US blitzkrieg turns Baghdad into an inferno
By the Editorial Board
22 March 2003
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The US bombardment of Baghdad, which began in earnest
Friday, is a horrific, brutal and cowardly attack. It is being carried
out for predatory imperialist aims—above all, the seizure and control of
oil wealth—against the defenseless population of a nation that represents
no threat to the American people. March 21, 2003 is a shameful day in US
history.
In the first day of the campaign of “shock and awe”—the modern equivalent
of the Nazi blitzkrieg—as many as 3,000 lethal bombs and cruise missiles
rained down on Iraqi cities, principally Baghdad, a metropolis of some
five million people. American military officials have indicated that they
intend to unleash in the opening phase of the current war ten times the
destructive power employed twelve years ago in the initial stage of the
first Persian Gulf war.
According to Rear Admiral Matthew Moffit, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, some
320 missiles were launched on Baghdad. Each missile can carry a
1,000-pound warhead and is designed to fly at low altitudes near the
speed of sound to hit “high value” targets.
Reported upon with undisguised glee by the American media, the bombs and
missiles exploded with terrifying force in Baghdad, creating enormous
fire-balls, deafening explosions and sending mushroom clouds into the
sky. During the first wave of attacks, at around 9 p.m. Iraqi time,
Reuters correspondent Khaled Oweis reported, “The earth is literally
shaking in Baghdad.”
A second wave of bombs and missiles hit an hour or so later. At that time
CBC News reported that “large parts of Baghdad [were] already in flames.”
Jordanian journalist Tamara al-Karram told CBC, “You can’t even know what
places are the targets now. There is no safe place in Baghdad now.” Other
eyewitnesses confirmed that sections of the city had been turned into an
inferno.
Jean-Pierre Perrin of Libération, the French daily newspaper,
described bombs that “on striking the ground, give the impression of
transforming into huge balls of fire” and eventually turn into “thick
columns of black and grey smoke visible for kilometers around.” He
continued: “Each explosion makes the downtown buildings shake and the
bomb blasts can be felt some kilometers from the point of impact.”
A reporter for IslamOnline.net described “a ferocious and
terrifying aerial assault on the Iraqi capital.” The report went on to
say, “The air was thick with clouds of smoke as missile after missile
whistled through the sky, followed by furious explosions as they slammed
into targets across Baghdad, including the Republican Palace. ... It was
impossible to count how many buildings had been hit. Balls of choking
black smoke rose in the sky as Baghdad was repeatedly pounded.”
According to Reuters, “Fires broke out in wrecked buildings. Ambulances,
fire engines and police cars rushed around otherwise deserted streets of
the city, sirens wailing. Fires raged in different parts of the city.”
Associated Press reporter Hamza Hendawi wrote, “A huge fire raged to the
south of the city; the red glow of the flames illuminated the
horizon.”
Other journalists spoke of a “flood of fire.” A headline in the Saudi
English-language newspaper Arab News read, “Hell Rains Down
on Iraqis.” The article described a family of eight killed when their
vehicle overturned as they attempted to flee the bombing.
Attacks of similar ferocity were launched on the northern Iraqi cities of
Mosul and Kirkuk and on Basra, in the south.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the March 21 attacks is
impossible to determine. No one watching the ferocious assault can doubt
that casualties were high. The US government, in the person of one of its
chief thugs, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that “no
comparison” could be made between the US-led bomb attacks on Baghdad and
those of World War II. “The weapons that are being used today have a
degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict,”
Rumsfeld said.
When one reporter at the Pentagon press briefing pointed out that
hundreds of targets in Baghdad were being hit and asked if that alone did
not raise the likelihood of civilian casualties, Rumsfeld dodged the
question.
In fact, a comparison between the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and
other fascist outrages of the 1930s and 1940s and the current US campaign
is entirely apt. In terms of sheer firepower, the American assault on
Baghdad undoubtedly surpasses the German Luftwaffe’s pounding of Polish
cities.
No regime has launched such a one-sided military campaign since that
time—until now. The scenes of downtown Baghdad in flames make abundantly
clear why US officials insisted on covering up a reproduction of Pablo
Picasso’s “Guernica” at the UN Security Council during Secretary of State
Colin Powell’s February 5 presentation of the American case for war
against Iraq. Picasso’s painting commemorates a Basque village devastated
by a German bombing raid in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil
War.
In any event, the public is intended never to know how many Iraqis are
slaughtered by the US military machine. As a Financial Times
article published March 19 pointed out, the American government has
refused to publish an official estimate of Iraqi casualties in the first
Persian Gulf War. Unofficial estimates range from tens of thousands to
hundreds of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands more
wounded.
The reduction of sections of Baghdad to smoldering rubble, on only the
first day of the all-out assault, exposes the US government’s nauseating
claim to be “democratizing” Iraq. Only a deranged ignoramus, impervious
to world public opinion, like George W. Bush could declare against the
backdrop of flames and mushroom clouds in Baghdad that “We’re making
progress” toward the “liberation” of the country.
The Washington Post was obliged to report: “US officials have
declared that the liberation of Iraq is at hand, but few residents in
Baghdad, even in private moments, have framed the conflict in those
terms. While Hussein’s government remains distinctly unpopular and even
more feared, the mood seems to break along several fault lines. Anxieties
over the destruction that a sustained US air attack may bring mix with
worries about looting and lawlessness that could follow the government’s
collapse.
“‘This war was imposed on us,” said Affaf al-Naimi, carrying yogurt out
of a store in the wealthy neighborhood of Palestine. ‘Liberate us by
bombs? The bombs are going to liberate us? We didn’t ask them to liberate
us. We sat in our houses relaxed, we were safe, we entertained ourselves.
We don’t need someone to come here to be our godfather.’”
The manner in which the second Gulf War began speaks volumes about the
Bush administration’s goals, as well as the moral makeup of its
personnel. The assault on Iraq began early Thursday with an assassination
attempt on Saddam Hussein, in the language of the Mafia, a “hit.”
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf aptly compared the Bush
administration to gangsters. “You consider them superpowers. Well, this
is a disgrace, a complete disgrace. They are a superpower of villains. Al
Capone is the typical official of America in these days.”
One of the great lies quickly exposed is the mantra that this war has
“nothing to do with oil.” US and British troops made the capture of the
oil fields in the south and north their first major objective. After
initially claiming that the Iraqis had set fire to 30 oil wells,
officials later acknowledged the number was seven. The Iraqis asserted
that they were not wells at all, but oil-filled trenches set
alight.
The US and British governments claimed they were making seizure of the
oil wells a priority on “environmental” grounds. But the Financial
Times admitted that “London and Washington are risking the accusation
that the war is as much to do with Iraq’s huge petroleum wealth as its
alleged weapons of mass destruction by making oil fields early
targets.”
MSNBC reported, “Allied forces are now in control of the oil fields of
southern Iraq and are bringing in contractors to extinguish fires burning
at seven oil wells... Oil markets seemed to take comfort from the speed
of the US-British advance and shrugged off the news of the well fires.
The lack of an impact from the war on oil shipments from Kuwait also
inspired confidence.”
A CBS News correspondent reported Friday night that the US military
planned to attack 1,000 more Iraqi targets in the next 24 hours, firing
600 cruise missiles “and using virtually every type of warplane in the
American arsenal, including the B-2 stealth bomber.”
The assault on Baghdad, whatever its immediate outcome, will prove a
political disaster for the Bush administration and American capitalism.
No regime can long survive such a horrendous crime. Tragically, American
civilians may also pay a price, as the bombing will inflame public
opinion in the Middle East and encourage more terrorist attacks.
See Also:
The crisis of American capitalism and the war
against Iraq
