the human cost of operation spear,Red Cross calls for access to Karabila

[Monkie]

from IRIN,the UN humanitarian news and information service
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47732

"BAGHDAD, 20 Jun 2005 (IRIN) - Aid agencies and doctors have called on Coalition forces in Iraq to allow them safe access to the village of Karabila in the west of the country, as battles between troops and insurgents continue
~snip~
since Friday they received 15 bodies and treated 27 injured people in al-Qaim before US forces closed entry points to Karabila. He added that more than 100 people may have been trapped under houses destroyed during the offensive.
~snip~
“We have reported that more than 7,000 families from Karabila are camped in the desert near to the village. All of them need urgent food and medical supplies and more than 150 houses have been totally destroyed inside the village,” Firdous al-Abadi, a spokeswoman for the IRCS, said."

which sounds similar to the translated reports from arab media i had seen earlier that refer to operation spear and not how "our" media reports the situation IF it even does.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Another Glorious Victory by our Glorious Christian Soldiers!

We'll spread "democracy" to Iraq if we have to kill 'em all. Just like we did in Vietnam.

[evermind]

2. "A US military source [...] denied that there were civilian casualties."

"A US military source in Baghdad said that more than 90 insurgents had already been killed in the offensive but denied that there were civilian casualties."

This doesn't sound very credible, does it? This type of denial: "if we killed them, they must be insurgents" seems to go along with several reports of faked up "insurgent" death tolls - to the extent, as alleged by Sy Hersch recently, of planting weapons on dead civilians to aid in labelling them as combatants.

(Edit: to be fair, Hersch alleged, not reported, weapons planting in a Q&A session I saw a transcript of recently).