As I mentioned in my previous post, Anthony Shadid is one of the best reporters on the Iraq War. You can see in this article on the Battle of Samarra how it makes a real difference to be able to directly interview people in their own language.
Battle Reveals New Iraqi Tactics Washington Post 12/02/03
<< To many involved -- both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers -- the confrontation stood out as an exceptionally fierce battle after months of hit-and-run attacks. Witnesses described dozens of guerrillas in checkered head scarves brazenly roaming the streets in the heat of battle, U.S. soldiers firing randomly in crowded neighborhoods and civilian bystanders taking up arms against U.S. forces once the fight got underway.
<< For the military, the fight revealed a startling new reality about the fighters themselves -- unprecedented coordination and tactics and numbers yet unseen. Hollis [an American soldier] says he saw a determination he did not expect from guerrillas best known for hitting, then running. ...
<< At the Samarra General Hospital, the wounded started arriving in the early afternoon. A half-hour later, the area near the hospital came under fire. U.S. forces said they faced an ambush from there as they withdrew from the city. Doctors denied there was any fire from the hospital grounds. ...
<< Abid Toufiq, the director of the 150-bed hospital, said the wounded kept arriving in batches every 15 minutes or half-hour. In all, he said, the hospital treated 54 people, 10 of whom were in critical condition. It recorded eight dead, one of them a woman and two others under 18. The deluge was so severe inside the hospital that doctors inserted intravenous needles into patients as they lay on the floor. ...
<< Throughout the battle, [Safa Hamad] Hassan [age 22] said, as many as 40 armed guerrillas, all dressed in head scarves, ran openly through the streets of his neighborhood. They shouted at people to go indoors. It was their most public showing since the occupation began, and Hassan was one of the few in the town to admit even seeing them. >>
This report is also a reminder that, no matter how just the cause, war stinks. It should always be a last resort.
3 comments:
It's hard to figure out from here which group, the military or the eyewitnesses, are being the most truthful, but I think it might be some of both. We're not going to admit to shooting at unarmed civilians. They are fed up with the occupation. I don't think ALL the people they were shooting at were shooting back.
Anyway, it's easy to see why they want us to leave their country.
Juan Cole's Weblog raises some interesting questions about this incident. For instance, the military provided a "body count" of enemy killed on this one, which you don't normally see. He also notes that it was a long time before reporters got to the scene. I think Shadid's article shows that he made a real effort to sort out the agenda's of the witnesses with whom he was speaking. But no Western reporters were there for the actual battle. - Bruce
This Australian news site poses an interesting question: what happened to the bodies?
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8040635^2,00.html
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