Baghdad, Iraq
John Farrell
Voices in The Wilderness

Here in Iraq there is so much to learn that I feel overwhelmed. There are so many things that I do not understand about this place, which is just one reminder to me of how much the United States government does not understand about this place and about ordinary Iraqis. I read that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq today, telling US troops that their work here, while difficult, is succeeding and will continue to succeed. From where I sit, looking out at Karrada Dakhil street from this Internet Cafe in the cool of the evening (that is, when the cool of temperature below 100 degrees)it could very well be the case that everyone is happy and content here. The Iraqis that I have met are very resilient and are used to enduring great calamity and hardship, not to mention corrupt government officials. However, when you talk with people and more importantly when you listen to people, then you get a different opinion of what’s going on here under US occupation.

So here’s my suggestion to Donald Rumsfeld while he is here in Iraq. Mr. Donald, leave the comfort of the former Republican Palace, where Iraqis were not allowed to go freely under Saddam and where they still are not allowed to go freely under the Coalition Provisional Authority (unless accompanied by a foreigner), and take a ride around Baghdad in a taxi cab. Hail one of the rickety cabs, the ones painted white and orange, not the cabs that someone at a hotel would call for you. Take an interpreter with you, and introduce yourself as someone from the United States. Don’t tell them that you are Donald Rumsfeld. For the full effect, take a cab during the hottest part of the day, anytime from 10 am to 5 pm, when temperatures inside these tin boxes on wheels can easily reach a stuffy 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I guarantee you that you will get a different view of the situation than you are getting from the safety of your squadron of helicopters, cruising overhead.

The death of two innocent Iraqis was thought so unremarkable the US military did not even report it, but Peter Beaumont says it reflects an increasingly callous disregard of civilian lives in coalition operations.

Farah Fadhil was only 18 when she was killed. An American soldier threw a grenade through the window of her apartment. Her death, early last Monday, was slow and agonising. Her legs had been shredded, her hands burnt and punctured by splinters of metal, suggesting that the bright high-school student had covered her face to shield it from the explosion.

She had been walking to the window to try to calm an escalating situation; to use her smattering of English to plead with the soldiers who were spraying her apartment building with bullets.

But then a grenade was thrown and Farah died. So did Marwan Hassan who, according to neighbours, was caught in the crossfire as he went looking for his brother when the shooting began.

What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability.

For while the media are encouraged to count each US death, the Iraqi civilians who have died at American hands since the fall of Saddam’s regime have been as uncounted as their names have been unacknowledged.

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