Well over a thousand air strikes blasted the Iraqi city of Fallujah in April 2004, and yet the war logs do not record a single civilian death as a result of fighting.
With the only two non-embedded journalists in Fallujah ordered to leave after the failed ceasefire on April 9 2004, details of three-week long “Operation Vigilant Resolve” remain disputed.
But now 81 reports contained in the war logs provide for the first time a ground-level account from the American perspective. The files record 26 American deaths and 163 enemy kills and injuries at the hands of a 2,000-strong US Marine presence; no civilian casualties are reported. Only one dead civilian is mentioned, but it is a dead body discovered by a unit on patrol.
US troops go door to door - Zoriah/Flickr
The siege on Fallujah
Troops attacked the town, situated in Anbar Province, in response to the public murder of four contractors from private security firm Blackwater, who were shot, burnt, dragged through the streets and strung from a bridge on March 31. Within hours, senior US military staff pledged an “overwhelming” response that would “pacify” a town boiling over with anti-coalition feeling. “Fallujah,” said US second-in-command Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, “is a town that just don’t get it.”
The American reaction was rapid and forceful. From the outset the use of “Close Air Support” – mostly Cobra helicopters and F16 airplanes – formed an intrinsic part of US tactics. The files show just how destructive many of these attacks were.
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a London-based organisation conservatively estimated that 600 civilians died in the battle, after analysing contemporary media reports and hospital accounts.
“Fallujah was a clear example of the US treating anyone that moved as an enemy combatant,” said an IBC spokesman. “They didn’t seem to see a distinction between combatants and non-combatants, partly because, of course, many residents took up arms to defend their town from a perceived invader.”
“You know what our forces do. They don’t go around killing hundreds of civilians. That’s just outrageous nonsense.”
Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, April 15 2004.
Conflicting assessments of civilian toll
At the time US marines claimed to have killed 700 insurgents. “What I think you will find is that 95 per cent of those were military-aged males that were killed in the fighting,” said marine spokesman Lt Col Brennan Byrne.
The line in Washington was even stronger. When asked if the US administration knew what the civilian death toll was, he replied:
“Of course [we don’t know what the civilian death count is]. We’re not in the city. But you know what our forces do. They don’t go around killing hundreds of civilians. That’s just outrageous nonsense.” – Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State for Defense, April 15 2004.
Local doctors, however, estimated the figure at more than 700 civilians dead, with thousands more wounded, including women and children. “Children are not mujahideen, women are not mujahideen … the attacks were on the houses,” said Vice President of the Fallujah General Hospital, Abdul Al Hadithy. “All the people in Fallujah, they refused the attack [by the US]. If they call all of the people of Fallujah mujahideen – it’s up to them.”
On only one occasion do the logs refer to a possible “non-combatant” presence; during a long firefight in which 27 enemies are killed; but no civilians casualties are recorded.
Airpower
Airpower was used widely in Fallujah. Eight of the leaked files relating to Fallujah in April 2004 detail the leveling of 11 buildings and the death of 35 enemies by US air power.
In a log dated April 28 2004 – only two days before the US withdrew from Fallujah, helicopter assistance is called in when Marines are fired upon from nearby buildings. In the ensuing engagement, five buildings are destroyed. The number of dead, report the ground troops, is unknown.
Hours later, a file describes how troops are attacked by a “platoon sized” (up to 44 fighters) number of insurgents. In a retaliation that lasts over an hour, US planes and helicopters destroy four buildings and 24 enemies are killed. No reference to any possible civilian casualties is made.
Another, dated April 15, describes how missiles fired at an estimated ten assailants “ignited secondary explosions”, destroying both buildings they were thought to be in.
Related article: Iraq’s bloodbath: ’15,000 new civilian deaths’ discovered
October 24th, 2010at 3:14 pm(#)
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October 24th, 2010at 8:47 pm(#)
[...] de Wikileaks no incluye el año 2003, que es el año de la invasión. No incluye el asalto genocida a la ciudad de Faluya (2004). En la toma de Samarra de octubre de 2004 no se mencionan los cuerpos de 23 niños y 18 [...]