Baghdad/Madrid, 22 March, 2003.

Translation from Spanish by Donald Murphy. ( www.nodo50.org/csca )

In its third report from Baghdad on this morning, 22 March, the Spanish Brigade confirms that they are all well, although shaken by what has been referred to as “a night of intense bombing on the Iraqi capital which was kept up regularly until dawn”.

From 7:20 PM yesterday until 10:00 AM local time, the attacks were very intense, especially in the Al Mansur district, a densely populated area in the centre of Baghdad where institutional buildings (governmental and ministerial) are mixed in with residential blocks of flats and houses. “All night long the neighbourhood has been covered by the black smoke of fires caused by the impact of US missiles and bombs”. Therefore, and despite Defence Department reports in the media claiming that the bombing has only affected “installations of the regime”, it is impossible that there have not been impacts on houses and residential buildings as, even if only government buildings were attacked, the shock waves of these blasts are felt violently for several kilometres from the point of impact.

At 2:20 and at 5:30 local time, the Brigade members heard B-52 bombers flying over the building in which their shelter is located, in an area close to the National Theatre of Baghdad and the Iraqi Air Ministry. In both instances, the launch and explosion of several missiles were heard seconds later. Given the incapacity for an Iraqi response to these aerial attacks, the unlimited use of missiles and bombs on the part of the US is absolutely disproportionate and shameful against a country like Iraq, which has submitted since 1991 to a process controlled by the Security Council of general disarmament, intensified in recent months, making it impossible for its armed forces not only to counterattack against the US invasion, but even to defend itself against the sophisticated military technology which the US is using in this invasion.

From nightfall until early morning today, more than 300 bombs have been launched by US aircraft. According to information circulating in Baghdad, at least 207 persons have been injured, although the number of casualties – a statistic which the Iraqi authorities, as in the Gulf War, are not making public – is unknown.

The Brigade reports that at sunrise people began to come out of their houses and resume their daily lives, as they have been doing every morning since the attacks began three days ago.

This morning, the Spanish Brigade has planned, as yesterday, to travel to Baghdad medical centres to visit the civilians injured in the night of fire the city has just lived through. We will also visit the areas affected by the bombing to see first-hand the real material damages caused by the US attacks and, at 12:00 noon, we will again congregate in front of the International Press Centre to reiterate international public opinion’s condemnation of the military invasion of Iraq and to denounce the Aznar government’s support for this criminal war.

Baghdad/Madrid, 22 March, 2003