Iraqis say U.S. overreacted in Fallujah

By Knight Ridder Newspapers and Reuters

	MUHAMMED MUHEISEN / AP Nura, 3, wounded during fighting between U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents, is rushed into a public clinic by her father last week.
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FALLUJAH, Iraq — Wounded children lie in a makeshift hospital, bandaged and bloodied from fighting between U.S. forces and Sunni guerrillas that has raged through the town's alleyways for days.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting — no one can be sure of the number — and attempts at a cease-fire have so far failed to halt the bloodshed.

There were too many dead and wounded for hospital workers in the besieged town to deal with. Outside a hastily erected field hospital, television footage shows corpses lying in the street, wrapped in bloodstained white sheets.

The dead include small children, women and old men, a newborn baby. Beside the corpses is a pile of body parts that no one has had time to deal with.

On radio, announcers accuse Americans of attacking helpless civilians, not even allowing them to move for treatment of their bullet wounds.

In newspapers, the stories ask if the deaths of perhaps hundreds of innocent civilians is not a greater crime than the horrific deaths and mutilations of four Americans.

For the past week, those have been the images, sounds and words that Iraqis have been taking in as everything in Iraq has focused on Fallujah.

In this one week, the medium-sized city in the Sunni Triangle has come to symbolize for Iraqis everything that is wrong with the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

"When the four Americans were murdered, almost all Iraqis were horrified, and understood that the reaction must be strong," said Iraqi journalist Dhrgam Mohammed Ali, referring to the killing March 31 of four private security guards whose bodies were then mutilated, dragged through Fallujah and hung from a bridge.
 
"But now, we see women and children dying, trying to escape and not being allowed to, and many stop remembering the dead Americans. Instead, they wonder why four dead Americans are worth so much, while hundreds of dead Iraqis are worth so little."

While U.S. officials acknowledge that many of the dead were innocent civilians, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, yesterday again defended American tactics, saying that Marines had been fired upon from mosques and from crowds containing women and children. He said Marines had tried to avoid civilian casualties, firing back in dangerous situations only in self-defense.

Yesterday, residents escaping the city refused to give their names, saying that even talking to an American right now could endanger their lives.

But one, a doctor, said: "I was in my home for days, unable to leave, even to treat the sick, for fear of being shot. One morning, I decided I had to make it to the hospital, but just before I left, I saw my neighbor walk from his house. An American sniper shot him, once in the head. I was afraid to go out to him, to treat him. I watched him die."

Kimmitt denied that the Marines had engaged in collective punishment. But the damage had already been done.

"On one level, many believe that two groups of foreigners have invaded to ruin a chance for peace, both Americans and the foreign fighters," said Iraqi journalist Abbas Ali Saki.

"But also, more commonly, Iraqis are looking at the images of Fallujah and wondering if they're looking at the future of the rest of Iraq, should we ever anger the United States."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company