More letters from Baghdad

author : Joe Carr topic : Iraq occupation

by Joe Carr

[The following are edited excerpts from the journal of former Olympia resident Joe Carr. Carr spent May and part of June in Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), documenting and bearing witness to the impact of the US occupation of Iraq. His complete Iraq journal can be read at http://www.lovinrevolution.org . He has recently returned to the United States.]

The Resistance

(Late May 2005)

Today, I met a man who told me he was a resistance fighter. I was surprised that he trusted me enough to tell me this, and he may have been lying. I had a thousand questions for him anyway, but I didn't want to sketch him out, so I remained casual and just tried to chat with him.

He said he was from Fallujah and had fought the Americans during their first attack. American soldiers killed seven of his family members during that attack, most of whom were civilians. During the attack, it was only Fallujans defending their city, not foreign fighters. The foreigners are carrying out attacks in other parts of Iraq, and Iraqis believe that it is these foreign terrorists who attack churches and mosques, having been drawn by the presence of US troops. However, most of the attacks on the occupation forces are native Iraqis exercising their right under international law to resist an invader.

I asked him if he wanted Saddam back. "We hated Saddam," he replied, "and we did not fight the Americans when they came to overthrow him. But now the Americans are just as bad, so we'll fight them until they leave."

I asked him where he got his military training, and he explained that almost all of Iraq's young men are trained. Saddam sent every high school boy to a three-month military training camp. Then after high school, around 80% were conscripted into Saddam's army and received more intense training. I asked him where the resistance got their weapons, and he said that just before the invasion, Saddam distributed AK-47s to the public and encouraged them to fight. "None of us fought for Saddam," he said, "but now we'll fight for our freedom from American occupation." After the invasion, a lot of Iraq's arsenal ended up on the black market, so heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, and even missiles are easily available to them.

Also, after the invasion there were "unexploded ordinances" all over the place. Christian Peacemakers Teams even had a campaign to get the US to clean up these dangerous weapons because children were playing with them. "At least tape them off" a CPTer asked a soldier, and the soldier said, "We don't have tape." So CPTers mailed congress rolls of yellow tape in protest of this carelessness. One CPTer told me there was an unexploded missile down the street from us. They asked American soldiers repeatedly to remove it. "They tend to disappear," one commander said. And guess what -- it did -- and was likely used against the occupation forces.

I asked the fighter if he was afraid there'd be civil war if the American forces left. He said it was possible, but as a Sunni, he was convinced the Sunnis would win. He said the American troops aren't doing anything to prevent civil war; indeed they're only making matters worse.

To sum up what I learned from this man: Iraqis are armed, trained, and pissed off at the Americans and their puppet Iraqi government. They're not Saddam loyalists, and they're not "foreign fighters." They love their families, they love freedom, and they'll fight occupation to the death.

Fallujah: An Unnatural Disaster

(May 28, 2005)

Today, I did what few internationals have dared to do, I went to Fallujah.

Fallujah is devastating to drive through. There is more destruction and rubble than I've ever seen in my life; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The US has leveled entire neighborhoods, and about every third building is destroyed or damaged from US artillery. Rubble and bullet holes are everywhere, the city is indescribably ravaged. It looks like it's been hit by a series of tornados.

US troops, Iraqi military, and Iraqi police have an overwhelming presence in the city. I've never seen such dirty looks directed at the passing forces. Perhaps in most places people get used to the occupier, but in Fallujah, the hate is still very alive. 16,000 Fallujan police lost their jobs after the US attacks and were replaced by Shiite from the South. The US intentionally sends Shiite to patrol Sunni strongholds to breed resentment and abuse, and it works. Soldiers shoot anyone who drives too close to their convoys, which makes driving anywhere in this small city incredibly dangerous. It is very easy to accidentally turn a corner and find yourself in the midst of a convoy. The hospital said that one or two people a week die from the indiscriminate fire of US and Shiite occupation forces.

There are horror stories everywhere. We visited a family's home in a neighborhood where every structure was damaged or destroyed. Their home was full of holes and completely black inside from fire. They said that they'd left during the fighting with their home intact and returned to find all of their possessions burned. Three families -- over 25 people, including four infants -- are now living in this 3-room house because their homes were completely destroyed. Some of them tried to get compensation from the US military but were denied.

Fallujah has only one hospital with inpatient care. Other clinics and treatment centers were bombed by US troops, and soldiers prevented many people from getting to the hospital during the attacks. Even after the fighting, the US kept the bridges closed, which caused several people to die of heart attacks when they couldn't get to the hospital fast enough. People from the rural areas surrounding Fallujah are also now dying of treatable illnesses because they can't get through the checkpoints to the Fallujah hospital. One hospital employee said that many patients die when they try to transfer them to hospitals outside Fallujah. "It's better to take them in a civilian car than in an ambulance" he said, "because the troops delay and search ambulances more." During the first attack, the hospital became a main source of information for the outside world. So when the US attacked the second time, they took over the hospital area first and controlled what information got out.

Meeting a Sunni cleric was the highlight of the trip. He was a young, passionate man and quite articulate. He told us about some horror stories he'd witnessed. During the first invasion, several families near his Mosque took cover in a home. US troops used megaphones to order all them out into the street and told them to carry a white flag. They did this, but when they all got out, the soldiers opened fire into the group, killing five. He said one boy had run to his mother who'd been shot, and Americans shot him in the head. He said he saw a US commander cry as this happened. "But what good were his tears?" he asked. "He didn't do anything to stop it."

While meeting with the cleric, a man told us some of his horror stories. "The Americans shot and killed my 15-year-old daughter," he said, "was she a terrorist?" He said the US military denied killing her and refused to give him even minimal compensation. The US gave him only half the compensation for his house that they destroyed. "With all respect to you," he said, "I hate Americans. They killed my family. My children cannot play in the street. They shot and killed my sister-in-law while she was washing clothes, and my other brother's hands and feet were blown off." He apologized for interrupting, but said that he had to tell us because he's in so much pain.

I felt incredibly safe in Fallujah; the people I spoke with were kind and gentle. They are rightfully angry and indignant at what the US has done to them, but they seemed to understand that it wasn't me or all American's that did it. The cleric said, "We are grateful that you come here and share in our suffering and agony, it shows that there are good and human Americans."

Fallujah is the face of US occupation. It shows how ruthless the US will be toward anyone who dares resist its agenda. But Fallujah has not stopped resisting. It is said that "you can't bomb a resistance out of existence, but you can bomb one into it." The unnatural disaster the US has unleashed on the Middle East is horrifying, and we all must resist it.