barbarity of air war

[John M Cox <coxj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Iraqi troops massacred from the air as US advances to Baghdad
By James Conachy
4 April 2003

After a week of massive air attacks, the two-pronged offensive by US army
and marine units launched on April 1 quickly pushed through the Iraqi
Republican Guard divisions and regular army units defending the southern
approaches to Baghdad. According to CNN, MSNBC and Fox television
broadcasts throughout Thursday, April 3, US armoured columns have advanced
into the outskirts of Iraqs capital and are engaging Iraqi defenders
around the Saddam Hussein International Airport. The citys power has been
cut off and it is under sustained bombardment from US aircraft and
artillery.

Amid the shameless celebration by the US media of the American assault, it
is necessary to call things by their right name. What is unfolding in Iraq
is a slaughter. It is one of historys most unequal military conflicts. The
US and British invasion forces are utilising their unchallenged control of
the air and overwhelming technical supremacy to rain down death on Iraqi
troops.

Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the US shock and awe policy of
physically and psychologically crushing any enemy of US imperialism,
gloated to the April 3 New York Post: To appreciate why were making such
progress, you have to understand the extraordinary advantages our forces
have over the Iraqis. Its a matter of overwhelming might. Our air power is
unstoppable. And our ground power has massive capability to destroy the
enemy with minimum losses to us.

US and British bombers and fighters are flying more than 1,000 sorties
over Iraq per day. The majority of air strikes over the past week have
targeted the defensive positions of Iraqi Republican Guard units south of
Baghdad. The US has kept 150 strike jets in the air continuously to enable
constant opportunity attacks on any attempt by Iraqi soldiers to
re-deploy, re-supply or retreat.

As many as 12,000 precision-guided bombs have been dropped since the
invasion began, as well as thousands more dumb bombs. The Iraqi units that
have withstood the aerial attacks have been subjected to massive artillery
bombardments and assaults by jet fighters, A-10 tank-buster aircraft and
Apache helicopter gunships.

The US and British military are not even giving official estimates of the
number of Iraqis killed or wounded. The New York Times reported on April 1
that American officials say a death toll is not a statistic that interests
them. A British air force officer told the Times: We dont do head counts
and we certainly dont publicise them.

All indications, however, are that the casualty rate among Iraqi troops is
horrific.

The Washington Post reported on April 2 that the 12,000-strong Medina
Republican Guard Division positioned to the southwest of Baghdad around
the town of Karbala had suffered a relentless pounding in recent days by
Air Force planes, including B-52 bombers. The Post commented: Scores of
blown-up Iraqi vehicles and dozens of bodies lined the roads as the US
troops passed by.

The Los Angeles Times reported that burned and blasted wreckage of Iraqi
military vehicles littered the sides of Route 9 just east of Karbala. The
Associated Press reported on April 3 that the road from Karbala to Baghdad
was lined with hundreds of burning vehicles, both civilian and military
and added hundreds of dead Iraqis, most in uniform, lay next to the
vehicles.

The British Guardian reported on April 3 that the Baghdad Division of the
Republican Guard defending the town of Kut and the southeast approaches to
the capital had suffered intense bombardment over the past week. This
included the dropping of two 15,000-pound daisy cutter fuel-air bombs on
their positions.

Daisy cutters detonate above the ground, engulfing a square mile in a
firestorm that sucks out all oxygen, incinerating or asphyxiating everyone
in the area. One description of their impact reads: Those not incinerated
are injured by the massive blast or the vacuum. Typical injuries include
concussion, blindness, rupture of the eardrums, seared airways and
collapsed lungs, multiple internal hemorrhages, displaced and torn
internal organs.

US Marine commanders told the Washington Post that long before their
forces reached the lines of the Baghdad Division, 5,000 or more of the
Iraqi units 11,000 men had already been killed or wounded from the air,
and 75 percent of their equipment destroyed. A Pentagon official told the
Guardian: Theyve been broken up and were taking them out one tank at a
time. Theyre sitting ducks.

An embedded New York Times journalist with a Marine unit reported, The
bodies of Iraqi soldiers lay about in the wake of the American advance and
there was a large pile of the Iraqi dead rotting in the morning sun to the
west of the Tigris river crossings.

Reinforcements were also cut off by US air power. The New York Post
reported on April 3 that B-52s dropped six new CBU-105 cluster bombs on
April 2 on a column of Republican Guardbelieved now to be from the Al Nida
Divisionwhich was attempting to reinforce Iraqi positions. Dropped from as
high as 40,000 feet, the CBU-105 releases 10 bombs above the battlefield,
each of which fires four armour-penetrating warheads. Using infrared
targeting, the warheads lock onto any vehicles within a 30-acre radius.
According to the claims of the US Central Command, the new hardware wiped
out an Iraqi force consisting of dozens of tanks and vehicles.

Despite their losses, the Iraqi military and civilians have continued to
resist the American invasion. Numerous reports testify that Iraqi soldiers
have launched heroic attacks to slow the advance of the US tanks and
armoured vehicles, often with nothing more than pick-up trucks,
rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. Survivors of Iraqi Guard units
that have been flanked or bypassed by the US columns are attempting to
retreat to Baghdad to join with defenders inside the city proper.

Summing up the military situation, a senior American military officer told
the April 3 New York Times: The enemy is taking what forces he can muster
and is ordering them back into the city. He is bringing in the Republican
Guard for a last stand. We have been trying to kill anything that is
moving toward the city.

The slaughter accompanying the US advance on Baghdad demonstrates again
the character of the Bush administrations war to liberate Iraq. The
resistance of the Iraqi people has inevitably seen the invasion degenerate
into a campaign to wipe out the vastly outgunned Iraqi armed forces and
traumatise and intimidate the population into accepting rule from
Washington. A legacy of hatred has been created that will endure for
decades to come.

With US forces encircling Baghdad from the south, west and east, the
potential is now looming for a bloodbath. Significant sections of the
Iraqi army have taken up positions in the capital for a last ditch battle
to prevent a US entry into the city. The recklessness and desperation for
victory of the Bush administration is such it may well order a
street-to-street assaultat immense cost in both military and civilian
lives.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/bagh-a04_prn.shtml
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John Cox
Chapel Hill, NC

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