I’ve been keeping a watch on the situation in Fallujah - since the American assualt on the city in November - via a number of sources but principally Google News Alerts, which is a fantastic tool for tracking stories.

It’s a story that has totally vanished from the mainstream news, at least in the UK, and I was prompted to do a round-up after reading this piece on Shot By Both Sides.

(As an aside, I’m going to make no comments on the Lancet’s report on civilian deaths in Iraq - I have no grasp of statistics and therefore can’t make an informed contribution - other than to say Blair and Straw dismissed it out of hand with unseemly haste.)

As you might expect, the number casualties in Fallujah seems to vary from report to report. There were rumours that napalm was used in the assault. It was recently reported that Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli of Iraq’s Ministry of Health announced at a press conference that US forces had also used banned chemical weapons including mustard gas and nerve gas .

Sitting here at my desk in Brighton, I can’t vouch for any of these reports’ veracity. But that said, it’s quite apparent that something terrible happened, and is continuing to happen, in Fallujah.

Aljazeera: The forgotten Fallujah- U.S. offensive continues

Here is Dr. Saleh Hussein Isawi, acting director of the Fallujah general hospital, describing what he saw when he entered the city on Christmas Eve:

I was there, inside the city - about 60% to 70% of the homes and buildings are completely crushed and damaged, and not ready to inhabit at the moment.

“Of the 30% still left standing, I don’t think there is a single one that has not been exposed to some damage.

“One of my colleagues… went to see his home, and saw that it has almost completely collapsed and everything is burnt inside.

“When he went to his neighbours’ home, he found a relative of his was dead and a dog had eaten the meat off him.

“I think we will see many things like this, because the U.S. forces have cleared the dead people from the streets, but not from inside the homes.”

Reuters: Focus on situation in Fallujah

The Ministry of Health (MoH) reported that some services in the IDP [internally displaced people] areas were overloaded. For instance, consultations in the Saklawiya clinic average between 600 and 800 patients per day, with high incidences of respiratory infections, diarrhoea and scabies reported, due to overcrowded living conditions and poor sanitation.

…

Another problem worrying NGOs is the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance (UXOs), as reports suggest that homes and public buildings have not been systematically cleared and demarcated and that public information campaigns have not been effectively disseminated to returnees.

Wikipedia: Fallujah

Residents were allowed to return to the city in mid-December after undergoing biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. About two thirds of the buildings in the town are estimated to have suffered notable damage, with as much as half being uninhabitable or providing unsafe and unsanitary living conditions only. Reconstruction is only progressing slowly and mainly consists of razing heavily-damaged areas to the ground. This is also due to the fact that only 10% or less of the pre-offensive inhabitants have returned as of mid-January.

The Guardian: City of ghosts by Ali Fadhil

“We told the mujahideen to leave it to us ordinary Fallujans, but those bloody bastards, the sheikhs and the clerics, are busy painting some bloody mad picture of heaven and martyrs and the victory of the mujahideen,” said Ali, another refugee. “And, of course, the kids believe every word those clerics say. They’re young and naive, and they forget that this is a war against the might of the machine of the American army. So they let those kids die like this and our city gets blown up with the wind.”

…

Fallujans are suspicious of outsiders, so I found it surprising when Nihida Kadhim, a housewife, beckoned me into her home. She had just arrived back in the city to check out her house; the government had told the people three days earlier that they should start going home. She called me into her living room. On her mirror she pointed to a message that had been written in her lipstick. She couldn’t read English. It said: “Fuck Iraq and every Iraqi in it!”

…

For the rest of the day people were pulling on me to come and see their houses. Again, they asked where all the journalists were. Why were they not coming to report on what has happened in Falluja? But I have worked with journalists for 18 months and I knew it would be too dangerous for them to come to the city, that they are seen as spies and could end up in a sack. So since I was the only one there with a camera, everyone wanted to show me what happened to their house. It took hours.

New Kerala: Fallujah cost nears $500 million

The U.S.-led November assault on Fallujah and ensuing battle caused $493 million in damage to private homes, according to a new United Nations report.

The Iraqi government has promised $103 million for the rebuilding of Fallujah.The United States has also promised around $100 million.

Posted on March 17th, 2005 at 4:00 pm

See also • Rafferty’s rules • Telegraph: Americans begin new offensive in Fallujah • Washington Post: In Fallujah, Peace Through Brute Strength		• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe • Print
• Filed under Iraq, T.W.A.T.		•