THE AMBASSADORS
Special Peace Issue
THE AMBASSADORS
Special Peace Issue
OPINION
Volume 2,
Issue 2
April 1999
Did the
U.S. Intentionally Bomb Civilians in Basra, Iraq?
Special to The Ambassadors from the
International Action Center, New York
Was the 2,000-pound bomb that U.S. warplanes dropped on a residential neighborhood in Iraq's second largest city on January 25 an "accident" or did the Pentagon deliberately target civilians?
"The U.S. has deliberately targeted Iraqi civilians in the past," stated Brian Becker, co-director of the International Action Center (IAC). "During the Gulf war, for instance, the U.S. used two precision or `smart' bombs to destroy the Al-Amariyah bomb shelter in downtown Baghdad. As many as 1,100 Iraqi children were killed. The Pentagon spokesman went on TV in Feb. 1991 to announce that the attack on Al-Amariyah was not an accident. The U.S. was trying to terrorize the population.
"Of course, economic sanctions that have lasted eight years target civilians. More than 1.7 million civilians have died from hunger and disease according to UNICEF, the UN agency that evaluates children's health. It is not known if this attack was intentional or an accident proving that the Pentagon's `smart' missiles aren't always so smart.
"But the fact that at least one and possibly two of these huge bombs crashed into residential housing is not in dispute. It was the middle of the day on Monday, a quiet afternoon, when Iraqi families in al-Jumuhuriya had their homes and their worlds literally blown apart by U.S. missiles," Becker said.
CNN reported eleven killed and 59 wounded, some of them suffering serious burns. Many of the dead were children and some of their mothers.
Why did the attack happen? Here lies the deepest irony, according to the IAC spokesperson. Because Iraqi planes dared to fly into the No-Fly Zone, says the Pentagon spokesperson, Frank Leyhew. "Iraqi actions pose serious threats to our air crews and our actions today are an appropriate response to these threats," Leyhew told the Associated Press following the reports of the strike on the residential neighborhood.
"The Pentagon won't find any Arab people who believe the U.S. bombing was an `appropriate response,'" Becker said. The United States and Britain declared all of southern Iraq a No-Fly Zone on the pretext that the "people of southern Iraq would then be safe from Saddam Hussein's air force."
"Remember in Vietnam the famous interview with an U.S. army colonel who, surveying a peasant village that had been set aflame by napalm bombs, said `we had to burn their village to save them from the communists.' That remark was made famous for its absurdity. It became a symbol of the ludicrous character of the U.S. war propaganda," Becker asserted.
He continued, "For the last month U.S. warplanes have lobbed missile after missile into southern Iraq on the pretext that the No-Fly Zones, one in northern Iraq and the other in the south, must be enforced. Who and what gives the United States and Britain the right to declare that Iraq can't fly its own planes in its own air space? Not the United Nations! These two imperialist powers just proclaimed that they would shoot down any Iraqi aircraft that fly in these two zones.
"The U.S. says it is `concerned' about the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiite population in the south. That's hogwash. Those are the people who are being killed and maimed by U.S. bombs and missiles. The real reason is that the U.S. wants control over these two regions because that is where Iraq's oil reserves are located. This oil constitutes 10% of the worlds known reserves."
