Stories from Fallujah

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/020905Z.shtml

 

 

 

 

Stories from Fallujah

By Dahr Jamail

Iraq Dispatches

 

Tuesday 08 February 2005

 

These are the stories that will continue to emerge from the rubble

of Fallujah for years. No, for generations...

 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the doctor sits with me in a

hotel room in Amman, where he is now a refugee. He'd spoken about what

he saw in Fallujah in the UK, and now is under threat by the US

military if he returns to Iraq.

 

" I started speaking about what happened in Fallujah during both

sieges in order to raise awareness, and the Americans raided my house

three times, " he says, talking so fast I can barely keep up. He is

driven to tell what he's witnessed, and as a doctor working inside

Fallujah, he has video and photographic proof of all that he tells me.

 

" I entered Fallujah with a British medical and humanitarian convoy

at the end of December, and stayed until the end of January, " he

explains, " But I was in Fallujah before that to work with people and

see what their needs were, so I was in there since the beginning of

December. "

 

When I ask him to explain what he saw when he first entered

Fallujah in December he says it was like a tsunami struck the city.

 

" Fallujah is surrounded by refugee camps where people are living

in tents and old cars, " he explains, " It reminded me of Palestinian

refugees. I saw children coughing because of the cold, and there are

no medicines. Most everyone left their houses with nothing, and no

money, so how can they live depending only on humanitarian aid? "

 

The doctors says that in one refugee camp in the northern area of

Fallujah there were 1,200 students living in seven tents.

 

" The disaster caused by this siege is so much worse than the first

one, which I witnessed first hand, " he says, and then tells me he'll

use one story as an example.

 

" One story is of a young girl who is 16 years old, " he says of one

of the testimonies he video taped recently, " She stayed for three days

with the bodies of her family who were killed in their home. When the

soldiers entered she was in her home with her father, mother, 12

year-old brother and two sisters. She watched the soldiers enter and

shoot her mother and father directly, without saying anything. "

 

The girl managed to hide behind the refrigerator with her brother

and witnessed the war crimes first-hand.

 

" They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head, " he said.

After this her brother was enraged and ran at the soldiers while

shouting at them, so they shot him dead.

 

" She continued hiding after the soldiers left and stayed with her

sisters because they were bleeding, but still alive. She was too

afraid to call for help because she feared the soldiers would come

back and kill her as well. She stayed for three days, with no water

and no food. Eventually one of the American snipers saw her and took

her to the hospital, " he added before reminding me again that he had

all of her testimony documented on film.

 

He briefly told me of another story he documented of a mother who

was in her home during the siege. " On the fifth day of the siege her

home was bombed, and the roof fell on her son, cutting his legs off, "

he says while using his hands to make cutting motions on his legs,

" For hours she couldn't go outside because they announced that anyone

going in the street would be shot. So all she could do was wrap his

legs and watch him die before her eyes. "

 

He pauses for a few deep breaths, then continues, " All I can say

is that Fallujah is like it was struck by a tsunami. There weren't

many families in there after the siege, but they had absolutely

nothing. The suffering was beyond what you can imagine. When the

Americans finally let us in people were fighting just for a blanket. "

 

" One of my colleagues, Dr. Saleh Alsawi, he was speaking so

angrily about them. He was in the main hospital when they raided it at

the beginning of the seige. They entered the theater room when they

were working on a patient...he was there because he's an

anesthesiologist. They entered with their boots on, beat the doctors

and took them out, leaving the patient on the table to die. "

 

This story has already been reported in the Arab media.

 

The doctor tells me of the bombing of the Hay Nazal clinic during

the first week of the siege.

 

" This contained all the foreign aid and medical instruments we

had. All the US military commanders knew this, because we told them

about it so they wouldn't bomb it. But this was one of the clinics

bombed, and in the first week of the siege they bombed it two times. "

 

He then adds, " Of course they targeted all our ambulances and

doctors. Everyone knows this. "

 

The doctor tells me he and some other doctors are trying to sue

the US military for the following incident, for which he has the

testimonial evidence on tape.

 

It is a story I was told by several refugees in Baghdad as

well...at the end of last November while the siege was still in progress.

 

" During the second week of the siege they entered and announced

that all the families have to leave their homes and meet at an

intersection in the street while carrying a white flag. They gave them

72 hours to leave and after that they would be considered an enemy, "

he says.

 

" We documented this story with video-a family of 12, including a

relative and his oldest child who was 7 years old. They heard this

instruction, so they left with all their food and money they could

carry, and white flags. When they reached the intersection where the

families were accumulating, they heard someone shouting 'Now!' in

English, and shooting started everywhere. "

 

The family was all carrying white flags, as instructed, according

to the young man who gave his testimony. Yet he watched his mother and

father shot by snipers-his mother in the head and his father shot in

the heart. His two aunts were shot, then his brother was shot in the

neck. The man stated that when he raised himself from the ground to

shout for help, he was shot in the side.

 

" After some hours he raised his arm for help and they shot his

arm, " continues the doctor, " So after awhile he raised his hand and

they shot his hand. "

 

A six year-old boy of the family was standing over the bodies of

his parents, crying, and he too was then shot.

 

" Anyone who raised up was shot, " adds the doctor, then added again

that he had photographs of the dead as well as photos of the gunshot

wounds of the survivors.

 

" Once it grew dark some of them along with this man who spoke with

me, with his child and sister-in-law and sister managed to crawl away

after it got dark. They crawled to a building and stayed for 8 days.

They had one cup of water and gave it to the child. They used cooking

oil to put on their wounds which were of course infected, and found

some roots and dates to eat. "

 

He stops here. His eyes look around the room as cars pass by

outside on wet streets...water hissing under their tires.

 

He left Fallujah at the end of January, so I ask him what it was

like when he left recently.

 

" Now maybe 25% of the people have returned, but there are still no

doctors. The hatred now of Fallujans against every American is

incredible, and you cannot blame them. The humiliation at the

checkpoints is only making people even angrier, " he tells me.

 

" I've been there, and I saw that anyone who even turns their head

is threatened and hit by both American and Iraqi soldiers alike...one

man did this, and when the Iraqi soldier tried to humiliate him, the

man took a gun of a nearby soldier and killed two ING, so then of

course he was shot. "

 

The doctor tells me they are keeping people in the line for

several hours at a time, in addition to the US military making

propaganda films of the situation.

 

" And I've seen them use the media-and on January 2nd at the north

checkpoint in the north part of Fallujah, they were giving people $200

per family to return to Fallujah so they can film them in the

line...when actually, at that time, nobody was returning to Fallujah, "

he says. It reminds me of the story my colleague told me of what he

saw in January. At that time a CNN crew was escorted in by the

military to film street cleaners that were brought in as props, and

soldiers handing out candy to children.

 

" You must understand the hatred that has been caused...it has

gotten more difficult for Iraqis, including myself, to make the

distinction between the American government and the American people, "

he tells me.

 

His story is like countless others.

 

" My cousin was a poor man in Fallujah, " he explains, " He walked

from his house to work and back, while living with his wife and five

daughters. In July of 2003, American soldiers entered his house and

woke them all up. They drug them into the main room of the house, and

executed my cousin in front of his family. Then they simply left. "

 

He pauses then holds up his hands and asks, " Now, how are these

people going to feel about Americans? "

 

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