and mortar blasts echoed across the city west of Baghdad and a marine officer who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity predicted it would "get worse before it gets better". Another officer, Maj Pete Farnum, said his men had tried to keep the noon (0800 GMT) truce on Friday but attacks by militants had not eased. "We went into pause but the enemy kept attacking us on the western side of the city," he said. "We had to defend ourselves so we asked for permission to return to offensive operation. This was granted."
| More deaders added to the "genocide." Happens every hudna, doesn't it? |
However, the ferocity of the battle for the city appeared to have eased since the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced the 24-hour truce to allow for peace talks. US troops are said to be allowing women and children to leave the city but are stopping men as they search for suspects in the killing and horrific mutilation of four American security guards in Falluja at the end of March.
| Behold the power of film... |
Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja.
Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
"How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
But what the fun-loving residents of Falluja did to the contractors was ok right?
Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.
| Not as counterproductive as the mutilations... |
The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Councilâs rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.
| Goodbye. Don't come back. Ever. |
Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers have been directing violent unrest in Shia areas since Sunday, has demanded the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
Speaking in a sermon read out at Friday Prayers by an aide in the town of Kufa, he said US President George W Bush could no longer point to Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction as reasons to be in Iraq.
How about Mass graves? Rape Rooms? Rape Squads? Oh... those are ok with Mr. Sadr....
"You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," said Mr Sadr, who is the subject of a coalition arrest warrant.
No. We are only fighting the few supporters you have left. Then we will give you your wish of dying for your cause.
President Bush has been consulting other coalition leaders by telephone, speaking to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and El Salvadoran President Francisco Flores. A senior US commander, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said in Baghdad that operations to quell Shia unrest were going well.
| Moqtada's not dead yet, though... |
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said the coalition is facing its "most serious" threat since the end of the war. The US has reported the deaths of at least 42 of its soldiers in combat since Sunday and militants are holding a number of foreign nationals hostage, including three Japanese citizens, two Palestinians and a Canadian. Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja.
| Don't forget the part about the Brutal Iraqi Winter™... |
Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-09 |
