More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in Fallujah since Marines began a siege against Sunni insurgents in the city a week ago, most of them women, children and the elderly, the head of the city's hospital said Sunday.
| No doubt. That's who Marines usually shoot, isn't it? |
Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Fallujah General Hospital, said hospital's director Rafie al-Issawi. Bodies were being buried in two soccer fields, one of which was visited by an Associated Press reporter. It was filled with row after row of graves. The death toll from the siege, which started early last Monday, may be even higher than the hospital's tally
| Glad to hear that. Prob'ly considerably more than a fat battalion in there... |
"We have reports of an unknown number of dead being buried in people's homes without coming to the clinics," al-Issawi said.
"Maw! Mahmoud's kicked it!"
"Well, bury him in the back yard! I'm makin' dinner right now!" |
Asked about the report of 600 dead, Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said: "What I think you will find is 95 percent of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting."
| Surely you don't mean the women and kiddy claims are propaganda? |
"The Marines are trained to be precise in their firepower .... The fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the Marines are very good at what they do," he said. A day earlier, Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, said his battalion — one of three in or around the city — had confirmed 40 Iraqi insurgents were killed and 19 others were likely dead throughout the entire campaign.
| Kind of a difference in those figures. Like a factor of ten. But that's just his battalion, and there are two battalions, plus air power... |
Residents started burying bodies in the soccer fields starting Friday, when there was a pause in fighting to allow people to tend to the dead. At one of the fields, which residents dubbed the "Graveyard of the Martyrs," an AP reporter saw rows of freshly dug graves with wooden planks for headstones over an area about 30 yards wide and 100 yards long. Some headstones bore the names of women; others had markings indicating the dead were children. Khalaf al-Jumaili, a volunteer helping bury bodies, said more than 300 people had been interred in the field. Other volunteers were seen carrying bodies in blankets and lowering them into graves while bystanders shouted, "Martyr, martyr!" It was not known how many were buried at the other soccer field. Asked Sunday about the number of Iraqi casualties in Fallujah, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt referred reporters to Marine spokesmen. But he insisted Marines are "tremendously precise" in their operations and suggested insurgents were hiding among civilians, causing civilian deaths. Nearly a third of Fallujah's 200,000 people fled the city during the lull in fighting.
| And they're not the ones being buried... |
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