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US Troops 'Starve Iraqi Citizens' •
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Iraq Has Descended into Anarchy, Says Fisk
By Nigel Morris
The Independent UK
Thursday 13 October 2005
Most of Iraq is in a state of anarchy, with insurgents controlling parts of
Baghdad just half a mile from the so-called Green Zone, an Independent debate
was told last night.
Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, whose new book
The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East has just been
published by 4th Estate, painted a picture of deepening chaos and misery in
Iraq more than two years after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
He said that the "constant, intensive involvement" in the Middle
East by the West was a recurring pattern over centuries and was the reason why
"so many Muslims in the Middle East hate us". He added: " We
can close doors on history. They can't."
Fisk doubted the sincerity of Western leaders' commitment to bringing democracy
to Iraq and said a lasting settlement in the country was impossible while foreign
troops remained. "In the Middle East, they would like some of our democracy,
they would like a couple of boxes off the supermarket shelves of human rights
as well. But I think they would also like freedom from us."
Recalling the sight of an immense US convoy rolling into the country's capital,
he said: "A superpower has a visceral need to project military power. We
can go to Baghdad, so we will go to Baghdad."
He told the debate in London: "The Americans must leave Iraq and they
will leave Iraq, but they can't leave Iraq and that is the equation that turns
sand to blood. At some point, they will have to talk to the insurgents.
"But I don't know how, because those people who might be negotiators
the United Nations, the Red Cross their headquarters have been blown up.
The reality now in Iraq is the project is finished. Most of Iraq, except Kurdistan,
is in a state of anarchy."
He said that the portrayal of Iraq by Western leaders of efforts to introduce
democracy, including Saturday's national vote on the country's proposed constitution
was "unreal" to most of its citizens. In Baghdad, children and
women were kept at home to prevent them from being kidnapped for money or sold
into slavery. They faced a desperate struggle to find the money to keep generators
running to provide themselves with electricity. "They aren't sitting in
their front rooms discussing the referendum on the constitution."
With insurgents half a mile from Baghdad's Green Zone, Fisk said the danger
to reporters from a brutal insurgency that did not respect journalists was increasing.
"Every time I go to Baghdad it's worse, every time I ask myself how we
can keep going. Because the real question is is the story worth the risk?"
He attacked television reporters for flinching from depicting the everyday
bloodshed on the streets of Iraq. "You can go and see Saving Private Ryan
or Kingdom of Heaven, people have their heads cut off. When it comes to
real heads being cut off, you can't. I think television connives with governments
at war." He added: "Newspapers can tell you as closely as they can
what these horrors are like."
Asked if the "anger and passion" he felt over the events he witnessed
had affected his objectivity, he said: "When you are at the scene of a
massacre, you are entitled to feel immense anger and I do."
He rejected suggestions that graphic pictures of the dead in newspapers took
away their dignity. He said: "My view is the people who are dead would
want us to record what happened to them."
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US Troops 'Starve Iraqi Citizens'
BBC
Saturday 15 October 2005
A senior United Nations official has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving
Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law.
Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler said they had driven people out of insurgent
strongholds that were about to be attacked by cutting supplies.
Mr Ziegler, a Swiss-born sociologist, said such tactics were in breach of international
law.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad denied the allegations.
"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's
occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war
against the civilian population," Mr Ziegler told a press conference in
Geneva.
He said coalition forces were using "starvation of civilians as a method
of warfare."
"This is a flagrant violation of international law," he added.
'False Allegations'
Mr Ziegler said he understood the "military rationale" when confronting
insurgents who do not respect "any law of war".
But he insisted that civilians who could not leave besieged cities and towns
for whatever reason should not suffer as a result of this strategy.
Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a US military spokesman, later rejected the
accusations.
"Any allegations of us withholding basic needs from the Iraqi people are
false," he said.
Even though some supplies had been delayed during fighting, he argued that
"all precautions" were being taken to take care of civilians.
"It does not do relief supplies any good if you have them going into a
firefight," he said.
The Geneva Conventions forbid depriving civilians of food and water.
Cutting off food supply lines and destroying food stocks is also forbidden.
Mr Ziegler, who opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, said he would urge the
UN General Assembly to condemn this practice when he presented his yearly report
on 27 October.
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