A SHIFT IN PENTAGON TACTICS? U.S. ACCUSED OF INFLATING SAMARRA "BODY COUNT"

A SHIFT IN PENTAGON TACTICS? U.S. ACCUSED OF INFLATING SAMARRA "BODY COUNT"

By Leslie Feinberg

December 4, 2003--The U.S. government minimized the Iraqi loss of life during its "shock and awe" assault on Baghdad and during the decade of sanctions that preceded the invasion. Could it now be inflating the number of Iraqis killed by U.S. troops in order to offset news about how badly the occupation is going for the Pentagon?

On Nov. 30, after the smoke cleared in Samarra, a city 60 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. top military command rushed to claim that 46 Iraqis were dead and scores wounded after a fierce fire fight. Within hours, the number of Iraqi dead given was upped to 54. Early accounts said the guerrillas wore the distinctive uniforms of the Fedayeen militia.

The headlined battle reportedly took place after one of two simultaneous and coordinated attacks on U.S. military convoys in different parts of the city. The convoys were carrying a large amount of the new paper currency created by the imperialist occupation.

But where were the uniformed bodies of the dead fighters?

Samarra residents offered a very different account. They said some eight Iraqi civilians were gunned down by occupation forces. Officials from the local hospital confirmed that the morgue had received the bodies of eight civilians, including a child. More than 60 people, reportedly wounded by gunfire and shrapnel from U.S. rounds fired in the bustling city center, had also poured into the health care facility for treatment. (AlJazeera.net, Dec. 1)

Al-Jazeera related that "local residents said U.S. troops killed innocent bystanders when they opened fire on anything that moved around midday." Workers at a nearby pharmaceutical factory said at least two of their co-workers were killed and many wounded as they left the plant when their shift ended. A U.S. tank was shooting randomly in all directions, they said.

The British newspaper The Guardian described the scene: "Six destroyed vehicles sat in front of the hospital, where witnesses said U.S. tanks shelled people dropping off the injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells."

Ibrahim Jassim, who works at the kindergarten, said no children were hurt: "Luckily we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack. Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?"

And why the discrepancy in the number of casualties?

In its coverage of the disputed number of Iraqi deaths, the Dec. 2 New York Times reiterated that the Pentagon typically does not publicize the toll of dead or wounded Iraqis, but after weeks of coalition force casualties, "American military officials seemed to relish the opportunity on Monday to claim credit for dealing the fighters a punishing blow."

Lyndon Johnson's administration used inflated "body counts" for public relations clout after battles with Vietnamese liberation fighters.

BATTLING THE EMPIRE

The Pentagon began an escalated campaign of sheer terror on Nov. 12, dropping mega-bombs on and around Iraqi cities, breaking into homes in the night and dragging off residents.

However, November was also a punishing month for U.S. imperialist forces and all who have joined them in the occupation of Iraq.

At least 104 "coalition" troops were killed, including 79 GIs--the highest number of troop deaths since the U.S. invasion began. Some days during that month of Ramadan, U.S. soldiers officially faced as many as 50 attacks a day.

Iraqi collaborators who have been appointed to posts by the occupying forces were also targeted in November. These titular officials faced 74 attacks; Iraqi police were hit 82 times.

The weekend of Nov. 29-30, Iraqi insurgents killed seven Spanish intelligence agents, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean contractors and a Colombian contractor in scattered ambushes. "The attacks demonstrated once again," the Nov. 30 New York Times admitted, "how Iraqi guerrillas, believed to be small in number, have managed to sustain an initiative against American forces and their allies. Despite extraordinary security precautions for most foreigners here, the guerrillas managed once again to find vulnerable spots."

These attacks came just days after President George W. Bush was stealthily whisked into Baghdad for a photo op on "Thanksgiving" Day--a holiday steeped in colonial and patriotic propaganda and a slow news day. The bombshell arrival of the Commander in Chief was aimed at bolstering domestic and international support for the seven-month-old occupation.

But even with the presence in Iraq of 130,000 troops, Bush could only briefly pose with a few of them and a turkey before he was hastily jetted away after only 150 minutes on the ground. The media were forbidden to speak to the GIs who were part of the op."

After the Nov. 29-30 attacks on Washington's allies, the Bush administration scrambled to do damage control. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell began phone banking to stiffen the resolve of allied governments to hang tough. Bush rang up Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Powell called the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers.

When asked if he thought the deaths led to second thoughts in those countries about taking part in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, State Department spokesperson Richard A. Boucher replied, "I would say none whatsoever."

That's not how others saw it. "But all was not so smooth on Monday after the attacks," the Dec. 2 New York Times noted, "and officials said the United States was not especially pleased with the latest move by the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, in setting up a meeting in New York on Iraq with Security Council and Arab diplomats."

Annan has so far not yielded to diplomatic pressure by Powell to appoint a special personal representative whose job would be to return United Nations staff to Iraq.

The deaths of multinational forces allied with the U.S. imperial occupation of Iraq are deeply reverberating in the populations of those countries. The Japanese government has been forced to postpone deployment of non-combat troops while debate rages at home. Television images showing civilian Iraqis celebrating the deaths of the Spanish intelligence agents rocked Spain. Italian officials are described as increasingly "nervous" about the outpouring of grief and anger in their country over rising Italian casualties.

SOVEREIGNTY ARMED WITH RPGS

The U.S. and its allies desperately want to fashion the appearance of self rule in Iraq as a cover for a continuing imperialist occupation. But after smashing the Iraqi state, all King George's horses and all his men are finding it difficult to piece a shell of "sovereignty" back together again. They are anxious to carry out "reconstruction" of Iraq, by which they mean creating the pipelines to channel the wealth of Iraq into their own coffers.

The real battle to defend the sovereignty and right of self- determination of the Iraqi people is taking place on the ground.

According to Pentagon commanders, the level of insurgent intelligence gathering and ability to carry out coordinated attacks is mounting. "Is this something larger than we have seen over the past couple of months? Yes. And are we concerned about it? Yeah," said Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

While Bush was posing with the turkey, the Special Operations Command Central was being moved back to Qatar from Florida to coordinate an offensive against the insurgency.

But the use of massive firepower to terrorize the Iraqi population is not dampening down anti-colonial resistance--it's inflaming it.

Some of the residents of Samarra had reportedly grabbed their guns and fought back against the U.S. tanks, cannons and Bradley fighting vehicles. (guardian.co. uk, Dec. 1)

"If I had a gun. I would have attacked the Americans myself," vowed Satar Nasiaf, a shopkeeper who said he had watched two Iraqi civilians cut down.