meehawl

“Did you see all that?” he asked, his eyes filled with tears. “Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being killed like this, but we had no choice.” Martin’s distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. “The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy,” said Corporal Ryan Dupre. “I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin’ Iraqi. No, I won’t get hold of one. I’ll just kill him.” … “I was shooting down a street when suddenly a woman came out and casually began to cross the street with a child no older than 10,” said Gunnery Sergeant John Merriman, another Gulf war veteran. “At first I froze on seeing the civilian woman. She then crossed back again with the child and went behind a wall. Within less than a minute a guy with an RPG came out and fired at us from behind the same wall. This happened a second time so I thought, ‘Okay, I get it. Let her come out again’. She did and this time I took her out with my M-16.”

Neither side is going to come out of Nasiriya with clean hands.

After suffering heavy losses in the southern city of Nassiriya, US marines were ordered to fire at any vehicle which drove at American positions, Sunday Times reporter Mark Franchetti reported. He described how one night “we listened a dozen times as the machine guns opened fire, cutting through cars and trucks like paper”. Next morning he said he saw 15 vehicles, including a mini-van and two lorries, riddled with bullet holes. He said he counted 12 dead civilians lying in the road or in nearby ditches.

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I came across this charming account demonstrating further ways to ingratiate your invading soldiers with the locals:

As the U.S. Army’s Seventh Combat Support Group, a unit of the Third Infantry Division, moved northward in the Arabian desert west of the Euphrates River towards the town of Najaf on March 26, the commander, realizing his exhausted men faced shortages of food and water, was looking for a place of refuge. He found it in the form of two Bedouin families. Drew Brown, reporter from Knight Ridder News Service who was embedded with the unit, reported that Col. John P. Gardner ordered the two families to leave their land and turn it over to his men. He reportedly gave them “receipts” for the tents, dogs, chickens, bowls, pots and other possessions they left behind–receipts that neither he nor anyone else could tell them how they could redeem–and sent them off “befuddled” into the desert.

After taking longer than expected to reach An-Najaf, the support group Wednesday faced shortages of food and water. Crews scheduled to follow close behind were held back by limited visibility and fighting along the supply route, where Iraqis waited to pounce on any convoy driver unfortunate enough to get into a wreck. The support group found refuge by moving two families of nomads off their land. They gave the nomads receipts for later reimbursement, but could not tell them how or where to cash them. Befuddled, the families left behind their dogs, chickens, tents, bowls and pots. All day and night, the dogs howled, the puppies whimpered and the chickens squawked until they found partially eaten MREs discarded by the soldiers.

The Third Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the one that bans the billeting of troops in private households, was a direct result of the British practice of taking over colonial farms and households at will for the quartering of Redcoat troops. It was this obscene imperial behavior, perhaps more than the issue of “taxation without representation”, that really fed the fires of rebellion in the U.S. colonies. Brown doesn’t tell us what the two “nomad” families felt or said as they were driven by Gardner and his men from their homes and lands, but it’s a fair bet they weren’t awash with feelings or gratitude at their liberation.

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According to “The Day After: The Army in a Post-Conflict Iraq,” a December 2002 paper produced by the War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership, army studies have concluded that even with United Nations support, “a post-conflict Iraq requirement of 65,000 to 80,000″ U.S. Army personnel is the low-end manpower requirement for a military occupation expected to last not a matter of months, but “a minimum of five years and possibly as many as ten.”

Earlier here.

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So there’s no way the Bush Gang are going to let the strategically important Umm Qasr port be run by smelly Iraqis. Whatever about the dribbles of food aid coming through it, it’s essential that the Pentagon controls this port in order to shorten its supply lines from Kuwait. To that end, they’ve handed over control of the port to a company run by some of Bush’s very best strike-busting buddies.

Serious divisions emerged last night between Britain and America over plans for the running of Iraq’s largest port at Umm Qasr. Air Marshal Brian Burridge, Britain’s chief military officer in the Gulf, said it should be run by Iraqis as a model for the future reconstruction of the country. But earlier this week the Bush administration handed the $4.8m (�3m) contract to the private Stevedor ing Services of America (SSA). The Seattle-based firm has clashed with workers across three continents and faced accusations of being union busters. SSA will manage the port and handle cargo and shipping at Umm Qasr … The US and UK military say Umm Qasr is vital for delivery and unloading of humanitarian supplies, though some experts think it could also be very useful if the war drags on and fresh supplies are needed for the troops.

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I noted that all of Iraq has effectively been designated as a free-fire zone. This is sure to enhance the life of its residents and make the US/UK invaders even more popular. Way to win their hearts and minds, guys.

the standing orders at checkpoints are simple: shoot-to-kill those who do not obey. That was the case near Najaf, where artillery fire killed the three men who refused to stop their car. “It was clear they were incoming suicide bombers,” said Colonel Michael Linnington, commander of the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade. “The vehicle was blown up, killing everyone on board.”

U.S. military officials told NBC News that seven women and children were killed at a checkpoint southeast of Karbala when U.S. troops opened fire on their van after the driver refused to stop. The officials said the soldiers first attempted to disable the vehicle by shooting at the engine, but when the van continued forward they opened fire on the driver and passenger compartment.

US President George Bush said there would be no pause in the assault, promising the Iraqi people that “we are coming and we will not stop, we will not relent until your country is free”.

Extra:Military’s version of this incident differs significantly from eye-witness accounts:

A US military spokesman says the soldiers motioned the vehicle to stop but their signals were ignored. However, according to the Washington Post, Captain Ronny Johnson, who was in charge of the checkpoint, blamed his own troops for ignoring orders to fire a warning shot. “You just fucking killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough!”, he reportedly yelled at them.

Fifteen Iraqi civilians were packed inside the Toyota, officers said, along with as many of their possessions as the jammed vehicle could hold. Ten of them, including five children who appeared to be under 5 years old, were killed on the spot when the high-explosive rounds slammed into their target, Johnson’s company reported. Of the five others, one man was so severely injured that medics said he was not expected to live. “It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, and I hope I never see it again,” Sgt. Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division’s 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, said later in an interview. He said one of the wounded women sat in the vehicle holding the mangled bodies of two of her children. “She didn’t want to get out of the car,” he said.

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It’s nice to know that “bluestocking” is a phrase that can still be deployed.

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I mentioned last week that Bagman Rumsfeld was being set up as fall guy for the Iraqi debacle and so I am not at all surprised today to read Big Hitter Hersh’s hatchet job, describing how he did a Hitler and overruled his generals, micromanaging his forces and redploying units arbitrarily.

Rumsfeld further stunned the Joint Staff by insisting that he would control the timing and flow of Army and Marine troops to the combat zone. Such decisions are known in the military as R.F.F.s�requests for forces. He, and not the generals, would decide which unit would go when and where … Rumsfeld had two goals: to demonstrate the efficacy of precision bombing and to “do the war on the cheap.” … Rumsfeld�s personal contempt for many of the senior generals and admirals who were promoted to top jobs during the Clinton Administration is widely known … One witness to a meeting recalled Rumsfeld confronting General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, in front of many junior officers. “He was looking at the Chief and waving his hand,” the witness said, “saying, ‘Are you getting this yet? Are you getting this yet?’”

It seems as if Rumsfeld is taking after another of the Bush Junta, Cheney, who has a fondness for military wargames:

“My God,” the official supposedly complained. “He’s got all the force he needs. Why won’t he just attack?” Schwarzkopf notes that the unnamed official who’d made the comment “was a civilian who knew next to nothing about military affairs, but he’d been watching the Civil War documentary on public television and was now an expert.” And then, twenty pages later, Schwarzkopf casually drops the information that he got an inspirational gift from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney right before the air war finally got under way. Cheney was presenting a gift to a military man, and he chose something with an appropriate theme: “(A) complete set of videotapes of Ken Burns’s PBS series, The Civil War.” But that wasn’t the only gift that Dick Cheney had for Norman Schwarzkopf. Having figured out that the general was being too cautious with his fourth combat command in three decades of soldiering, Cheney got his staff busy and began presenting Schwarzkopf with his own ideas about how to fight the Iraqis: What if we parachute the 82nd Airborne into the far western part of Iraq, hundreds of miles from Kuwait and totally cut off from any kind of support, and seize a couple of missile sites, then line up along the highway and drive for Baghdad? Schwarzkopf charitably describes the plan as being “as bad as it could possibly be… But despite our criticism, the western excursion wouldn’t die: three times in that week alone Powell called with new variations from Cheney’s staff. The most bizarre involved capturing a town in western Iraq and offering it to Saddam in exchange for Kuwait.”

The Hersh article also seems to echo much of the Russian military analysis from last week:

“It�s a stalemate now,” the former intelligence official told me. “It’s going to remain one only if we can maintain our supply lines. The carriers are going to run out of jdams”�the satellite-guided bombs that have been striking targets in Baghdad and elsewhere with extraordinary accuracy. Much of the supply of Tomahawk guided missiles has been expended. “The Marines are worried as hell,” the former intelligence official went on. “They�re all committed, with no reserves, and they�ve never run the lavs”�light armored vehicles�”as long and as hard” as they have in Iraq. There are serious maintenance problems as well. “The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements come.”

Of course, the big losers in all this are the Iraqi civilians, who will now be subjected to weeks or possibly months of increasingly dumb and indiscriminate carpet bombing for their temerity in not rising up as one against their dictatorship like Rumsfeld expected them to do.

But why was Bagman Rumsfeld so eager to “prove” that Iraq could be toplled with a minimal force? Because a six-month, troops-heavy positional war followed by a costly occupation would leave them no leverage and no time to be able to go quickly after their other targets: Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia.

consider the hawks’ plans for those Middle East states that are authoritarian yet “friendly” to the United States–specifically Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No question these are problem countries. Their governments buy our weapons and accept our foreign aid yet allow vicious anti-Semitism to spew from the state run airwaves and tolerate clerics who preach jihad against the West. But is it really in our interests to work for their overthrow? Many hawks clearly think so. I asked Richard Perle last year about the dangers that might flow from the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “Mubarak is no great shakes,” he quipped. “Surely we can do better than Mubarak.” When I asked Perle’s friend and fellow Reagan-era neocon Ken Adelman to calculate the costs of having the toppling of Saddam lead to the overthrow of the House of Saud, he shot back: “All the better if you ask me.”

Rumsfeld and co know that amassing an army of quarter of a million is a once-a-decade affair: 1991 and 2003. But if they can prove that victory is possible with a lighter, more nimble force, assembled rapidly - then why not repeat the trick? “This is just the beginning,” an administration official told the New York Times this week. “I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq.” So Washington may be regretting its hasty shredding of international custom - some of those rules could have come in handy in this war - but the pangs will fade. After all, this is a band of men with big dreams - and work to do.

And the Brits have serious Rumsfeld issues:

because this is Mr Rumsfeld’s war not Mr Blair’s, it is Mr Rumsfeld’s purpose that counts. Mr Rumsfeld cares little about the Middle East peace process, less still about giving the UN a central role in Iraq reconstruction, and least of all about a new multilateral world order enforced through global rules applying to all nations including the US. He has worked for this moment for years. He has manoeuvred the administration into the war. He has set its terms and imposed its timetable and he has refused to allow them to be changed or compromised. He is the principal author of the premature and misconceived unilateral invasion which, thanks to Mr Blair’s weakness, has set Britain against international law and diplomacy, wrecked our alliances, convulsed our politics and thrown every part of Labour’s project into doubt. With friends like Mr Rumsfeld, who needs enemies?

Earlier here.

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So the world is suddenly agog when a British soldier gets killed by depleted uranium friendly fire. It bears repeating: there’s nothing remotely friendly about dirty bullets made of poisonous uranium. The US complains that Iraq may be storying proscribed chemical weapons while ther Pentagon continues using radiological weapons for as long as it can.

Efforts by the US/UK to keep depleted uranium off the agenda of the UN Sub-Commission on Protection and Promotion of Human Rights failed this August (2002) as the Sub-Commission clearly decided that depleted uranuim weaponry qualify as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and authorized a prominent member, Justice Y. Sik Yuen (Mauritius) to prepare a study on the topic.

Laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing ‘poison or poisoned weapons’ and ‘arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering’.

Earlier here.

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So all along the Pentagon’s wet dream has been for a “Shiite Rebellion” against the Iraqi government, “just like after the first Gulf War”. And so the Birtish troops play a waiting game outside Basra. What they are conveniently overlooking, of course, is that the Shiite militancy against the centrasl government in Iraq was directed, led by, and consisted of Islamist Badr militants. Once the US saw the way the wind was blowing the last time they backed away from invading Iraq, leaving Saddam’s regime to liquidate thousands of pro-Iranian Badr militants. The Badr gang aren’t making the same mistake this time: like the Turks they seem content to sit on the sidelines and see which way the cards fall before committing themselves. I noted earlier that the US was likely to stomp on any local anti-Saddam forces out of concern to establish their own unchallenged Iraqi hegemony:

Analysts in Tehran say that Badr corps troops were crossing into Iraq after having been based in Iran for 20 years; foreign journalists have been unable to confirm the reports as they are banned from most border areas. Some 1,500 Badr corps were observed deploying into northern Iraq before the war started. Formed in the Iran-Iraq war, the corps has 10,000 Iraqi Shias, believed to have been armed and trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards … Mr Rumsfeld’s warning on Friday that Badr troops would be treated as “combatants” suprised Tehran, as it has maintained contructive relations with Britain over the war and has allowed the council’s representatives to attend meetings of Iraqi opposition groups in Washington.

Earlier here.

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So one of the dolphin mine-sweeper draftees has wisely decided that discretion is the better part of valour and gone AWOL…

Takoma, the Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphin, had been in Iraq for 48 hours when he went missing on his first operation to snoop out mines. His handler, Petty Officer Taylor Whitaker, had proudly showed off Takoma�s skills and told how the 22-year-old dolphin was among the most pampered creatures in the American military … Takoma and his fellow mine hunters have a special diet, regular medical checks and their own sleeping quarters … Petty Officer Whitaker had tempted fate by saying: “Why would they go missing when they have the best food and daily spruce-ups and health checks?” Two hours later Takoma had gone Awol. “Twenty-four hours is not unusual,” a nervous Petty Officer Whitaker said. “After all, he may meet some local company.”

Officers said he had gone off before but only for 24 hours. By last night he had been Awol for two full days. His handler, US Petty Officer Taylor Whitaker, has spent the past two evenings at the dockside with a basket of fish, slapping the water.

Prior to arriving in Iraq, experts had mentioned one worry about the marine mammal deployment there: the potential for a turf clash between the local Iraqi dolphins and the military dolphins, who were trained in California. Dolphins are territorial animals and there was some concern that the Iraqi dolphins might chase out their newly arrived American cousins, causing them to swim into other waters and out of military usefulness.

Earlier here.

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