[Media-watch] Hospital closings and war crimes - counterpunch - 19/04/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.counterpunch.org/mahajan04192004.html
April 19, 2004
Report from Baghdad
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
By RAHUL MAHAJAN

NOTE: Doctors from four hospitals in Baghdad were interviewed in compiling
this report; all asked that their names be left out.

Baghdad, Iraq.

"Why do you keep asking about the closing of the Fallujah hospital?" my
Iraqi translator asks in exasperation. I explain that this is big news, and
it hasn't really been reported in English. He looks at me, incredulous; all
Iraqis know about it.

When the United States began the siege of Fallujah, it targeted civilians in
several ways. The power station was bombed; perhaps even more important, the
bridge across the Euphrates was closed. Fallujah's main hospital stands on
the western bank of the river; almost the entirety of the town is on the
east side. Although the hospital was not technically closed, no doctor who
actually believes in the Hippocratic oath is going to sit in an empty
hospital while people are dying in droves on the other bank of the river. So
the doctors shut down the hospital, took the limited supplies and equipment
they could carry, and started working at a small three-room outpatient
clinic, doing operations on the ground and losing patients because of the
inadequacy of the setup. This event was not reported in English until April
14, when the bridge was reopened.

In Najaf, the Spanish-language "Plus Ultra" garrison closed the al-Sadr
Teaching Hospital roughly a week ago (as of yesterday, it remained closed).
With 200 doctors, the hospital (formerly the Saddam Hussein Teaching
Hospital) is one of the most important in Iraq. Troops entered and gave the
doctors two hours to leave, allowing them to take only personal items -- no
medical equipment. The reason given was that the hospital overlooks the Plus
Ultra's base, and that the roof could be used by resistance snipers.
Al-Arabiya has also reported that in Qaim, a small town near the Syrian
border where fighting recently broke out, that the hospital had been closed,
with American snipers positioned atop nearby buildings.

The United States has also impeded the operation of hospitals in other ways.
Although the first Western reports of U.S. snipers shooting at ambulances
caused something of a furor, two days ago at a press conference the Iraqi
Minister of Health, Khudair Abbas, confirmed that U.S. forces had shot at
ambulances not just in Fallujah but also in Sadr City, the sprawling slum in
East Baghdad. He condemned the acts and said he had asked for an explanation
from his superiors, the Governing Council and Paul Bremer.

There are also persistent claims that after an outbreak of hostilities
American soldiers visit hospitals asking for information about the wounded,
with the intent of removing potential resistance members and interrogating
them. Nomaan Hospital in Aadhamiyah and Yarmouk Hospital in Yarmouk (both
areas of Baghdad) got visits from U.S. forces in the first days after the
fighting in Fallujah started -- the lion's share of evacuated wounded from
Fallujah were taken to those two hospitals. Doctors generally resist being
turned into informants for the occupation; one doctor actually told me that
he has many times discharged people straight from the emergency room, with
inadequate time to recuperate, just to keep them out of military custody. As
he said, "They are my countrymen. How can I hold them for the Americans?"

While the American media talks of the great restraint and "pinpoint
precision" of the American attack, over 700 people, at least half of them
civilians, have been killed in Fallujah. And, according to the Ministry of
Health, in the last two weeks, at least 290 were killed in other cities,
over 30 of them children. Many of those who died because of the hospital
closures will never be added in to the final tally of the "liberation."

By any reasonable standard, these hospital closings (and, of course, the
shooting at ambulances) are war crimes. However afraid the Plus Ultra
garrison may have been of attack from the rooftops, they didn't have to
close the hospital; they could simply have screened entrants. In the case of
Fallujah, it's clear that one of the reasons the mujahideen were willing to
talk about ceasefire was to get the hospital open again; in effect, the
United States was holding civilians (indirectly) hostage for military ends.

After an earlier article about attacks on ambulances, many people wrote to
ask why U.S. forces would do this -- it conflicted with the image they
wanted to have of the U.S. military. Were they just trying to massacre
civilians? And, if so, why?

In fact, it's fairly simple: the United States has its military goals and
simply does not care how many Iraqi civilians have to be killed in order to
maximize the military efficiency of their operations. A senior British army
commander recently criticized the Americans for viewing the Iraqis as
Untermenschen -- a lower order of human being. He also said the average
soldier views all Iraqis as enemies or potential enemies. That is precisely
the case. I have heard the same thing from dozens of people here -- "They
don't care what happens to Iraqis."

Although this relatively indiscriminate killing of civilians may serve
American military ends -- keeping the ratio of enemy dead to American
soldiers dead as high as possible -- in terms of political ends, it is a
disaster. It is very difficult to explain to an Iraqi that a man fighting
from his own town with a Kalashnikov or RPG launcher is a "coward" and a
"war criminal" (because, apparently, he should go out into the desert and
wait to be annihilated from the sky) but that someone dropping 2000-pound
bombs on residential areas or shooting at ambulances because they may have
guns in them (even though they usually don't) is a hero and is following the
laws of war.

When I was here in January, there was a pervasive atmosphere of discontent,
frustration, and anger with the occupation. But most people were still just
trying to ride it out, stay patient, and hope that things improved. The
wanton brutality of the occupation has at long last put an end to that
patience.

Before, the occupation might have succeeded -- not in building real
democracy, which was never the goal, but in cementing U.S. control of Iraq.
It cannot succeed now. The resistance in Fallujah will be beaten down, with
the commission of more war crimes; if the United States invades Najaf, it
will be able to win militarily there as well. But from now on, no military
victory will make Iraqis stop resisting.

Rahul Mahajan is the publisher of Empire Notes and serves on the
Administrative Committee of United for Peace and Justice, the nation's
largest antiwar coalition. His first book, "The New Crusade: America's War
on Terrorism," has been called "mandatory reading for anyone who wants to
get a handle on the war on terrorism," and his most recent book, "Full
Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond," has been described as
"essential for those who wish to continue to fight against empire." He can
be reached at rahul at empirenotes.org