The occupation's failure became clear in the first week of the invasion....Nasiriya. [View All]

[madfloridian]

From the Guardian, November 2006.

The disaster of the Iraq war was revealed on the road to Baghdad

It was dawn on March 23 2003 when marines from Task Force Tarawa approached the town of Nasiriya in southern Iraq. They had been assigned a routine manoeuvre, taking two key bridges to open up a route to Baghdad. Nasiriya was a predominantly Shia town that had rebelled against Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf war. US intelligence suggested that as soon as the Americans rolled into town, the city's defenders would lay down their weapons and, as one marine commander expressed it, "put flowers in our gun barrels, hold up their babies for us to kiss and give us the keys to the city".

But when Task Force Tarawa's lead units reached the outskirts they came across the burnt out remnants of several vehicles of the US army's 507th Maintenance Company. A captain in the 507th told wide-eyed marine commanders how his convoy had taken a wrong turn at night, driven into Nasiriya and been attacked by Iraqi fighters. Several US soldiers were still missing, including a young army private, Jessica Lynch.

It was her fate that attracted attention in the days following. But it's what happened to Task Force Tarawa that is most instructive about the nature of the Iraq war and about what life would be like once coalition forces got to Baghdad.

At one stage in Nasiriya, in a friendly-fire incident, US planes fired at marines on the ground, killing up to 10. Radio communications repeatedly failed. Units lost contact with each other and went missing in the city. Faced with an increasingly determined enemy, marine commanders thought they might just lose the battle. It showed another truth, obscured during the march to Baghdad, that has become strikingly apparent since. There is a limit to what armour and technology can do against a people with faith, who fight because they feel their country has been violated.

There were other incidents in Nasiriya, minor at the time, that foreshadowed events that would become an international embarrassment. At one point, a marine commander came across a gruesome scene: young marines, standing over a pile of Iraqi corpses, taking photos of each other, thumbs up and grinning inanely. One year later the first photos of US soldiers grinning over the bodies of abused prisoners emerged.

I am glad I never knew of those pictures. I am glad I did not see them. We have seen and heard of enough of the horrors there.

Will our country survive not only financially, but morally...have we lost any honor we had?

We forgot so many basics of humanity. Just allowed these inhumane acts to go on for way too long.

We forgot simple things that humane people never did not do to one another.

I fear we will reap repercussions for those things. I fear those who did them will have a hard time coping in the future.

Near the ruins of ancient Babylon, just north of present Hilla, one irrigation canal stretches for about 30 miles from the Euphrates. On one side of the canal, along a road leading to a holy shrine, the whole area looks like one huge date palm orchard. In fact, they are many small plots around 5 acres each. In most of these, a grid of steel wire is constructed using the date palms as pillars. The matrix is used to support grapevines. The vines grow in the shade of the palm trees. A most beautiful sight! During the 1991 uprising, that area was the center of much ‘insurgent’ activity. The province governor at the time decided to remove all those orchards. No contractor would do it, except one greedy character. Although the owners were duly compensated, that contractor, who moved on to become rich and influential, is still followed by that stigma. He is still is usually referred to as ‘the man who killed all those trees’.

Nowadays, most people who go along the road leading to Baghdad Airport feel a deep sense of anger at all those thousands of trees bulldozed by the US army for some security reasons.

Riverbend wrote about such things as well. Her calm manner must cover up such anger.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#106599843493603927

One of the most famous streets in Baghdad is ‘shari3 il mattar’ or ‘The Airport Street’. It is actually two streets- one leading to Baghdad Airport and the other leading from it, into Baghdad. The streets are very simple and plain. Their magnificence lay in the palm trees growing on either side, and in the isle separating them. Entering Baghdad from the airport, and seeing the palm trees enclosing you from both sides, is a reminder that you have entered the country of 30 million palms.

Soon after the occupation, many of the palms on these streets were hacked down by troops for ‘security reasons’. We watched, horrified, as they were chopped down and dragged away to be laid side by side in mass graves overflowing with brown and wilting green. Although these trees were beautiful, no one considered them their livelihood. Unlike the trees Patrick Cockburn describes in Dhuluaya.

Several orchards in Dhuluaya are being cut down… except it’s not only Dhuluaya… it’s also Ba’aquba, the outskirts of Baghdad and several other areas. The trees are bulldozed and trampled beneath heavy machinery. We see the residents and keepers of these orchards begging the troops to spare the trees, holding up crushed branches, leaves and fruit- not yet ripe- from the ground littered with a green massacre. The faces of the farmers are crushed and amazed at the atrocity. I remember one wrinkled face holding up 4 oranges from the ground, still green (our citrus fruit ripens in the winter) and screaming at the camera- “Is this freedom? Is this democracy?!” And his son, who was about 10, stood there with tears of rage streaming down his cheeks and quietly said, “We want 5 troops dead for each tree they cut down… five troops.” A “terrorist”, perhaps? Or a terrorized child who had to watch his family’s future hacked down in the name of democracy and freedom?

We forgot who we were and what we should stand for when we invaded that country.